Osoba
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Jibrin Ibrahim
May 16, 2026, 8:26:16 AM (17 hours ago) May 16
to 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
Celebrating a Mentor: Comrade Segun Osoba
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 15th May 2026
Yesterday, we lost a comrade, mentor, friend and teacher, Dr Ṣẹ́gun
Ọṣọbá. He was a patriot and socialist who was deeply committed to
Nigeria. He was 92 years old and passed on peacefully at his Ijẹbu-Ode
residence yesterday morning. I last met Dr Osoba in 2015 when I
attended his 80th birthday celebration in Ijebu Ode in 2015. Dr.
Osoba, not the former governor of Ogun State, had his career teaching
History at the University of Ife, and devoted his life to training and
the motivating generations of progressive students into radical
politics. To mark his 80th birthday, the Coalition for a New Nigeria
organised a debate on the theme, “The Struggle for a New Nigerian
Society: Retrospect and Prospects”. In his controversial book My
Watch, General Obasanjo had described Segun Osoba as the late (sic)
sincere social critique. Sincere he was, quiet too after his
retirement but very much alive at that time until his time came
yesterday.
The celebration was an exciting opportunity for reflections on his
contributions to building a progressive Nigeria. Trust comrade Osoba
to spoil a party. He refused to cut his birthday cake. He explained he
had never celebrated his birthday nor cut a cake throughout his life
and he will not change at eighty. There is nothing in a birthday he
explained, it’s just another day in your life, which will end in
death. We cut the cake and ate it anyway, but could not dare sing
“Happy Birthday.” Comrade Osoba is best known for the minority report
he and Dr. Bala Usman wrote as part of the 49 “wise men” of the
Constitution Drafting Committee charged by General Murtala Mohammed to
write a new constitution for Nigeria in 1975/76. I recall that as
students, we had tried to launch the minority Constitution in Sabon
Gari, Zaria but we were tear-gassed and beaten up by the police for
supporting the “wrong” draft constitution.
Segun Osoba was a 1959 graduate of the University of Ibadan and
obtained a UNESCO fellowship to do his doctorate at the Moscow State
University. He taught at Ife from 1967 to 1991 and was one of the
first to popularise Marxist methodology thus helping to make Ife one
of the first hubs of radical thinking and student unionism in the
Nigeria of the 1970s and 1980s. I was a frequent visitor to Ife at
that time and greatly benefitted from his mentorship.
As Femi Falana explained at the event, most of his “students”, like
him, were not usually registered for his formal courses but were young
people bored to death by their own teachers, and who would audit
Osoba’s classes and public debates for critical analysis and
inspiration. Those of us who benefitted from his mentorship have
enormous respect for his knowledge, humility, total devotion to
scholarship and above all his contempt for Nigeria’s successive
decadent ruling classes. The decadence of the ruling classes was based
essentially on their focus on using power for individual profit
thereby setting the process of the development of mega corruption.
The keynote address at the workshop was given by Professor Toye
Olorode who reviewed the great difficulties the Nigerian progressive
movement has had in creating opportunities to transform Nigeria for
the better. The revolutionary path has not worked because of the
difficulties of establishing an effective vanguard party to galvanise
the struggle and create traction for change. The revolutionaries who
decided to take the short court of joining bourgeois politics ended up
as turn coats who betrayed our ideals he lamented. Olorode appreciated
the fact that Osoba always opposed the short cut path to revolutionary
change and devoted his life to improving ideological clarity.
Segun Osoba is respected as a sharp historian and social scientist who
carried out profound analysis of changing social structure and classes
in Nigeria. Rather than mouth the struggle between the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie as reproduced in Marxist theory, he studied the real
social structure in Nigerian society and provided context to emergent
class forces. He did not mouth Marxism by rote, he understood the
methodology and used it to analyse his society. He always inspired his
students to believe that intellectual work has a purpose, to improve
the lives and livelihoods of the masses. He has a good sense of humour
and in his days in Ife often held court in the staff club exposing,
castigating and ridiculing Nigeria’s decadent ruling class.
As my good friend Prof Ibrahim Abdallah has argued, we remain blessed
as students of Nigerian political economy to have read Osoba’s three
key interconnected essays: “Ideological Trends in the Nigerian
National Liberation Movement”; “The Nigerian Power Elite, 1952-65”;
and “The Deepening Crisis of the Nigerian National Bourgeoisie.” They
paint an excellent portrait of how the Nigerian ruling class derailed
and failed to follow a pathway that could have lead nationhood,
emancipation and development. These three essays appeared in Ibadan;
African Social Studies: A Radical Reader; and Review of African
Political Economy. They were basic reading in a lot of the courses I
taught in Ahmadu Bello University.
In his response to friends and comrades at the Ijebu Ode 80th
anniversary event, Dr Segun Osoba drew attention to the legacy of
substandard education, corrupt civil service and oppressive security
apparatus that the British left for Nigeria. The Nigerian power elite
that took over from the British was too focused on primitive
accumulation and in fighting, and only worsened the political culture
they inherited from the British. It is therefore not surprising that
we currently have an excessive level of superstitious belief among
Nigerians. One example he gave was that in 2011, many of those who
voted for Goodluck Jonathan did so with the superstitious belief that
by so doing, Goodluck will spread to Nigerian voters. Today, most
Nigerians are shell shocked by the terrible choice they made in 2011,
he explained. For Dr. Osoba, excessive belief in the spiritual is
blocking the critical faculties of Nigerians and making the promotion
of progressive politics very difficult. Many of the comrades at the
meeting are ageing but it was good to see so many friends who have
struggled virtually all their lives to create a better Nigeria and
leave their country better than they found it. There are fewer such
people among the younger generation and in a sense, this is the real
challenge of contemporary Nigeria. Too many among the young are
focused on the very narrow domain of crass materialism. They lack the
idealism and passion that is so important in motivating society for
progressive change.
Long live comrade Segun Osoba. I commiserate with his family,
community, comrades, students, friends, and colleagues. May his life
continue to be a blessing for the Nigeria he loved so passionately.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 15th May 2026
Yesterday, we lost a comrade, mentor, friend and teacher, Dr Ṣẹ́gun
Ọṣọbá. He was a patriot and socialist who was deeply committed to
Nigeria. He was 92 years old and passed on peacefully at his Ijẹbu-Ode
residence yesterday morning. I last met Dr Osoba in 2015 when I
attended his 80th birthday celebration in Ijebu Ode in 2015. Dr.
Osoba, not the former governor of Ogun State, had his career teaching
History at the University of Ife, and devoted his life to training and
the motivating generations of progressive students into radical
politics. To mark his 80th birthday, the Coalition for a New Nigeria
organised a debate on the theme, “The Struggle for a New Nigerian
Society: Retrospect and Prospects”. In his controversial book My
Watch, General Obasanjo had described Segun Osoba as the late (sic)
sincere social critique. Sincere he was, quiet too after his
retirement but very much alive at that time until his time came
yesterday.
The celebration was an exciting opportunity for reflections on his
contributions to building a progressive Nigeria. Trust comrade Osoba
to spoil a party. He refused to cut his birthday cake. He explained he
had never celebrated his birthday nor cut a cake throughout his life
and he will not change at eighty. There is nothing in a birthday he
explained, it’s just another day in your life, which will end in
death. We cut the cake and ate it anyway, but could not dare sing
“Happy Birthday.” Comrade Osoba is best known for the minority report
he and Dr. Bala Usman wrote as part of the 49 “wise men” of the
Constitution Drafting Committee charged by General Murtala Mohammed to
write a new constitution for Nigeria in 1975/76. I recall that as
students, we had tried to launch the minority Constitution in Sabon
Gari, Zaria but we were tear-gassed and beaten up by the police for
supporting the “wrong” draft constitution.
Segun Osoba was a 1959 graduate of the University of Ibadan and
obtained a UNESCO fellowship to do his doctorate at the Moscow State
University. He taught at Ife from 1967 to 1991 and was one of the
first to popularise Marxist methodology thus helping to make Ife one
of the first hubs of radical thinking and student unionism in the
Nigeria of the 1970s and 1980s. I was a frequent visitor to Ife at
that time and greatly benefitted from his mentorship.
As Femi Falana explained at the event, most of his “students”, like
him, were not usually registered for his formal courses but were young
people bored to death by their own teachers, and who would audit
Osoba’s classes and public debates for critical analysis and
inspiration. Those of us who benefitted from his mentorship have
enormous respect for his knowledge, humility, total devotion to
scholarship and above all his contempt for Nigeria’s successive
decadent ruling classes. The decadence of the ruling classes was based
essentially on their focus on using power for individual profit
thereby setting the process of the development of mega corruption.
The keynote address at the workshop was given by Professor Toye
Olorode who reviewed the great difficulties the Nigerian progressive
movement has had in creating opportunities to transform Nigeria for
the better. The revolutionary path has not worked because of the
difficulties of establishing an effective vanguard party to galvanise
the struggle and create traction for change. The revolutionaries who
decided to take the short court of joining bourgeois politics ended up
as turn coats who betrayed our ideals he lamented. Olorode appreciated
the fact that Osoba always opposed the short cut path to revolutionary
change and devoted his life to improving ideological clarity.
Segun Osoba is respected as a sharp historian and social scientist who
carried out profound analysis of changing social structure and classes
in Nigeria. Rather than mouth the struggle between the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie as reproduced in Marxist theory, he studied the real
social structure in Nigerian society and provided context to emergent
class forces. He did not mouth Marxism by rote, he understood the
methodology and used it to analyse his society. He always inspired his
students to believe that intellectual work has a purpose, to improve
the lives and livelihoods of the masses. He has a good sense of humour
and in his days in Ife often held court in the staff club exposing,
castigating and ridiculing Nigeria’s decadent ruling class.
As my good friend Prof Ibrahim Abdallah has argued, we remain blessed
as students of Nigerian political economy to have read Osoba’s three
key interconnected essays: “Ideological Trends in the Nigerian
National Liberation Movement”; “The Nigerian Power Elite, 1952-65”;
and “The Deepening Crisis of the Nigerian National Bourgeoisie.” They
paint an excellent portrait of how the Nigerian ruling class derailed
and failed to follow a pathway that could have lead nationhood,
emancipation and development. These three essays appeared in Ibadan;
African Social Studies: A Radical Reader; and Review of African
Political Economy. They were basic reading in a lot of the courses I
taught in Ahmadu Bello University.
In his response to friends and comrades at the Ijebu Ode 80th
anniversary event, Dr Segun Osoba drew attention to the legacy of
substandard education, corrupt civil service and oppressive security
apparatus that the British left for Nigeria. The Nigerian power elite
that took over from the British was too focused on primitive
accumulation and in fighting, and only worsened the political culture
they inherited from the British. It is therefore not surprising that
we currently have an excessive level of superstitious belief among
Nigerians. One example he gave was that in 2011, many of those who
voted for Goodluck Jonathan did so with the superstitious belief that
by so doing, Goodluck will spread to Nigerian voters. Today, most
Nigerians are shell shocked by the terrible choice they made in 2011,
he explained. For Dr. Osoba, excessive belief in the spiritual is
blocking the critical faculties of Nigerians and making the promotion
of progressive politics very difficult. Many of the comrades at the
meeting are ageing but it was good to see so many friends who have
struggled virtually all their lives to create a better Nigeria and
leave their country better than they found it. There are fewer such
people among the younger generation and in a sense, this is the real
challenge of contemporary Nigeria. Too many among the young are
focused on the very narrow domain of crass materialism. They lack the
idealism and passion that is so important in motivating society for
progressive change.
Long live comrade Segun Osoba. I commiserate with his family,
community, comrades, students, friends, and colleagues. May his life
continue to be a blessing for the Nigeria he loved so passionately.
Professor Jibrin Ibrahim
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja
Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17
Michael Afolayan
May 16, 2026, 4:45:50 PM (9 hours ago) May 16
to 'chidi opara reports' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
Wow, this is such a great reflection on a life completely devoted to serving humanity. Even as non-students of history, none of us would fail to notice the colossal presence of the "radical" public intellectual we all called "Dr. Segun Osoba" on the campus of Great Ife of the 1970s - the age of true renaissance in a Nigerian academia. With the likes of Osoba, Olorode, Jeifo, Darah, Elujoba, the campus was saturated with radical thinkers cum marxist scholars. It enriched the culture and atmosphere of the campus life. No doubt, Prof. Osoba has left a vacuum that cannot be filled in the life of our nation. May his legacy outlive him. Thanks for the write-up, Prof. Jibrin Ibrahim!
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Dr. Oohay
May 16, 2026, 6:36:32 PM (7 hours ago) May 16
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Perhaps, nothing wrong with RADICAL thinking as long it AIN’T an ism. For example, I believe in SCIENCE, BUT I don’t believe in SCIENTism; the latter means dogmatism. Marxism AIN’T an answer. Marx (an ex-Hegelian) simply turned Hegelianism into Marxism. Marx (an influential and mesmerizing “philosopher”/“economist”/“sociologist” apparently failed but famous in each of these disciplines in question. His rhetoric very powerful/seductive but very misleading. In graduate school and during independent studies especially at the doctoral and postdoctoral levels, my childhood heroes (such as Che Guevara, who met death in Bolivia) and Tai Solarin, the beloved “capitalist”/proprietor of his OWN school) started to bore me intensively. Phenomenology via “mereology” (what I call “mereotics” won me over. I became intensively interested in Saussure’s “deconstructive” linguistics which enabled me to encounter or question Derrida more energetically. I see Derrida’s deconstruction as a one trick pony but very useful…. Abstract math, my other love ….
May all who die (who for better or worse) lived more or less creatively) rest in peace.
Oohay
Oohay
Oohay
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