A popular lawyer and Senior Advocate, Yusuf Olaolu Ali (SAN), has lamented that politics of principle has left Nigeria.
He called on political leaders to do more to uphold moral values in politics as witnessed among notable political leaders in the nation’s First Republic.
Ali spoke on Friday at a book launch and posthumous centenary birthday celebration of Chief Josiah Sunday Olawoyin, a foremost opposition political leader, in Offa, Kwara State.
The legal luminary, who was the chairman of the occasion, lamented that principled political stands had left the nation’s politics, especially, starting from the Second Republic.
He said the development was made worse today because, “unlike in the First Republic when political parties were mass movements and were owned by all the party members.”
According to him, today, political parties “are virtually owned by the mighty, powerful and rich.”
Ali, who was represented by Ibrahim Ajanaku, noted that the late Chief Olawoyin, by his principled political stand, showed that one could be a politician with high moral values, adding that the late elder statesman refused all the juicy political offers made to him to stay true to his political convictions.
Ali said: “Chief Olawoyin used his politics to benefit his immediate constituency, Offa, and the larger North. He was a formidable man in the opposition camp. This was at a time when the opposition was playing the role it ought to play by putting the government of the day on its toes.”
Reviewing the book entitled: “J. S. Olawoyin: A century of legacy and leadership,” celebrated columnist and Editor, Saturday Tribune, Dr. Lasisi Olagunju, told of the network of relationships among Offa, Ilorin, Ibadan and old Oyo peoples, as well as other tribes in the country.
In the review entitled: “Joshua Olawoyin: Man Who Built House For Battles,” Olagunju noted that the book explored themes of patriotism, courage, resistance, activism, justice and loyalty, and added that the book projected Chief Olawoyin as “dogged, focused, and of unassailable character.”
Dr Olagunju said: “In all, we have a compendium that has fulfilled its mission of using J.S. Olawoyin’s life and times to rekindle the torch of freedom and the fires of demand for a structural recreation of Nigeria.
“If history teaches lessons and influences the course of human causes, what we have in this book is enough to force an opening of calls for social justice, and a demand by Offa and its adjoining communities for restitution and reparation from the Nigerian state.”
The book reviewer noted that the compendium was well-referenced and comprehensively indexed, and described it as “a worthy testimonial to the worthy memory of Chief J. S. Olawoyin.
“The book has done a great deal of justice to the life and memory of the first Asiwaju of Offa. It is a celebration of the glorious place of Offa and its valiant people in Yoruba history. I recommend this book to all leaders and aspiring leaders, to students of the complexity called Nigeria, and to all who currently suffer subjugation and ‘slavery’ within the Nigerian space. The book tells them (and us) that the masquerade that currently pursues them will soon be tired if they do not surrender to the marauding spirit.”
Olagunju also eulogised the late elder statesman for bequeathing a worthy legacy, while he congratulated the children for allowing their father to live on through them.
Also speaking, the Senator representing Kwara South senatorial district in the National Assembly, Lola Ashiru, said that the late politician was an inspiration and a lesson for us all.
“He was a leading light in the political trajectory of Offa and the then Northern Nigeria. It’s now a thing of pride to be a Yoruba man. A Yoruba man can now walk freely in Abuja.”
The event was attended by eminent Yoruba sons and daughters and also witnessed the presence of people from the political class, traditional institutions, the media, business, among others.
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