Tribute to Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (1961-2009) By Anthony Akinola
June 2nd, 2009Thursday, May 28, 2009
Tribute to Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem (1961-2009)
By Anthony Akinola
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