By Bola BOLAWOLE
turnpot@gmail.com 0807 552 5533, 0803 251 0193
Marxist theoretician, revolutionary activist, foremost feminist and humanist, our inimitable comrade, Professor Benedicta Madunagu translated from mortality to immortality on November 26, 2024, aged 77. Funeral obsequies begin tomorrow Thursday, 16 January, 2025, to culminate in interment on Friday, 17 January, 2025, in Calabar. We will miss her!
Bene fought a good fight and left indelible marks on the sands of time. Together with her friend, husband, ideological soulmate and comrade, Edwin, they were two of the university lecturers that the Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo military junta victimised for their principled and active support for the student movement, the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), led by the irrepressible Segun Okeowo, in 1978’s Ali Must Go student nationwide revolt against the commercialization of education by the Obasanjo military junta.
Bene, Edwin and a host of other Leftist and conscionable lecturers and administrators were branded by the ultra-conservative, reactionary and retrogressive Nigerian government as “teaching what they were not paid to teach”, for which they were sacked from their jobs, but which the courts later reversed. Alhaji Shehu Shagari ‘s administration upheld the court judgment.
Bene’s transition has left a void which the Nigerian Left will find hard to fill but we take solace in the fact she raised and nurtured other cadres who are continuing with the struggle. They say to live in the heart of others is not to die; Bene lives on in the hearts of other revolutionaries who will keep the revolutionary torch burning. Comrade Che Guevara spoke for every revolutionary activist when he said, “Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome if our battle cry has reached even one receptive ear and another hand reaches out to take up our arms”
Bene’s battle cry reached an uncountable number of comrades during her active years of revolutionary struggle; and more than one hand reached out for the arms that she doggedly did battle with. So, she lived a worthy and fulfilled life of a proud and accomplished revolutionary. This is our consolation, strength and fortitude as we grapple with this irreparable loss .
Sleep well, comrade! The task that you lived, laboured and died for shall be pursued with urgency and utmost vigor. Aluta continua! Vitoria a certa!
Former Editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-Chief, BOLAWOLE was also Managing Director/ Editor-in-Chief of The Westerner newsmagazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in the New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.
