MANDELA - 100 Years Ago Today 18/7/18
WORLD STATESMAN OF ALL AGES: NELSON MANDELA
WORLD STATESMAN OF ALL AGES: NELSON MANDELA
Tribute by Seye Adetunmbi, first written to mark 90th birthday anniversary of Madiba on 18/7/08
Not very many people sacrificed their private life and youth for the masses and earned the status of a role model for humanity. It was like an impossibility to unite the resentfully divided people of South Africa after centuries of governance characterised by apartheid and racial discrimination. Yet within five years, May 5th 1994 – June 1999 as the first democratically elected President of South Africa after a long walk to freedom, he was able to do what could be classified to be without a solution. No other mortal matched his record dead or alive. In a class of his own, the man I call Okanlomo agbaye (one in a trillion in the world). The man whose name is his resume because it says it all. Indeed, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela a.k.a. Madiba the honorary title given to him by the elders of his clan was the enigmatic man of destiny. Certainly his sojourn in life has a divine hand for God to have seen him through his amazing lifetime struggle to liberate his people after 27 years in prison and marked 90th anniversary and many years more in good health.
What else can one say about the Nobel Peace Prize winner who recorded so many firsts and perhaps one man that the whole world had written about for over the past 40 years more than any other person. The great Madiba scored another unique world status by being the first living person to witness the unveiling of his live statue in the Parliament Square and the first African to be so honoured among Europeans heroes of all ages in the likes of Churchill, Cromwell, Roosevelt and ironically the Afrikaner leader of early 20th century, Jan Smuts.
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Baba Madiba; the world’s Statesman & Mbeki; Mandela & wife Graca Makel
My tour of Soweto in 2006 brought me closer to get a feel of the history of the long journey to freedom by South Africans from 1886 and appreciate more and better the sacrifice made by Nelson Mandela and his colleagues in the dignifying struggle. Soweto is part of Johannesburg yet at the peak of apartheid and racial segregation, black natives/residents traveled by train to the main city and worked on contract; and on expiration they came back to their black enclave.
The high point of my adventure was on the famous Vilakazi Street where two great Nobel peace laureates Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu lived. Visiting Mandela Museum, the house in which he was arrested and jailed in 1962 the year I was born, was poignant. It was really satisfying for me touching his old shoes and clothes and took photograph in the bedroom where he was living before his long journey to freedom. While driving through the distinctive park in honor of students who lost their lives in demonstration against the racist government to reduce medium of teaching in the black community to Afrikana language, the memory of 1972 massacre in Soweto remained indelible. Stopover at Kliptown where multitude of South Africans gathered on June 26, 1955 to write their constitution under the auspices of African National Congress (ANC) also brought roles of Nelson Mandela into perspective. Madiba was said to be in the crowd that day, he was shielded from police arrest.
An imposing dome housing various inscriptions of the masses stating how they wished to be governed stood in the center of Kliptown Square in Soweto. People's constitution cast in stone include: There shall be equal human rights and security; All shall be equal before the law etc, it was an astonishing encounter for me. I had a flashback to Mr Stephe, a master degree holder in his late 50s or early 60s who was one of my father's colleagues at Ifaki Grammar School in the late 1960s. He was one of the native elites who had to leave South Africa for safety in Nigeria at the peak of the struggle. Regrettably, Baba Stephe like a host of others might not have seen the end of the long road to liberty after all. Recounting what he told my father when he saw him somewhere in Benin around 1976, several years after he had left Ifaki-Ekiti. When my father expressed his anxiety because of the state he found him on the need to slow down, he said by the time he dropped dead, there would be enough on him to bury him.
God remains awesome and unquestionable. For allowing such magnitude of cruelty of man to man in that part of Africa; the ways of almighty God will remain a mystery. Nevertheless, one thing is certain, without those experiences, of course the whole world would not have any cause to celebrate Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela even till after his transition.
Pa Mandela & Mama Queen at Buckingham Palace on 25/6/08
Pa Mandela the epitome of selflessness, the mortal symbol of love and the pinnacle of astuteness that humanity had been endowed with in the contemporary history, earned my admiration long time ago. Having inspired me so much, one way I opted to register my deep respect for the uncommon humble giant, a towering figure of strength, a colossus of history, the indisputable world’s statesman and perhaps the zenith of sage humanity had be blessed with relatively, was to name my first son after him. A man who through his verifiable unequaled deeds and utterances had been admitted by the whole world as courage, struggle, hope, peace, dignity, warmth, reconciliation, forgiveness and humility personified in modern history.
Mandela was born on July 18, 1918 to the royal family of Thembu and his father was Henry Mgadia Mandela the chief councilor to Thembu land’s acting paramount Chief David Dalindyebo. Madiba helped founded African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in 1944 and was the Secretary of ANC in 1948, ANCYL President in 1950, ANC Transvaal President in 1952, Deputy National President in 1952 and National President of ANC in 1991. He attended Methodist Boarding School and Forte Hare for bachelor of arts degree before he was expelled along with Oliver Tambo in 1940 for participating in students’ strike. He completed his degree by correspondence from Johannesburg, did article clerkship and enrolled for LLB at the University of Witwatersrand. In 1952 he was elected national volunteer-in-chief of the 1952 defiance campaign traversing the country organising resistance to discriminatory legislation which earned him suspended sentence and shortly after a banning order confining him to Johannesburg for six months. He and Tambo opened in South Africa the first black legal firm in 1952. The Supreme Court refused petition of Transvaal Law Society to strike out Mandela from the roll of attorneys.
In the 1950s he analysed Bantustan policy as political swindle and predicted mass removals, political persecutions and police terror. Was one of the accused in Treason Trial. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, he was detained in 1961 until he went underground to lead a campaign for new national convention and Umkkhonto we Sizwe (MK) the military wing of ANC emerged. In 1962 he went for military training in Algeria and arranged for other MK members. He was arrested on arrival for incitement and conducted his own defense. First jailed 5 years in November 1962 and later sentenced to live imprisonment in the Rivonia trial when charged with sabotage. In prison he ever compromised his political principles; refused remission of sentence offer in the 1970s and Botha’s offer freedom in 1980s. Significantly, shortly after his release on Sunday 11/2/90 Mandela and his delegation agreed to suspend armed struggle. He retired from public life in June 1999 and resided in his home town Qunu Transkei. This is a special salute to “Baba” Nelson Mandela, the pride of mankind.
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