Anxiety Over Enahoro’s Health
There was anxiety among close associates of elder statesman and nationalist, Pa Anthony Enahoro today as news filtered in that he is in a critical state.
Unconfirmed report had it that he was dead but sources close to his family confirmed that he was not dead but in a critical state.
Frantic calls to some of his children did not yield result but a close associate, Wale Okuniyi, confirmed that he was in a hospital in Benin, the Edo State capital.
The seriousness of his health might have fuelled the widespread rumour that he might have passed on.
Another close friend of the Enahoros, Alfred Ilenre could also not confirm the rumour but explained that the elder statesman has been sick for some time and that he is in the hospital.
Another associate of Enahoro, Comrade Adewale Joseph, Chairman, Amuwo-Odofin Local Government Area, also declined to confirm the rumour, saying he has not heard anything.
A source in Benin revealed that it is only the Oba of Benin, Omonoba Edo Akpolopolor Erediauwa that can announce the death of a titled chief like Pa Anthony Enahoro and that until the palace announces it, nobody could do so, so as not to incur the wrath of the oba.
Pa Enahoro was the nationalist who moved the historical motion for the country’s independence in 1957.
He was a veteran political thinker, nationalist, politician, social democrat, pre-eminent member of his generation of the Nigerian political class, courageous fighter and dialectician in political class. He was a principal advocate of the Mid-West.
At the age of 26 in 1949, he was already a top hand in West African Pilot, Zik’s newspaper then. By the time he was 28, he had come into political limelight.
The highest point of his political career was when he and the likes of Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, Ayo Adebanjo and Commodore Ebitu Ukiwe formed the Committee for Unity and Understanding, CUU, to campaign against the handling of the political transition programme of General Ibrahim Babangida. Though Babangida banned the group later.
The lowest point, however, was when he, at the age of 72, was forced to go into exile. It was at the height of Abacha’s misrule and the late head of state was not ready to brook any opposition or criticism no matter how constructive.
—Yomi Obaditan/Benin & Yisa Jamiu
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