Statesmen converged in Lagos last Thursday to celebrate former political adviser to erstwhile President Olusegun Obasanjo, Balogun Akin Osuntokun, who clocked 60.
Speaking at a public lecture titled, ‘Consistency in Public Intellectual Advocacy: Akin Osuntokun’s role in Nigeria’, held in his honour, Dr. Rueben Abati, the guest lecturer, described the celebrant as a public intellectual who provokes debates that makes the society better.
“The Osuntokun experience was the experience of many others like Prof. Pat Utomi”, Abati, a former presidential spokesperson said.
On his part, former President Olusegun Obasanjo described Osuntokun as a true nationalist who helped to reshape the nation’s political system.
Obasanjo said: “Calling me forward to make remarks on Akin is an anti-climax but Abati said something in his lecture that Akin was a failed farmer.
“So anytime anybody describes me as a farmer, you know that farming is a national call to service and not where you can be fulfilled like Aliko Dangote.
“Everything Abati said about Akin is very correct.
“I know Akin more than I know his brothers, I know him more than I knew his father but, as the saying goes, a fruit does not fall far from its tree.
“Akin served me. One of the things I learnt from Akin is that he doesn’t pretend.
“If you do what he doesn’t like, his countenance, face and his attitude will change. “I am trying to pretend that I like what I don’t like. But knowingly or unknowingly, Akin has made tremendous contributions to the way we live in this country.
“When he made up his mind to do something, he would do it. When he said he wanted to go to Oxford, he did. Akin is so versed in Ifa, probably he could be an Ifa priest”.
Earlier in his opening speech, the Chairman of the Occasion, Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State said it was not a crime to be a public intellectual even though it is often misunderstood.
Fayemi said he was not surprised that he had chosen to reflect on the place of public intellectual in the making of democracy and development.
“Those of us who have known Akin know that he started this barely as a toddler, he has been writing for as long as many of us can remember”, he said.
“Not just because he is from a political family, he was born during the crisis of the early 60s and his father, many of us may not be fully aware, was in the peak of that.
“The father was an educationist who brought up a generation of Ekiti scholars from Christ School, Ado Ekiti. “At least, two generations of the Osuntokuns actively attended the school.
“Akin also attended the school. Akin has demonstrated this in his career right from his days in journalism and then when he moved on to the public space in politics.
“He has demonstrated consistent intellectual display of strong will on Nigerian politics. “When you talk of public intellectual, there are those who see public intellectuals as just critics of anything that government is doing and they try to make a distinction between third leaders and public intellectuals.
“To such people, third leaders are the creators, the optimists, the ones who reflect based on their experience while public intellectuals are seen to be the pessimist.
“If you’re familiar with Akin’s writing, the first thing that strikes you is the reality of his writing.
“And you need to put your dictionary on one side when you want to read Akin’s column”.
On his part, Wale Babalakin said the nation is short of human capital.
The Chairman of Bi-Courtney said: “Our greatest challenge today is shortage of human capital.
“Nigeria, today, has serious shortage of human capital.
“We should try and conduct interviews with the younger generations and we will discover that a lot has to be done to rebuild this country.
“We have created inadvertently a system where even lawyers feel superior to judges.
“A situation where a Senior Advocate of Nigeria feels he is superior to a High Court judge is a direct evidence of the failure of the legal system. Akin, fascinates me”.
Getting it wrong
While Osuntokun, in his remarks, thanked those who attended the event, he said, “We are all challenged by the same situation, it is an individual choice, not something in which you can make sacrifice. “These are things that will make demands on their personal lives, it is up to each member of the community to decide what to do, but if history is any judge, Nigerian journalists are always up to the task in the challenge of doing the right thing” Vanguard reports.
“There is no logical correlation between how the government of Nigeria emerges and the vision of the intellectual communities, otherwise we won’t be where we are today. “There is nothing any intellectual does that is worthy of being commended and not being criticized where this government is concerned. “What we always pray for is to have that positive correlation between the vision of intellectuals and those who emerge in the political scene. “So far, Nigeria seems to have been getting it wrong”.
Also speaking at the occasion Professor Anya O. Anya said: “Nigeria is a product of two historical events, first was slave trade and the second was the part of colonialism.
“Those two things changed the environment and whatever it is that our people are going to do or be.
“But we have never asked, even with the brilliant historians that Nigerians has ever produced, about what exactly are the permanent damages that these two historical proxies do to us.
“When the British decided for their own reasons to go, our leaders, whether it was Azikiwe or Awolowo or Sardauna, who, in their circumstances, were very bright people, went on to inherit what the British left.”
Among prominent personalities present were former Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, Are Gani Adams, Erelu Abiola Dosunmu, Mr. Jimi Agbaje and Prince Julius Adeniyi.
