TRIBUTE
THE sordid news of his brutal murder in the wee hours of penultimate Friday by some shadowy gunmen, resonated with anger, anguish, disgust and wailing in many homes where Comrade Olaitan Oyerinde was loved and admired for his resourcefulness, literary craft, creativity, industry and gifted wits.

For a state still enmeshed in the grief of the tragic loss of three journalists in a convoy crash, occasioned by a death truck that suddenly veered off its track and headed for the Governor’s staff car evincing suspicion, this was stretching the pall of anger to its wits end.

As principal private secretary to Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Oyerinde, 44, was dutiful, was constantly on the grill and worked under immense pressure. He cut a deep intellectual bent, a high sense of recourse to history, possessed a rich literary acumen, was particularly blessed with a mouthful full of creative humour and had an amiable mien which he brought to bear on his work of oiling the engine of the governor’s office.

Re-engineering process

Just like other comrades who enlisted to support the re-engineering process of a new Edo State, being pulled from the brinks after 30 years of near absence of any meaningful governance, his work was steeped not only in the dialection between theory and praxis but also form and content.

Olaitan Oyerinde started his trade union career in 1992 when he was appointed Assistant General Secretary by the Iron and Steel Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, an affiliate of the Senior Staff Consultative Association of Nigeria, which metamorphosed into the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria. While in the union, he was actively involved in the pro-democracy movement, which was waging a relentless battle against the military and the interim government. He was the Lagos State Chairman of the Campaign for Democracy (CD) under the national leadership of the late Dr Bekololari Ransome-Kuti. He was also executive director, Centre for Worker’s Rights (CWR) and a member of the Nigerian Tenants Association (NTA), a group floated to defend tenant rights.

As head of department of Industrial and International Relations as well as special assistant to the NLC president, Oyerinde established a reputation for thoroughness, uncommon brilliance, deep commitment to the values of the trade union movement and capacity for creative thinking and initiative. This explains his rapid rise in the NLC. Like other comrades in the Labour movement, he was involved in the electioneering campaign of Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and co-authored the manifesto entitled My Vision, My Mission.

In November 2008, following Oshiomhole’s victory at the courts, the governor sought and obtained the NLC’s consent to release Comrade Olaitan to work with his administration. Olaitan resumed as the Special Adviser, Special Duties but was appropriately re-designated as the Principal Secretary to the Governor/Head of the Governor’s Secretariat. He had actually been pencilled by the NLC NEC few months back, to take over as substantive General Secretary but for the governor’s request that this should be put on hold until after his first term.

Although Oyerinde neither had the luxury of writing his epitaph nor designing his tombstone like Thomas Jefferson, one of America’s most accomplished presidents, what is comforting is that he immortalised himself with the quality of his work. As a man of wits, Oyerinde would have humorously dismissed the possibility of being accorded a state burial. But he got that from the governments of Edo and Osun states. He also got a heroic chant from his comrades who travelled from far flung places in the country to bid him goodbye both in Benin City and Ede. But some will in fact argue that these platitudes do not matter as his revolutionary path was already strewn in gold.

They may be right. After all, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the world’s renowned classical music composers was too poor to neither afford a casket nor purchase a grave, when he kissed the dust in 1891. Although he was buried in an unmarked pauper’s grave almost without any tune, the celebration of his centenary in 1991 reverberated around the world. Olaitan prepared for immortality with his quality work and great sense of duty.

He demonstrated extraordinary devotion, well-acknowledged competence and a passionate loyalty to his labour constituency.

In the Government House, Benin City, he was the focal and contact person for the entire Labour Movement. Those who killed him must know that they can neither kill his spirit nor his steel resolve, that a better Edo state and nay Nigeria, is possible. Oyerinde’s name will certainly be laced in gold, when the history of a new Edo state is written. Like Moses Kotane in the South African struggle, his soul soldiers on..

•Iyare is Special Adviser, Media Affairs to Governor Adams Oshiomole.