By Deji Toye
Many worthy individuals have been elevated to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria over the years, but that of my friend and brother K-Rad is personally significant for me, not just because it was absolutely well-deserved, but also because it testifies to the triumph of tenacity and steely conviction.
I had just arrived in University of Lagos in the early rainy season of ’97. It was the height of the Abacha repression and I already had behind me a few years of confrontation with the authorities in another school. Unilag was to start it over again. Sodiq, my old comrade visited campus and asked if I knew that ‘Kunle Radical’ and SRJ were here in Unilag. Ah, I hadn’t known that. In fact, I couldn’t recall having met them before then, although their leadership in the student movement of the early 90s, operating from their University of Ilorin base, was the stuff of legend. It turned out they’d arrived in Unilag two years earlier… to start it over. In company of Sodiq, I met them in their hostel room that evening and a lifelong friendship was born.
One key dilemma i had in those early days was if getting involved in student union activities was worth it for me. In reality the student movement properly so-called had collapsed, in my view, and the political corruption of the larger environment had overawed any pretensions to an idealistic core of student politics. While being interested in the bigger pro-democracy struggles of the time, I thought the student movement had become too weakened to be a reliable plank of that struggle. I recall having discussions around issues like this with Krad and SRJ. While they themselves had already carried over their activism into Unilag and were now a familiar fair with the jittery authorities in Akoka, I got a sense they understood.
In any case it did not take more than a few months into my coming to Unilag for the authorities to strike again, roping them into an unrelated student crisis and using the opportunity to kick the troublesome two out. It was an emotional moment when I first visited them in their ‘shelter’ on Herbert Macaulay street, Yaba after the incident. But I was happy to note their high spirit, as they prepared to take on the authorities to restore their right.
In the interim, they found use for that adversity, taking the opportunity to play an active role in building underground grassroots movements in Lagos as a core plank of the pro-democracy movement. I still recall excited moments accompanying them to movement meetings within the Yaba-Ebute Meta axis, sometimes at night, with information on the venue being passed across by relay and on the go until arriving a final destination. One night, we eventually wound up in the terraces of a mosque somewhere in a busy street in Ebute-Meta. There we congregated, staggered casually like local youth catching the evening air, while discussing the next wave of guerilla ‘leafleteering’ or street protest. That particular night, K-Rad and SRJ had to walk me through the warren of streets to Adekunle bustop to catch a bus to Ketu where i lived at the time. K-rad did eventually emerge the Chairman of Congress of Progressive Youth (COPY), a coalition of such grassroots movements, succeeding, if I recall correctly, Omoyele Sowore, who was to resume his Masters programme in New York well after Abacha’s passing and the transition was underway.
The point to note is that all these were going on even as K-Rad and SRJ battled the Unilag authorities to have them return to school. Victory did come eventually, as we were always sure it would. But it was not for lack of resistance from the authorities, even after the court order mandating the restoration of their studentship. I recall a period of limbo when the authorities would neither affirmatively register them nor formally decline the court order. Time was running out for course registration and, perhaps by regulation or as a targeted policy, you could only register with the approval of the Vice Chancellor. I recall SRJ calling me and handing me the letter of request for approval, with the court order attached. If we got this submitted and acknowledged, it would provide the clear evidence in a case of contempt of court. I made my way to the 11th floor of the Senate Building, approached the VC’s office and was expecting a confrontation. The gum-chewing Secretary was more interested in her prattle with a colleague across the room when she took the letter and without much interest stamped the acknowledgement copy “Received”. I’d brought a friend along, and as we made our way downstairs, I disclosed to him for the first time the nature of the document “we” had just gone to submit. Well, let’s just say our friendship did eventually survive the initial shock.
K-rad and SRJ would go ahead to graduate from Unilag with stellar results and repeat thesame feat in the Law School. I would also join them, later after my own professional qualification, in one of the leading corporate law firms in Nigeria. They’d since gone ahead into great accomplishments. They co-authored, with their partner, our old teacher Dr. Muiz Banire SAN, the Bluebook (the authoritative annotation on the rules of procedure in Lagos) one and a half decades ago. I recall their old adversary, former Unilag VC Professor Jelili Omotola, gracing the occasion of the book launch in Ikeja. When your way pleases the Lord…
Dr. Ajibola Basiru – SRJ – has been Attorney-General of Osun State and currently represents the people of that state in the Senate. K-rad taking ‘the Silk’ is only the latest such accomplishment. It is morning yet, and I look forward to even greater things from my friends and brothers. Congratulations to Kunle Adegoke SAN.
