1 week ago
16
Agbalanze Chike Madueke, the president of Aka Ikenga, the Igbo Think Tank, has lamented the peaceful transition of Pa Ayo Adebanjo, on February 14, 2025, a day remarked for global celebration of love and sacrifice for humanity. He said “In every death, humanity is diminished, but in Pa Adebanjo’ s permanent sleep, Nigeria has lost a grapevine of conscience, planted on the banks of integrity, and stood like an oak above every shrub.
“His roots of courage and irrepressible stamina for justice, equity and fairness to all, are so deep that even enemies marvel at a safe distance.”
In a brief eulogy signed by the president and secretary general of the association, Ogbueshi Mark-anthony Nduka-eze, they stated, “We at Aka Ikenga in particular, the Igbo Nation specially, and Nigeria generally, grieve and mourn a life we cannot celebrate enough, because the denial of this giant tree of wealth in wisdom, whose shade as a Truth Telling Canopy at every moment, is like unplugging the fresh water of revival at the heat of intense harmattan.
“No one can ever be in doubt of Ayo’s inspiring awe and aura, nor command the value of his vehemence with such undaunting relentlessness, peculiar only to him.
“He is a rare heirloom as a family patriarch and national patriot, that took the whole of nine decades and six years of nurture, grit and divine grace to achieve, sustain and retain.”
The statement released by the group’s Director of Publicity and Communications, Collins Steve Ugwu, further noted, “High Chief Adebanjo as a lion of his principled convictions and the tiger of sophisticated activism, firmly deployed his tools of brilliance and intellect to suffocate the litters of deceits and heaps of dishonesty haunting our nationhood, and hurting her emergence as a society of law and order, good governance, equality, and egalitarian prosperity.
“Whether as the unmatched leader of Afenifere, or a General of NADECO, Pa Adebanjo did his best and withheld no punches. No one can question his recall at a good old age, but Nigeria should pause to reflect, why Pa Adebanjo who was on the frontline since pre-independence, lived through the first to our current fourth Republic, survived military persecutions fighting harder, finally went home unfulfilled, stretched to his very last, by his dreams and passions for a country he so loved, still denied.
Aka Ikenga therefore advised, “As Nigerians mourn him loudly and deservedly, his compelling monument and reverence as a beacon of character, truth and honesty, must be writ large, as his most worthy epitaph in the pantheon of illustrious national greats. Such pearls of credentials so scarce, are nature’s springs of national sustenance, that we must preserve from evaporating.
“Finally and proudly, we stand solidly with the family, most especially his octogenarian wife, Lady Christina Modupe Adebanjo, at this hour of prayers and praises for the repose of his soul, and strength for all his disciples and compatriots, as we celebrate together, the life and times of Pa Ayo Adebanjo triumphantly.”
English (US) ·