COMRADE Laoye Sanda was born in 1944 into a prominent family of Sanda dynasty in Ibadan. The period of his birth fell within the era of the Second World War, which commenced in 1939 and ended in 1945. Nigeria was no less affected by the war despite the factor of distance away from its epicenters in Europe and Asia.
The year of his birth was the very year that the radical students of the Kings College raged against the obnoxious directive by the colonial administration and the school authorities that the students should vacate their dormitories for the military officers to occupy. The students were charged to court to face legal intimidation. This action raised a lot of dust in the political landscape, forging alliance with different forces of like minds against the colonial administration. The students called for a meeting composed of students, trade unions, civil society groups and nationalists to chat on the way forward in discussing the immediate repression meted against the students and on the broad agenda of the struggle against colonial rule in the country. The meeting was attended by the chair of National Union of Teachers, Rev. Ransom Kuti, leaders of the New Nigeria Democratic Party in person of Herbert Macaulay and other participants drawn from Nigeria Youth Movement, professional lawyers and journalists. There was a unity of purpose in fighting the immediate cause of the students. The cloud was therefore tick in the mobilization to prosecute the struggle. This brought the struggle into a national focus and the coalition arising from the meeting was thereby transformed to a pan-Nigeria political party named National Council of Nigerians and Cameroons (NCNC) and this was led by Herbert Macaulay. The high point of the period was that resistance against colonial rule reached the climax than ever experienced in the political history of the country.
“The political environment of Ibadan where he was nurtured with that of his family no doubt had a way of influencing his politics later in life as an independent-minded person in pursuing the cause for socialism. This followed him through his elementary and high school at Ibadan Boys High School, Ibadan; where he started fraternizing with socialist cause by exchanging correspondences with friends (pen) in socialist countries to receive and read socialist literatures. He got admission to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1965 for a degree course to study mass communication but could not complete the programme before the commencement of the Civil War of 1967 – 1970.”
Shortly after this date in 1946, the Richard Constitution put in place meant to divide the ranks of the nationalists along ethnic line was challenged and resisted by NCNC. Rallies held across the country to mobilise against the constitution. The party sent delegates to Britain to express their opposition to the Constitution as not representing the people’s aspiration. The delegates composed amongst others Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe, Michael Imoudu, Funmilayo Ransom-Kuti, Oged Macaulay, etc. Ibadan where Comrade Laoye Sanda was borne was a beehive of political activism. Adegoke Adelabu was associated with the politics of NCNC in Ibadan where he held sway in dominating party politics of the most populated city in West Africa; even when the region was being controlled by Action Group led by Obafemi Awolowo since 1951. On ideological ground, Adegoke Adelabu apart from being a leading member of NCNC was on the left of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe (NCNC leader), the very reason he had cause to grind with both men at different times of his political career.
“It was in the course of being a student at the University of Ibadan that his path crossed with that of Comrade Ola Oni, a lecturer of Marxist political economy in the institution for five years before his (Sanda) arrival. They became very close beyond the relationship between a student and a teacher; but one that had much to do with political and ideological relationship of subscribing to a socialist cause. The relationship lasted till the end of their lives.”
The political contestation of the period corresponded to the growing period of Comrade Laoye Sanda as a toddler. He was also from a political family which means the political events of the period were not without the involvement of his father. His father Hon. E. A. Sanda, a trader and one of the educated elites in Ibadan as at 1944 when the first Ibadan National Authority was constituted and divided into sixty-two quarters meant to produce the same number of representatives that were to work with the Olubadan-in-Council. Sanda Senior was not only one of the representatives elected for this purpose but also one of the fifteen chosen amongst the 62 representatives to constitute Advisory Committee to work directly with the Olubadan-in-Council. He later became a councilor in 1952 in the course of the transition from colonial rule to self-government and he was one of the three councilors so honoured with an “Honorary Officer of the Civil Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire”. A very admirable honour highly prized at the time both at home and abroad. Comrade Laoye Sanda father was rich and also influential politically. His estates across Ibadan landscape are testimony for this. Such bourgeois family background Comrade Laoye Sanda shared with Comrade Ola Oni and people continue to wonder why both esteemed Comrades chose to commit class suicide than to follow the bandwagon of pursuing their parents’ footsteps?
The political environment of Ibadan where he was nurtured with that of his family no doubt had a way of influencing his politics later in life as an independent-minded person in pursuing the cause for socialism. This followed him through his elementary and high school at Ibadan Boys High School, Ibadan; where he started fraternizing with socialist cause by exchanging correspondences with friends (pen) in socialist countries to receive and read socialist literatures. He got admission to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1965 for a degree course to study mass communication but could not complete the programme before the commencement of the Civil War of 1967 – 1970. So students from Nigeria side of the war had to be relocated to other schools outside Biafra enclave. One of the problems he had in changing to other school was that no school was offering mass communication at degree level apart from UNN. The other problem was that he was in the third year of his study while only those in the final year were given preference to relocate to complete their courses in other universities without a loss of academic session. Those in the lower classes were to start from the scratch. This could be disappointing but it was a case of beggar having no choice and surely one of the sacrifices that Comrade Laoye Sanda had to make as consequences of the Nigerian Civil War. He thereby gained admission to the University of Ibadan where he studied political science and graduated in 1972.
“By 1975, Comrade Laoye Sanda joined The Polytechnic Ibadan and taught in the Department of General Studies and Public Administration for over four decades; to become a Principal Senior Lecturer before his retirement. His course was a must for all students from other departments in the school. Apart from being a lecturer, he also impacted politically on the lives of not a few students that he raised and influenced with socialist ideology that himself committed his entire life to.”
On the issue of the Civil War, Comrade Laoye Sanda was unapologetic in being on the side of Biafra. His only regret was on how the war was badly prosecuted by Biafran’s leadership. His position is predicated on Biafrans being on the receiving end of oppression in the constitutional arrangement of a federation that was lopsided.
It was in the course of being a student at the University of Ibadan that his path crossed with that of Comrade Ola Oni, a lecturer of Marxist political economy in the institution for five years before his (Sanda) arrival. They became very close beyond the relationship between a student and a teacher; but one that had much to do with political and ideological relationship of subscribing to a socialist cause. The relationship lasted till the end of their lives. The role of organizing the Ola Oni’s group rested on Comrade Laoye Sanda from this period. As a student, he was the first General Secretary of the Patriotic Youth Movement of Nigeria put in place by Ola Oni’s students group at Ibadan before being taken over by the radical students group at the national level. The group was charged to spread socialist cause throughout Universities and Colleges across the country. He was a pioneer member of Marxist Socialist Movement (a student group), the first of its kind in any University campus in the country. He was already part of the Ola Oni group in the course of their intervention in Agbekoya’s revolt of 1969. He played important role in it too. As Ebenezer Babatope, author and political writer put it, that the history of the struggle of the students in the 1970s could hardly be completed without the prominent roles of the likes of Comrades Laoye Sanda, G. G. Darah, Solomon Agunbiade, Paul Nwagbafor, Jim Adesida, Jonathan Zwingina, Olu Adegboro, etc. who were being referred to as Ola Oni’s boys. They brought flesh to the spirit of socialist cause as being advocated and propounded by Comrade Ola Oni at the University of Ibadan.
By 1975, Comrade Laoye Sanda joined The Polytechnic Ibadan and taught in the Department of General Studies and Public Administration for over four decades; to become a Principal Senior Lecturer before his retirement. His course was a must for all students from other departments in the school. Apart from being a lecturer, he also impacted politically on the lives of not a few students that he raised and influenced with socialist ideology that himself committed his entire life to. He was always available for the radical students in Marxist Socialist Youth Movement and Black Nationalist Movement to serve as facilitator in their regular educational programmes and also served as their patron as this was a condition for registration of any club to exist. In this regard, he helped to produce many generations of student activists that blossomed as political activists and politicians thereafter schooling. To mention but a few that fall within this category, they include, Rauf Aregbesola, Adodo, Gbenga Awosode, Femi Aborisade, Ayo Arogundade, Remi Ogunalana, Bimbo Daniyan, Kunle Bakare, Bola Agbeleye, Omolere Balogun, Biodun Olamosu, Victor Adebamgbe, Femi Agbeleye, Phillip, Johnson Fayemi, Olowo Ake, etc.
Before I got admission to the school, The Polytechnic Ibadan, Comrade Laoye Sanda was sacked in 1978 along with other comrades, students, lecturers and administrators from other universities across the country. Their sack was predicated on students protesting against 300percent increase in the cost of feeding. This led to the unprecedented action of the students across the country that made the government frightened of its survival. They were charged by the Olusegun Obasanjo led military junta for initiating or influencing the students’ crisis known as ‘Ali-must-go’ (students calling for the sack of Col Ali – minister for education) and the affected teachers were alleged of not teaching what they were being paid to teach the students put under their care.
“Comrade Laoye Sanda has been a reliable confidant of Balarabe Musa in reinventing PRP in Oyo State in the course of the Fourth Republic. This way of the Ola Oni group partisanship in politics distinguished it from other small socialist groups as they had no tolerance for sectarianism while trying to work on mass line basis; with the hope of strengthening and preparing their organization for future challenges of social change along revolutionary line.”
The particular witch-hunt by the government affected not a few scholars and administrators that include the student leaders and president of the National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS), Segun Okeowo, Appah (students’ leader from UNICAL), Comrades Ola Oni, Akin Ojo, Omafume Onoge, Bade Onimode, Wale Adeniran, Edwin Madunagu, Benedicta Madunagu, O. P. Sogbetun, Ebenezer Babatope and Laoye Sanda. Others that include Professors Ade Ajayi and Iya Abubakar were removed from their positions as the Vice Chancellors of the University of Lagos and Ahmadu Belo University, Zaria respectively. This was also the case with a radical journalist, Bassey Ekpo Bassey, relieved of his employment with Chronicle newspaper owned by Cross River State government. His offence was in writing ‘inciting article’ in supporting the students’ cause.
There is a sense in the narrative given by the government as reason for sacking these socialist activists as Obasanjo led government felt threatened by their activities inside and outside the campuses; as they generated public opinion against the government. This could account for why the panel instituted to investigate into the 1978 ‘Ali-Must-Go’ students’ protest that started its first sitting in Lagos was already calling out names of the lecturers in Ibadan and this exposed the impatience of the panel in carrying out the hatchet job of Obasanjo military junta in fulfilling the script handed over to them to follow. But more importantly, the group was well organized in positioning itself in the coming transition programme towards the second republic. The government was well aware of this and was not disposed to it, unlike when the government was led by Murtala Mohammed. So the clamp down could not be dissociated with the general housecleaning exercise of Obasanjo to uproot the left leaning legacies of his predecessor.
The sacking of their members did not stop the Socialist Workers Party led by Ola Oni to go on with their programme and activities to intervene in the second republic politics. But the government refused to register the party despite the huge support they had across the country. This informed how those members in the West collaborated with Unity Party of Nigeria led by Chief Obafemi Awolowo, while their members in the North were to work with Peoples Redemption Party. I learnt Rauf Aregbesola worked with Balarabe Musa in Kaduna while Baba Omojola worked with the Kano branch of the party. The relationship with UPN later flopped and this informed their total commitment to PRP.
“On not a few occasions in the course of the struggles, Comrade Ola Oni that was the face of the ideological and radical movement, was arrested and detained for his oppositional stand against the oppressive military rulers. The situation became more severe and precarious for the activists. In the later days of the military rule, they were desperate and therefore did not mind to kill anyone that stand on their way. A lot of Nigerians were killed in that process, not a few put behind the bars, while some escaped into exile.”
Comrade Laoye Sanda has been a reliable confidant of Balarabe Musa in reinventing PRP in Oyo State in the course of the Fourth Republic. This way of the Ola Oni group partisanship in politics distinguished it from other small socialist groups as they had no tolerance for sectarianism while trying to work on mass line basis; with the hope of strengthening and preparing their organization for future challenges of social change along revolutionary line.
So, my set of 1980, in studying Insurance resumed together with Comrade Laoye Sanda at The Polytechnic Ibadan upon being granted relieve by the court. It took the intervention of the new executives of ASUU presided over by Biodun Jeyifo to fight for the cause of their members. Other human rights lawyers in persons of Oludare Aguda and Aka Basorun based in Ibadan and Lagos respectively committed themselves to this cause for the affected victims to get justice. At the time of their sack, each person had to fend for themselves. Laoye Sanda became a project manager in the company owned by one of his uncles. He earned a living there for the rest of the period of their sack before he returned back to classroom to continue his job. As a matter of fact, the family did not want him to go back to teaching. This was predicated on the fact that Sanda’s uncle, a business mogul in Lagos who enjoyed the benevolence of Sanda’s father early in life wanted to reciprocate such gesture in helping Comrade Laoye Sanda from the challenges that the withdrawal of his employment caused him. This was seen as a viable opportunity to help him by entrenching his feet on the sound of business world and made him to set his back to the world of scholarship and academics; possibly for reason of what he passed through in the hands of the government.
Comrade Sanda resisted such overture and claimed to be a scholar and that he would be a scholar for the rest of his life. This was a testimony to the maximum pressure from the family circle on Laoye Sanda to abandon the struggle. This became more intensified at the period when he wanted to return back to the classroom to continue his teaching profession. His senior brother, A. O. Sanda, established academics well known as a sociologist of note and professor of public administration was not also on his side. He was on record having disagreement with Comrades Ola Oni and Omafume Onoge for leading his brother astray with their infectious ideology on him.
Comrade Laoye Sanda along with other comrades as a collective played active role in the anti-military protests in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Such anti-military struggle was at a climax in the 1990s when the presidential election result won by a businessman, MKO Abiola was annulled by Ibrahim Babangida military junta. The June 12 movement resulting from this took its name from the election that took place on June 12, 1993. Four regimes were consumed by the movement and these include the successive governments led by Ibrahim Babangida, Earnest Sonekan, Sanni Abacha and Abdusallam Abubakar; that had to abdicate power by virtue of the maximum pressure put on them to do so reluctantly. MKO Abiola that stood as the symbol of the struggle himself was sacrificed for it, as he was poisoned while in detention for refusing to renounce the mandate freely given to him on June 12, 1993. Sanni Abacha was also said to have died in the same circumstances by the forces that believed his death would pave way in resolving the political quagmire that he did cause the nation.
“Upon the demise of Comrade Ola Oni, the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party (later named Socialist Revolutionary Vanguard) rested on his shoulder with Baba Omojola. The way both traversed across the country to attend meetings called for advancing the cause of socialism are testimony of their unrepentant commitment to the cause. I attended some of these meetings with them in Warri, Benin and Abuja. Socialists and other socialist groups are going to miss Comrade Laoye Sanda who has been involved in the struggle for socialism since his youth without looking back and carried the cross and banner of socialism for the rest of his life.”
On not a few occasions in the course of the struggles, Comrade Ola Oni that was the face of the ideological and radical movement, was arrested and detained for his oppositional stand against the oppressive military rulers. The situation became more severe and precarious for the activists. In the later days of the military rule, they were desperate and therefore did not mind to kill anyone that stand on their way. A lot of Nigerians were killed in that process, not a few put behind the bars, while some escaped into exile. Victims of state terrorism killed include Alfred Rewane, Kudirat Abiola, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Bagauda Kaltho, Shola Omoshola, etc, Also the undemocratic forces promoted by Lamidi Adedibu and Alao Arisekola in Ibadan under the direction of the Abacha military command launched terror on the people and many people lost their lives as a result of this. The mass of the poor people at the receiving end of the oppression in Ibadan had to fight back on May Day 1998 to show their anger against the repressive military government in power and their civilian collaborators in Ibadan politics. The government in turn ransacked the leading members of the movement that include Ola Oni, Lam Adesina, Femi Adeoti, Buliaminu Akanji, Teju Jaiyeola, Tajudeen lawal, Akeem Adisa, Musibau Adebayo, Akeem Lamila; and caused to be put behind bars in Iyaganku police detention and Agodi prison for 42 days before their bail for freedom was perfected.
Comrade Laoye Sanda was a socialist humanist par excellence. His thoughts were always on the struggle for emancipation and how to go about it. He was always anxious to know the state of the students’ movement and on how to revive it from its slumber. His discussions with me used to be how to get old socialist literatures being republished and back in the bookshops for the youths of today to get them back into reading. This he identified as the factor for the dearth of ideological vacuum now in place and he promised to help in this direction for the rest of his life. He credited groups that have been able to produce regular socialist tabloids and he showed interest to contribute to such project. He was such a comrade that would want to know about one’s personal life and even gave contacts of his personal friends to help on matters like getting a job. He indulged in giving out gift (or alms) freely to beggars that asked for it and others not asking for it; as he was very generous to share part of his resources with family members and other friends in need.
On retirement and before then, he got appointments into the governing boards of The Polytechnic Ibadan, the new Oyo State University of Technology, and Environmental and Climate Change agency, all being institutions owned by Oyo State where he served dutifully well in displaying his social commitment to the cause of the masses. But he would tell his close associates the money he realized from such assignments and would be ready to commit this to the cause of socialism that was a priority to him.
Upon the demise of Comrade Ola Oni, the leadership of the Socialist Workers Party (later named Socialist Revolutionary Vanguard) rested on his shoulder with Baba Omojola. The way both traversed across the country to attend meetings called for advancing the cause of socialism are testimony of their unrepentant commitment to the cause. I attended some of these meetings with them in Warri, Benin and Abuja. Socialists and other socialist groups are going to miss Comrade Laoye Sanda who has been involved in the struggle for socialism since his youth without looking back and carried the cross and banner of socialism for the rest of his life.
It is gratifying to note that our esteemed Comrade Laoye Sanda is leaving behind for us a compendium reference book on Pan-Africanists’ contributions to knowledge, professions, science and technology but advocates in the over a thousand page book that all such contributions would be useful and impacted on the working people in advancing humanity only with socialist world in place. His contributions in his weekly column in the defunct Daily Sketch for many years, is capable of forming other volumes of a book on the issue of heroes and heroines.
Revolutionary salute Comrade Laoye Sanda, you’re worthy to be praised and appreciated as we are all proud of you. Rest in peace.
