Comrade Abiodun Aremu, history will absolve you, by Omoniyi Ibietan
About this time 72 years ago, precisely on 16th October 1953, Fidel Castro made a speech in self-defence, titled, “History will absolve me.” It was during his trial following the attack by revolutionaries on Moncada Barracks in Santiago, Cuba. That speech would become the manifesto of the July 26th Movement.
That Movement was founded on June 12, 1955 as the revolutionary vanguard, later a political party led by Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raul Castro, Alberto Bayo and others who eventually overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista as a tipping point of the Cuban revolution.
And so, as I came to the knowledge of the transition of Comrade Abiodun Aremu (whose moniker was Aremson) hours ago, after a long silence, I remembered Castro’s statement. I didn’t know when I verbalised it, I thought I was speaking intrapersonally until I heard my voice loud and clear.
From what I can piece together from fragments of information, big brother and comrade, Aremson, was killed after a hit-and-run, very much like the way Comrade Patrick Naagbanton was killed in Port Harcourt years ago. Patrick and another of his kinsmen, Kingsley Kpea (also deceased), were my key umblical cord to the Ogoni Movement, and Patrick once kept me, right in his home at Borokiri, to take me away from harms way.
We may never know who killed Patrick. Perhaps we would know who hit Aremson and ran. But history will absolve Aremson, a fighter to the very end. Aremson was not just a fighter. He was ultra-radical. By his own admission, he wasn’t really an activist but a scientific revolutionary. “By rebirth realities, I prefer to be described as a comrade, a revolutionary socialist, a scientific Pan-Africanist, and a learning student of humanities. Everywhere I have been in this country of my birth, Nigeria has been home to me! I have gone almost everywhere in Nigeria except very few states, and I have met the poor majority – all with warmth in their pitiable conditions! Outside Nigeria, it has been the same experience.” He stated in one of his several interlocutions. He was damn right.
Aremson was an archetype of candour, resilience, humanism, and revolutionary entrepreneurship. I knew his name and saw his path before I met him. In the late 80s when I got elected as the Secretary General of the Student Union Government at Kwara State College of Technology (Kwaratech), I saw Aremson’s imprimatur in the files I inherited at the Student Union Building. He had passed through the SUG as a leader. Though he graduated but not until he had been expelled, of course, for fighting a good cause. He left Kwaratech years before I got admitted into the institution’s School of Basic Studies to study English, History, and Economics for the Higher School Certificate.
But history brought us to meet face-to-face in 1992 when he came to Abuja to mobilise solidarity support for Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome-Kuti, Baba Omojola, Femi Falana and Olusegun Mayegun, who was then President of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). The five of them were incarcerated at Kuje Prison by the Babangida regime, of course, for doing good works for the people of Nigeria. I was at the University of Abuja where the authorities thought we were ‘AJEBOS’ who should not even be granted permission to have a union.
Aremson met me and a few people near the campus. I met him again secretly that evening and revealed to him that I knew him by name after he revealed his identity. I assured him he did not have to preach to me about mobilising students to support Gani and others. So, I volunteered along with a few of my colleagues to mobilise students to the Chief Magistrate Court, Gwagwalada, the following morning when Gani and others were to be arraigned for treason.
While the authorities of the University of Abuja thought all students had been caged, they were shocked the following morning when the campus was deserted. We were less than 300 students in the university at that time, but over 200 students were at the court in solidarity with Chief Gani Fawehinmi and his comrades. By sheer coincidence, the students and members of staff instructed by the university authorities to recall us from the court premises arrived at the court about the time Fela Anikulapo-Kuti arrived from Lagos. Fela drove from Lagos overnight and straight to the court with a ‘historical’ Peugeot 504 wagon. Fela’s arrival caused an unusual frenzy and fascinated even those who were sent to recall us back to the campus. So, they joined us. At a point, Chief Magistrate Balami, who was presiding at the court, had to halt the proceedings due to the noise from the crowd outside his courtroom. It was a historic moment. A humanist and inherently revolutionary character, Chief Magistrate Balami granted bail to Chief Fawehinmi and all those arraigned with him. Aremson and another comrade I can’t readily recall took the risk to undertake the dangerous expedition that rallied social forces in support of the peoples advocates.
From that moment, I was in touch with Aremson as with other comrades until the annulment of June 12, 1993 election when we got back fully to the trenches, aligning and realigning with progressive forces to resist the annulment. Then, Abacha passed away, and we got ‘signal’ to be in Lagos. That provided an opportunity to see Aremson again. But in between we were in touch as time and circumstances permitted, and through it all, Aremson never wavered in his commitment to the struggle of the masses of Nigeria and I am sure he did not until he took his last breath. This is a very deep cut, but history will absolve him. May his soul rest in peace.
ALUTA CONTINUA!
