I find Mimiko’s daredevilry
intriguing —Olu Obafemi
Interview - By
BIOLA AZZEZ On Feb 12, 2017
Professor
Olu Obafemi of the University of Ilorin spoke with BIOLA AZZEZ on the biography
he wrote on Dr Olusegun Mimiko, socio-economic and political issues in the
country, among others. Excerpts:
What
informed a biography on Mimiko?
Biography
is a literary genre, although there are many biographies that don’t deal from
literary perspective. There are critical issues in biographies. If a writer
engages in it, he will bring dimensions which still restore the integrity of
biographies. There’s a difference between biographies and hagiography. One
deals essentially with “Praises” sort of, so it is panegyrics. You dare not say
anything negative about the subject. That’s not biography. I believe that a
biography has to be credible. It must have many perspectives to it. As a
biographer, I must have come from a perspective. I can’t pretend that I came
here to criticise him. I have issues that are critical to me, my understanding
and things that ignite me to want to probe deeper into his personality, his
life and so on. And a biographer who has a right to defend that but he must not
defend that exclusively to the detriment of a total picture of the man.
Why
Mimiko?
The
history of Nigeria today needs to be told from many perspectives. It’s easier
to do a biography on Awolowo, Zik, and Ahmadu Bello. The middle strata, people
who are coming out to go and shape direction of our destinies. Stories of
people who have not attained their heights, but who have created enough
evidence that a human society can learn from, ought also to be told. I think
that we need many of these young men who are working in difficult circumstances
that need to be narrated, either from the point of good they have done or even
good they have not done but they can do. I’m not saying that Mimiko has
attained his height, but that we should call attention to that fact that people
like him can sit up. Mimiko’s a very enigmatic person. He’s a controversial
person; he’s a man of many dimensions: good and bad. He has a humble aspect of
him, ambitious, humane, selfish, but these are the features in which these men
and women are made of. I didn’t actually decide I wanted to write a biography
until I started talking with him and I said this is more than what I planned. I
have friends who have said: ‘why are you putting your reputation on the line to
write about Mimiko?’ The very reason why I am writing it. Let us even test that
reputation whether it is worth it.
How
will this work benefit human enterprise?
Well,
I have said in the introduction of the book that political history of our
nation is fraught with dearth of heroism. There are many who start and end
badly for poor vision or for shortened insight. There are many who shoot to the
limelight only to fizzle out. But I find Mimiko intriguing that he has a
daredevilry. He has a heart of a lion, but he has a visage of a meek personage.
I see this as a subject of good literature. And it’s also my hope that in doing
this work, many other people would be ignited to write about the middle
generation of our politicians and historians.
From
your experience, what’s that leadership quality or qualities lacking in our
present leaders?
Our
understanding of leadership is suspect. A leader must be a man of vision,
compassionate, a man who not only wants to lead people to where they want to go
but to lead them to where they ought to be. Though, this is not original to me.
Most of our leaders are yet to understand the value of sacrifice, value of
envisioning society beyond the immediate, depersonalisation of themselves from
societal growth, and the need to do a structural build; it’s not just
individualisation of what we need to gain as an individual, but how to build a
structure in which society cannot follow. Empathy and passion, self -sacrifice,
industry, patriotism, these are combinations that define a good leader. Even
when they are flawed, you’ll still see that there are basic elements of all of
these in what they’re doing. I do not know how history will judge Mimiko, I
don’t even know how history will judge the book I’ve written, but I’ve dared to
take a subject especially in Mimiko that’s s controversial as an example of how
we must begin to examine the place of men who choose to lead us and put them in
the spot. I’m neither a politician nor a card carrying member of a political
party, but I’m a political writer. I have moral investment into how this nation
is run. I’m compelled to participate, mediate, in destiny of this country, in
its leaders, in how not to allow our nation to be run down and even contribute
to how I think our nation should be run. And these are the factors that compel
me to write either in literature or in my newspaper work, or even now in this
venture which is the first full biography.
Why
are you back in University if Ilorin?
I’ve
always been here. I started my career from here as a young lecturer, graduate
assistant in this university on September 13, 1976. In fact, I was one of the
first 20 academics in this university. I’ve benefited from this university.
This university trained me, sent me abroad to do my PhD and even before I
finished my PhD in 1980, I got offers abroad. But at that time, there was
nothing really attractive in being in the West. Our salary structures were the
same. Our currency was as strong. The Naira when I was going in 1977, I was
given an estacode of N1,000 and exchanged to 996 Pounds. So, the difference
with what lecturers get there and here is very small, but for the fact that I
have the commitment to be back to my country. We started English department
here when we were only four. And then I went abroad, later the late Dr.
Adegbija also went. We left two behind. By the time we came back, they had
recruited two or four more. I had a moral compunction and a legal reason to
come back. And I’ve been here.
You’re
among respected columnists in the country, what does it take to be a good
columnist?
Well….this
is judgemental if you ask me. I started writing a column in 1981 with the
Sunday Herald. I had written for Punch, Triumph, Today’s Magazine, Post
Express, Comet, Sun, since 2003 till date. Daily Trust. This day. The work of a
columnist, as an n opinion leader, is a serious job. There are still some
columnists that are maintaining the ethnics of column writing. Seriousness of
treatment of subject matters, frank opinions, but I found a lot of columns that
are just sheer abuse, columns now dedicated to praise songs, and so on. I think
that trend should be discouraged. When you wake up in those days, and you’d not
read Sad Sam, Gbolabo Ogunsanwo in Sunday Times, Macebuh, Osofisan, Madunagu,
even when they were ideological, the human condition was upper most in their
minds, selflessness. People no longer write with maturity. It must be panned to
personal material or feather the nest of some people, sing praises. It should
continue to be serious. I don’t mean there will be no room for humour. Whatever
style you’re using, integrity, maturity, in depth research to topics, to inform
society about a particular issue you’re raising.
Where
are we on socioeconomic, socio-political issues in this country?
We
need a sense of direction. We need committed leadership. We need visionaries
who can look beyond this moment. Our problems are so obvious, so we have to
create envisioned structures, economic structures, political structures, and
who can get policies there that can help galvanise the abundant potentials of
our nation to the betterment and improvement of the human condition – leaders
who are tolerant, leaders who are above board in terms of sectarianism, leaders
who are Nigerians to the core, who are concerned about destiny of Nigeria. In
specific terms, Nigerians, for good or for ill, believed that the APC could do
it. It is my hope that the hope and aspirations of Nigerians are not
disappointed at the end. And if they were, Nigeria can stumble and rise again.
I believe that we can totter but we must not fall. We can fall and stand up.
That’s the quality of a nation.
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