Abraham Aderibigbe Adesanya (July
24, 1922 in Ijebu Igbo - 27 April
2008) was a Nigerian politician,
lawyer, activist, welfarist, aristocrat
and liberal progressive. He was the
son of a famous and powerful
traditional healer, the late Oloye
Ezekiel Adesanya aka Baba
Obu’keagbo who lived between the
19th and 20th centuries.
Education
Adesanya attended Ijebu Ode
Grammar School after which he
worked as a teacher before travelling
to United Kingdom to study law at the
then Holborn College of Law.
Early Political Life
In 1959, Adesanya returned to
Nigeria as a qualified lawyer and
joined the Action Group led by
Obafemi Awolowo. The same year, he
was nominated and eventually elected
to the defunct Western House of
Assembly to represent Ijebu Igbo
constituency in the December 12,
1959 House of Representatives
Election.
Having qualified as an ambassador of
the Action Group's core social
democratic ideals, he secured another
nomination to the second republic
Senate. He was said to have
preferred his senatorial appointment
to the Governorship ticket that was
originally offered him by the Unity
Party of Nigeria, a successor to the
Action Group. This principle was to be
further justified in the roles played
by him in the effort to re-define
Nigerian politics and Nigerian
democracy.
He was a religious Awoist. He led a
team of lawyers that defended Chief
Obafemi Awolowo against the
Nigerian Federal Government's
exaggerated charges of treason in
1962.
As a Leader and Activist
In the aftermath of the deaths of
Obafemi Awolowo and Adekunle
Ajasin, Adesanya assumed the
honorific title ' Asiwaju of
Yorubaland ' and simultaneously
became more active politically, allying
with Bola Ige (Ayo Adebanjo, Ganiyu
Dawodu, and Bola Tinubu to fight
their way to victory in six states of
the defunct Western region, with
their political party, Alliance for
Democracy (AD).
Later, Adesanya under the auspices of
Afenifere and the Yoruba council of
Elders, alongside others led a
congress of Yoruba elder-statesmen
through a congress that rose to
pronounce that the convocation of a
constitutional conference, where new
confederating terms would be
determined for the country, was
inevitable for the good of Nigerians.
Adesanya was the deputy leader of
National Democratic Coalition
(NADECO), a pro-democracy
movement formed in 1994.
Turbulence and victory
At the peak of military persecution,
many of the then pro-democracy
activists, including his leader in
NADECO, Chief Anthony Enahoro fled
the country on exile, but Abraham
Adesanya remained at home solidly
behind the Nigerian masses alongside
others like late Gani Fawehinmi, Femi
Falana, Olisa Agbakoba and a host of
others to achieve victory which came
gradually - first when IBB bowed out
of their way in 1993 - a period that
saw Adesanya acting as the
mouthpiece of Nigerians, persistently
condemning the General Ibrahim
Babangida’s (IBB) annulment of June
12 Presidential election won by late
Chief MKO Abiola and second, when
General Sanni Abacha attempted to
transform from a military head of
state to a civilian president - a period
Adesanya firmly stood his position as
a pro-democracy activist and a
progressively minded politician, siding
with Nigerians and ardently opposed
to Abacha’s ideas, and lastly when in
1999, democracy was eventually
ushered in. These feats saw him and
the group he led for five eventful
years rise to the international
limelight in reported news and
commentaries.
Late Abraham Adesanya, like many
other world class leaders also
suffered persecutions during his
political life on many fronts. For
instance, at his country home; he
suffered persecutions for not
accepting the governorship position
which his people in his native Ijebu
land had deemed more beneficial to
them than his personal choice of
senate. But history will find
justification in the fact that rather
than enforcing draconian laws as a
governor, reticent but tactful
campaigner Adesanya was more
interested in encouraging and
legislating friendly, home-cooked laws
for his people and the generality of
Nigerians - a people just emancipated
from the shackles of colonial rule and
two post colonial rule military
aberrations. On the leadership front,
his Yoruba and Afenifere leaderships
were heavily burdened by contentions
from his opponents’ tiny quarters, but
he left no one of them in doubt that
he was truly in charge with the strong
character of honesty and consistency
as-well-as pragmatic approach he
often adopted in handling issues.
On Tuesday 14 January 1997, his
uncompromising stance to the military
misrule led to an attempt on his life at
the behest of the then head of state,
General Sanni Abacha. Adesanya had
just left his law chambers on the
fateful day sitting at the back of his
car when an unknown team of
assailants (later unveiled to be
General Sanni Abacha's killer squad)
struck. The front and back screens of
his Mercedes Benz car were
shattered and the car seats
perforated by bullets from the
assailants' guns but he escaped
unhurt with his driver.[1] The car was
later transferred to a Lagos museum.
Illness and death
Before Adesanya later became
incapacitated by illness which
confined him to his Lagos Apapa
residence and made his role
appreciably gravitate to advisory on
important matters affecting Yoruba
and Afenifere only; the two
leadership caps he unarguably wore
till his death, his fame travelled wide
and far among Nigerians and non-
Nigerians for his pro-democracy
activities in Nigeria.
He died on the 27th of April 2008
while having lunch at the ripe age of
85.
Since his death, he has been
immortalised in several ways,
especially by the six South-Western
states of Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo,
Osun and Ekiti.

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