By Owei Lakemfa
WHEN I was growing up in Obalende on the Lagos Island, an enlarged, glassed photograph hung majestically from the wall. It was that of a beautiful young woman who sat like Queen Elizabeth II in her official portrait.

The photograph taken to commemorate  the country’s independence on October 1, 1960  revealed that the lady was in the advance stage of pregnancy. I was told that she was carrying me.

I can verify that at the time of my birth in my grandmother’s house in Patani along the Forcados River, there was no birth registry, therefore my birth could not have been officially registered.

But my father, a sailor who came to Lagos in 1925 kept a meticulous record of his children’s birthdays. His diary revealed that I came into the world on November 4. My name was a long sentence:

Akpobomowei Akpobodiseowei Lakemfa. Along the line, someone felt it should be shortened, so I was registered at the Araromi Baptist School as Bomowei. As a teenager, I edited my name to the four letter word, Owei.

The primary school was qualitative and  free.  In my secondary school at the Methodist Boys High School (MBHS) Lagos, education was virtually free. The irony is that in those days, the best educational institutions  were the public schools.

Therefore the competition to be admitted was very stiff. To attend a private post-primary  school amounted to double jeopardy. First, your parents paid fees and secondly, the standard of education was far less qualitative.

Principals in those days were given a free hand  to run the schools; so powerful was my principal that we called him ‘Governor!’ Indeed, while Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson was the governor of the state, Famoroti was ‘governor’ of MBHS.

I paid little or no fees in the university and even that was offset  times over by the hefty bursary each state paid students.

There, I set out with some youths, firmly resolved to change our country in a fundamental way; to democratise its resources and politics, guarantee standard and compulsory education for all, shelter and health for all citizens, ensure no child goes to bed hungry and that the corrupt are punished.

The degree we were in school for became secondary as we took a vow to lay down our lives if necessary. But tragically, these basic goals remain unachieved; if anything, the level of our country’s further degeneration is unimaginable. Sadly, some of these youths across the country with whom we founded the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in 1980 have passed on.

I remember in particular Abdulrahman Black Masa who was president of the Ahmadu Bello University Students Union and Jibril Bala Mohammed, who was  the PRO.

The NANS itself which in the first two decades of its existence was a formidable fighting force for the interest of the populace and the advancement of the country was later seized mainly by cultists, dishonest traders and unprincipled youths who factionalised it.

It became so degenerate that at a point, its elections were decided not by votes but by the staccato sound of the rifle. I use this occasion to pledge my solidarity with the forces of change that are engaged in deadly battles in the campuses and the NANS itself.

I also salute the courage of the youths and students who led the protests against the criminal Structural Adjustment Programme(SAP) of the Babangida dictatorship, some of who were gunned down.

One of my happiest days was July 5, 1993 when the Pro- democracy Movement succeeded in bringing millions of Nigerians on the streets,  demanding the de- annulment of the June12 presidential  elections and the exit of the military from power.

We had envisaged a crackdown and had in place three layers of leadership. The first layer was led by Dr Beko Ransome-Kuti. I belonged to the second layer on whose shoulders the mobilisation laid.

The second day of the protests saw the first layer being swept away into detention. The Babangida regime also sent General Sani Abacha to Lagos to stop the protest.

His long convoy which took off from the airport massacred 118 protesters with many more injured in Lagos that day. But the protests had to go on. I knew I had to be at the barricades the next day.

As I left my home that day, I came back to take a last look at my bedroom; I knew I may not be back; that by the end of that day, I may be in some cell or detention centre, or worse, in an hospital or mortuary. But I had to be at the head of that day’s protests.

I gently closed my door, and then the gate as if afraid my neighbours may wake up, drove into the dark street, cast a glance at my wrist watch, it was 5am.

The saddest year for me was in 2005. The Bellview flight that went down in October took along with it five of our friends from Labour and Action Aid. Dr. Bala Usman and I exchanged e-mails in September and I did not know he was on his death bed.

That same month, two of my comrades, Chima Ubani and Tunji Oyeleru  died in a car crash while returning from a Labour rally. Then Alao Aka-Bashorun, the ideological father of contemporary  Nigerian leftists passed on and Joel Gure, a comrade from our student days drowned with two of his children following a car crash.

Undoubtedly my happiest day was when my twin babies were born. They were the first live births I witnessed; the boy yelled into the night while the mother rested briefly for another push.

I had planned to mark my birthday with the launch of five books: One for every decade of my life. But the struggle to make an honest living meant I could not even complete one.

So I have cancelled any public celebration. But I know I have to hurry up with the books because where I am coming from, is  longer than my eternal destination.