from – Dr.F. AJI. Executive President of voice of women in Africa

We sympertize with his widow and family and his immediate colleagues.

On the behalf of the women and children of Africa

With heart felt sympathy

Alice Ukoko

DONT BLAME DEATH, DONT AGONISE…. JUST ORGANISE LIFE AND SOCIETY

Sulaiman A. ATINSOLA
..doing it sameway will lead to same result… and the way of our forefathers must not neccessarily be our way……

The death of Tajudeen is really a great loss to humanity because of the depth of his thoughts for the development of the human person. Throughout his life, despite his intellectual prowess which would have fetched him the best jobs anywhere in the world, he rather preferred and remained within the informal circles and arenas where the focus has been on the uplift of human standards and integrity.As the secretary-general of the Pan-African Organisation in Kampala Uganda, Dr Abdulraheem laboured so hard to see the possibilities of the integration of the continent of Africa – a dream which several other leaders at the point of independence thought was possible to actualize and which is, at the moment, being revisited by some and heavily resisted by some other leaders on the continent. I have always known Taju from his debut in the early 1980s, but the reality of how close we became was in the last 10 years. I heard the name several times, especially when brilliant political scientists were mentioned. He was one among the very few in Nigerian universities that ever scored a first-class degree in Political Science.

This we know, by all measure, is an exceptional achievement because it is what very few of them have been able to achieve.As a scholar, his involvement in pro-democracy activism pitched him against the government of General Abacha, maybe because he was seen as one of the very vocal Nigerians in Diaspora who were well-connected with the international media and was reasonably listened to and read through his commentaries on radio, television and the columns that he wrote in several other newspapers across Africa and the world.When I realised that Taju was a columnist with about 12 different newspapers across the world, I was only humbled the more because I thought I was doing something extra by writing for only two Nigerian newspapers. Taju was writing for one paper in Nigeria, two in Kenya, two in Uganda, three in South Africa and several others across the UK and America, thus contributing immensely to the dispensation of knowledge in the continent of Africa in general and Nigeria in particular.Anytime I was with Taju – and I did tell him on several occasions – I was fascinated by the degree and quantum energy that the gentleman was made of. He was as strong as he was vibrant, always on top of the situation and at the top of his voice. You would always hear his voice towering over all other persons’ else in either at social or even intellectual meeting.No doubt, the world of activism and civil society especially will miss Dr Abdulraheem for this energy, intellect, motivation and intellectual zeal with which he pursued all businesses of life. His common catch-phrases were “Forward ever, backward never”; “Don’t agonise, organise”. These simply define the character very aptly. He was moving and forward always until death came at a time when he was at the peak of service to humanity.A few years ago at a function in Abuja where I sat next to him, some thoughts which I thought were by the way struck me when Dr Abdulraheem was making some analyses that were brilliant on certain issues of discourse and I became so fascinated and took a closer look at him, and immediately wondered what would happen if God suddenly withdrew this brain from us. I immediately removed myself from that mood of thought, but the meaning of my thinking was reflected basically in the inability to transfer brains from one person to the other. The thought, as I did say, went away immediately only to resurface early morning Monday when Salihu Lukman’s call came in with the news of the passing away of Taju.A couple of times while at home in Nigeria, Dr Abdulraheem came in with quite a few friends who went with us to the university in Gwagwalada and spoke on several areas of interest regarding Africa and its international relations.

During the visits, Taju had established friendships with young people who have since seen a model to emulate. A great guy that he was, he was equally a hard worker. He was a good friend, trusted fellow and an example of humility in success.When Taju was born in 1961, he came in humbly, but by the time he was going back to mother earth on Tuesday, May 26, 2009, it was a triumphant exit even by the testimonies of the number of people who attended his funeral prayer and took him to the grave. A friend murmured in shock, “Kabir, can any of those looters called leaders really have this much affection in death?” I don’t know, but what I do know is that my friend, our friend who didn’t labor for material cash and position of arrogance, who served humanity in local and international dimensions was cheered to his grave by tens of thousands of people in his native Funtua.

The pains of the loss of Taju were visible on the faces of these teaming numbers who lost a great pillar and member of their community, who through sheer hard work and perseverance showed the way.Taju once pondered about the behaviour of friends we grew up with who find themselves in positions of political authority and power. He bemoaned why they stayed away and became incommunicado. His position was, “They don’t know that they need us, we don’t need them.” This is the truth and that is Taju for you. Reading through the tributes written by great scholars like Mahmud Mamdani, Okello Ocui and Jibrin Ibrahim, the magnitude of the loss even becomes more daunting.

Certainly, one of the few things that mortals have yet failed to unravel is death and how, when and where it comes. For us living, the loss of Taju was a shock that we have continued to make do with till our death come knocking.Born in humility, he lived a life of service, died on the line of duty and was buried triumphantly – reminiscent of how great kings cherished and loved by their people are sent off. For Tajudeen Abdulraheem, it was a life well spent. May God forgive his sins and reward him with everlasting peace. Adieu Taju, till we meet to part no more.

Written by Kabiru Mato, PhD

THE venue was Addis Ababa, and the issue on hand was convening an African Governance Roundtable on, “Towards the United States of Africa: Issues, Problems and Challenges”. I could not think of a better person to lead the discussion than Tajudeen Abdul Raheem, the irrepressible pan-Africanist and an incurable optimist on the African project. I sent an email to Taju, but mistakenly attached Prof. L. Adele Jinadu’s invitation letter with it. Taju replied, “Said, you never intended to invite me, you wanted to make me a substitute for Jinadu who probably had declined your invitation”. I responded apologising to Taju that it was an oversight and indeed, he was on the slot and to lead the discussion. Taju could not make it down to Addis Ababa for the roundtable on May 7, 2009 but sent another passionate comrade, Thomas Deve from Zimbabwe to represent him. That was the last conversation I had with Taju before the chilly but wicked hands of death snatched him away from mother earth! Africa has lost a gem, an illustrious son and someone ahead of his time!

Taju lived and died for Africa. Tajudeen was the Secretary General of the Pan-African Movement, and before his death the Deputy Director of the UNDP Millennium Development Goals office based in Nairobi, Kenya. What made Taju thick and different were his abiding faith, commitment, struggle and complete dedication to the pan-African project. Taju believed that another Africa is possible, and it is something that can be achieved through intense, even if rebellious struggles. Articulate, convincing and bright, Taju always puts on a colorful side of life. When friends are depressed and despondent about the course of events in Africa, Taju would counsel, “we will get there, we must not agonise but organise”. He courted friendship among the leaders, the rich, poor and vulnerable in society, but always weighed in on the side of the weak and the vulnerable.

He speaks with absolute confidence, carries his message with the tone and vigour of a missionary and never had any regrets for whatever he says. He chided leaders in their presence; speaks truth to power in the most direct way, aligns with progressive forces across the continent and foresaw a future that works for Africa. In one of the meetings of the African leaders, Taju was granted the floor to speak. Directing his attention to the leaders present, Taju enquired, “Why do we have to restrict our people from moving around? If it is difficult for us to enter the capitals of Europe, why is it that it is also difficult for us to enter our continental capital – Addis Ababa? Addis Ababa is Africa’s political capital, and we should be free to come here”. Turning his attention to the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Taju beckoned for a response. Meles Zenawi, the Prime Minister of Ethiopia responded in a swift policy move few weeks after, making it possible for Africans to obtain visa on arrival at the airport in Addis Ababa.

Taju was an unrepentant advocate of a borderless Africa. Echoing Kwame Nkrumah, Taju would argue, “what unites us is far greater than what divides us, let our people move and move freely”. For Taju, the borders have become barriers to our lives; borders which in the first instance we did not create. From the Kikuyus in Kenya, to the Yorubas in Nigeria and the Ndebele’s in Zimbabwe, we all share a common past, heritage, problems, challenges and the same future. Why should Africa therefore not be united? Taju always insists. Taju was not a rabble rouser; he was a well educated and intellectually grounded mind. With a Ph.D. from Oxford University, Taju had the best academic background any sound mind could possess. But he deployed his mind in the service of the people. For Taju, Africa cannot be free, until its people were free.

An untold story about the formation of the African Union (AU) relates to Taju. Taju was a key personality in the process of the formation of the AU, though undocumented. Taju in canvassing support for the idea toured several African countries and met with many political leaders and public opinion moulders in those countries to convince them on it. Working closely with President Mummar Ghaddafi, who was a leader on board the idea, Taju was upbeat that it would be possible for Africa to move on the integration path. Taju in his life never saw problems, he always sees challenges. When asked whether forming the African Union was not a mere dream, or wishful thinking as the OAU itself was not very successful, and filled with rancour and conflicts, Taju would cheerfully reply, “let us dream dreams, the World is built on dreams, we shall move on”.

Taju was a core anti-imperialist and very unequivocal about it. Taju cherished his voice and used very platform to make a case for Africa against imperialist attacks. Even when it had become unfashionable to use the term, “imperialist’, Taju would use it freely in public platforms and fora no matter how high profile, it may be. Taju did not restrict himself to countries and multinational corporations; he did not spare the ‘merchants of Africa’s misfortune’ – the humanitarian NGOs and aid agencies, whose business thrives on the misfortune and poverty of the people. On one of such occasions, Taju was approached by an international NGO working on humanitarian intervention and poverty issues to help review its 10-year strategic plan for Africa. Taju returned it back to them with a response that, “would you like my plain advice to you?” The organisation insisted on having his view. Taju told them bluntly, “I look forward to the day when you will no longer have a strategic plan in or for Africa; when you will no longer work in Africa, when my people will be out of poverty and misery, when you will have no place or business in Africa”. Taju never reviewed any strategic plan!

Taju was much an internationalist as well as a localist. Taju never left the struggle at home – Nigeria. Taju was part of the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria in the dark days of the Abacha junta. He played a key role in the formation and running of Radio Kudirat – that guerrilla underground radio station which Wole Soyinka and Kayode Fayemi were part of, and was also central in the establishment of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) in London. CDD was formed as the intellectual civil society resistance movement against autocracy and dictatorship in Nigeria and West Africa. Taju chaired the board of CDD till he passed away. Taju also never left his kith and kin and his local community in Funtua. Since the return to civil rule in 1999, Taju comes home regularly, visits families and friends, undertakes projects in his local community, and enjoys life the way he understands it. While in Abuja, Taju hangs out with friends at the “isiawu’ and “fish” joints, takes his cool beer and talks away the problems of the country. He is hardly angry, always reflective and sober, but ever determined that we must continue the struggle, no matter how hard or difficult it may be. For our generation and the younger ones, Taju was an inspiration. Defiant, strong willed, but always ready and willing to hear alternative views.

Taju was the greatest living pan-Africanist before he passed away a few days ago. As I received the news of Taju’s death in far away Stockholm, I was filled with complete shock, disbelief and sadness, the kind of which I have never experienced since my father died some 31 years ago. Could it be true? Can Taju be dead? Let someone tell me it was a joke! In contact with Addis, there was grief over Taju’s demise. Even heads of multilateral and regional institutions could not hold back their tears on it. Taju touched all who knew him in one way or the other! Taju stood for decency, integrity and African dignity. Taju cannot and must not die. The ideas and ideals, for which Taju lived, must live on, and ultimately give birth to a new Africa.

Goodnight, and goodbye, Taju! Africa would miss you, friends would miss you, families would miss you, and we will all miss you. Find sleep and rest in the Lord, sleep well, and may ALLAH grant you peace!

* Dr. Adejumobi lives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

TO have to write this tribute to Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is perhaps the most necessary but painful task I have ever imposed on myself. It is necessary for me to do it because he was my great friend and confidant, and arguably, the most vibrant human being I have ever known in my life. It is, however, a painful assignment for me because Tajudeen was many years my junior – though, now, one of my ancestors.

When Taju, as he was fondly called by all, was hospitalised in London sometime last year I told him to shake off his illness because if anyone was ever going to write my obituary it would be him. Alas, death has its own devious ways of bereaving us because it snatched Tajudeen away in a ghastly motor accident in the morning of May 25, 2009 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Taju and I became instant friends when we arrived in Oxford some time in 1983 to study politics and law respectively. He came in as a Rhodes Scholar on the background of First Class degree from Bayero University, Kano and a National merit award to prove that his achievements were to fluke. I had been a political animal of some sort and the first political issue I threw at Tajudeen was the idea of a rotational presidency as the panacea for Nigeria’s inter-ethnic disagreements over leadership. I had been trumpeting this idea from Howard University where I took degrees in Political Science and it had become something of an obsession in my discussions. Taju agreed with the logic of my arguments but was of the view that Nigerians should be able to elect their political leader without having to resort to “zoning”.

Out of my deepest regard for his intellectualism and in spite of our divergent views on an opinion I adhered to religiously, I requested him to review the booklet I published in 1986 advancing the case for rotational presidency. Being the honest scholar that he was, he competently outlined the merits of my arguments but highlighted his criticisms uncompromisingly. Impressed by his honesty, I requested him again in 1996 to write an introduction to my essays on rotational presidency. Taju would later concede that in spite of his and others’ objections, the reality of Nigerian politics was in the direction of leadership rotation.

Taju and I were two of a kind; we were obsessively passionate about politics beyond the mere study of it. He, however, had an extra edge over me because he was the great political activist that I am not. We wrote vigorously, along with other Oxford scholars, on the pages of West Africa, and African Concord – two useful magazines that are now, sadly, defunct – as well as in Nigerian dailies. We did our best to attempt to discredit the military regimes that were milking our economy to death. The military boys could be tolerant of opinions expressed on the pages of newspapers, not least because they hardly read them. However, what they could not stomach was some articulate scholar lambasting them on radio, BBC for that matter, and that was how Taju became their “marked” man. He travelled from England to Nigeria about 1989 in what was supposed to be a very short visit but his “friends” at the State Security Service were too excited to whisk him away for days. He was, however, not deterred by that experience, as his pro-Nigeria activities continued into various protests, especially those for the actualisation of what is now historically known as “June 12″.

Honestly, Nigeria was more or less a mere distraction for Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem. A good Muslim by all accounts, his life was neither predominated by religion. His passion and greater commitments were towards the continent of Africa. He was an Nkrumahist who passionately believed that the boundaries that divide Africa into nations were artificial. He was president of the African Students Union at Oxford and was always into one conference after another. His face was ubiquitous with protest rallies, particularly over the liberation of South Africa from the jaws of apartheid. The happiest political day of his life was when Nelson Mandela was released from jail. We, his friends, were not surprised that he continued into African affairs after he took his doctorate in Political Science from Oxford.

Tajudeen was indeed a decent human being. In the 1980s you would forgive the ambition of a young Nigerian lady who assumed that someone from the north of the country (Taju’s parents were from Ogbomoso, but he was from Funtua) with a degree from the University of Oxford provided the ticket to the very top. Some of the young Nigerian ladies studying for their A levels at Oxford at that time wanted Taju desperately but he was never the type to be distracted.

Taju entered into a serious relationship at the very tail end of his studies with Munira, an intelligent and well mannered Tunisian who became his wife and had their two beautiful daughters, Aida and Aishat. Munira deserves the commendations reserved for special women because the man she married was, by virtue of his mission in life, an absentee husband and father. Taju was more likely to be found in an airport waiting to catch a flight from one country or another, than at home. Munira wanted her husband to work in the United Kingdom and see more of their young children – I personally intervened to sort out their disagreements – but neither of them ever suggested the other could have been cheating because of Taju’s absentee culture. They were both good Muslims who embraced the ethics of their religion.

Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem will remain forever in our memories for his vibrancy, kindness and generosity. I had thought of myself, until the news of Taju’s death came, as someone who could approach the worst of tragedies philosophically but it was all tears in my home. A young daughter of mine was to attend a birthday party but without any prompting she phoned her friend to say she would no longer be able to go because “my uncle has just died in a motor accident”. This kind of gesture coming from a 13-year old girl is tribute and testimony to the influence of Taju’s charisma on all of us.

Even in our desperate pursuit of the worldly, a stroll in the graveyard offers caution. The tombs of the newly-dead with flowers are warned by those that have become derelict with age, their occupants seemingly being forgotten. So William Shakespeare could be right in comparing life to a tale told by an idiot “full of sound and fury signifying nothing”. But the great Shakespeare himself also talked of the “good” and “evil” that men do and it is in this context that the individual’s existence may not be in vain after all. Posterity will remember Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem for his good deeds to the individual and society.

Call me “Sir Tony” or “The Chief” as you used to, your beloved friend and his family say goodnight and rest in peace.

* Dr. Akinola lives in Oxford, England

You can imagine! The great people in my life:
My mother passed away on Mothers Day -2009
Dr Taju passed away on Africa Day – 2009

My dear Dr, what can I say? Your loss is deep. Words are inadequate to describe the emptiness I feel; you have always been my Idol.

If life were smiles, yours would be the broadest,
If life were making impacts, you’d have more than the Atomic bomb,
If life were jewels, you’d be platinum, diamond and gold mixed together,
If life were stories, yours would make the strongest of hearts melt…

Dr. Taj, you are never far away because you live in our loving hearts

It is not goodbye but goodnight to an amazing YOU>

Name: Rachael Ebun Oke
Email: ebun_oke@yahoo.co.uk

Dr. Tajudeen Abdul Raheem who happens to be illustrious son of Africa who follows in the footstep of the father of Pan Africanism Kwame Nkrumah. He is gone but will never be forgotten even though your death is painful, may your resting place be peaceful heaven and may God allmighty receive you in his bossom.

Your death is painful, may you rest in peace and may Allah make Aljahnah your permanent abode.

Prince Kolapo Bello
Laide Bello’s Family
Ogbomoso.