When I read the reactin of Comrade Femi Falana SAN to someone who said he could not find his name on the list of NADECO maiden appreciation and recognitio award held at Muson Centre Onikan, Lagos on May 20 2026 as published the The Puch Newspaper of May 22, 2026 on a Whatsapp platform, what came to mind was a story my grandmother, Ifatunke, once told me about the story of a mythical kingdom called Obiripo.
According to her, Obiripo was not an ordinary land. Blessed with fertile soil, prosperous trade routes, gifted craftsmen and brave hunters, the kingdom once stood as the envy of neighbouring territories. Traders journeyed from distant lands to its flourishing markets; scholars and priests praised its culture; and travellers spoke glowingly of its wealth and influence. Yet beneath the glitter of prosperity lay deep contradictions.
Despite its riches, Obiripo gradually became overwhelmed by corruption, insecurity, poverty and underdevelopment. The decline began, acording to Ifatunke my grandmother, when a faction of overzealous hunters violently seized the palace after eliminating the king and many chiefs who once safeguarded the values of the land. What followed was a season of fear and authoritarian rule. The hunters governed with iron fists.
Under the reigns of Ejiwumi and later Okuta Ganganran for instance, dissent became dangerous. Markets were disrupted. Farmers abandoned their lands. Priests whispered in fear. Young men, old men and women disappeared mysteriously into evil forests. Freedom became a forbidden luxury.
But tyranny, no matter how fierce, always breeds resistance. Across Obiripo, ordinary people began organising quietly. Market women, youths, priests, traders, scholars and even some courageous members of the hunters’ own families started holding secret meetings. Rituals of resistance multiplied. Songs of defiance spread in moonlit gatherings. The people refused to surrender hope.
One day, after years of struggle and sacrifice, the hunters finally vacated the palace and the kingdom gradually returned to civilian rule under a legitimate king from the ruling houses.
Then emerged Ejongboro. Ejongboro was not the richest man in Obiripo. He was neither the loudest priest nor the most influential chief. He was simply the meticulous record keeper and storyteller of a large society that had helped mobilise resistance against the hunters.
Years after the struggle, when many young people had either forgotten the sacrifices or never knew them at all, Ejongboro decided, using his personal resources to organise a grand feast at the market square. The purpose was simple: to recount the story of resistance and honour all the individuals and groups who contributed to liberating Obiripo from authoritarian rule.
At the feast were market women, priests, exiled chiefs, courageous hunters who rebelled against tyranny, travelling messengers, underground singers, foreign allies, chroniclers, and ordinary people whose names history nearly erased.
The occasion was presided over by the legendary storyteller Orogangan, whose reputation extended far beyond the borders of Obiripo who attested to the fact that every sentence of the narration rings of truth and an aura of authenticity.
But amid the celebration arose the voice of Alamotan, Alamotan argued that Ejongboro was attempting to privatise a collective ritual and sacrifices for his own society. He reminded everyone that resistance against the hunters predated Ejongboro’s movement. He listed earlier uprisings, older organisations, forgotten martyrs and previous battles fought before Ejongboro’s coalition emerged.
But while Ejongboro was spending his personal fortune to gather veterans of struggle, preserve fading memories and honour forgotten sacrifices, Alamotan appeared more concerned with diminishing the feastt than appreciating its symbolic significance.
Of course, in every generation, there are men who cannot build monuments but are exceptionally gifted at criticising those who attempt to build them.
They attend ceremonies not to strengthen collective memory, but to remind the crowd that they alone possess ideological purity. They measure every effort against their personal approval and become visibly uncomfortable whenever history celebrates initiatives outside their own circle of influence.
Ironically, many such men possess the resources, influence and networks to organise even grander commemorations themselves. Yet they rarely do.
Indeed, no democratic struggle begins on the exact day an organisation is formally inaugurated. Resistance is usually cumulative. Movements are built upon previous sacrifices. Every struggle inherits the sweat, blood and courage of earlier generations.
But the question many asked quietly in Obiripo was this acording to Ifatunke: Why is it difficult for some activists to acknowledge that history is often advanced not by one organisation, ideology or tendency, but by a broad coalition of imperfect actors united by a common moment? The struggle against military dictatorship in Nigeria followed precisely that pattern.
Yes, long before the emergence of National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), activists, labour organisers, students, journalists and human rights defenders had resisted authoritarianism. That truth cannot and should never be erased. In anycase, virtually all the existing plaforms coalesced to form NADECO.
It is equally true that after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, widely regarded as the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history and won by Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola NADECO became one of the most visible and internationally recognised platforms of resistance against military dictatorship.
To deny that reality simply because some of its leaders previously served within earlier political establishments is to misunderstand the complexity of political evolution and coalition-building.
History is rarely morally pure. Some who once served flawed systems later rebelled against them. Some who were silent at one stage became courageous later. Some radicals mellowed into conservatives, while some former establishment figures became symbols of resistance. Democratic struggles are messy, layered and often contradictory.
That is why no serious historian reduces the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa to one organisation alone, nor dismisses contributors because they once occupied compromised spaces.
What happened at the Muson Centre in Lagos on May 20, 2026, during the launch of Ayo Opadokun’s book The NADECO Story, ought therefore to be seen for what it was: an attempt to preserve memory and honour sacrifice.
The event recognised journalists who risked detention and assassination, media houses that defied censorship, activists who endured exile and imprisonment, military officers who stood against dictatorship, organisations that mobilised resistance, and even foreign allies that offered support during Nigeria’s dark years.
It is also worth noting that the recognition award was reportedly funded personally by Ayo Opadokun, a man whose years in the trenches of the June 12 struggle are well documented. In societies where many wealthy actors spend fortunes merely on themsleve, there is something profoundly symbolic about using personal resources to preserve democratic memory. Obviously not everyone who possesses wealth possesses the spirit of institutional remembrance.
My grandmother ended the story of Obiripo with a lesson I never forgot. She said societies do not only lose history through censorship by tyrants; they also lose history when veterans of struggle become so consumed by ideological ownership that they begin to resent every attempt at collective remembrance not authored by themselves.
The danger is not merely historical distortion and self-immolation, the greater danger is that younger generations who neither experienced the terror of military rule nor understand the sacrifices that birthed Nigeria’s current democratic order may grow up believing freedom arrived naturally, without cost, courage or blood. And that would be the greatest tragedy of all.
Michael Popoola Ajayi send this article through: rutzmanpope@gmail.com
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