The Dr Alex Ekweme, , Nigeria’s Vice President at the Second Republic, was the Founding Father of what would have been this country’s truly national political party PDP, during General Abacha’s murderous regime. Since a tree has never made a forest in politics, Ekwueme needed some apostles, like-minded promoters of progress, defined as a party that was all-inclusive in many respects. I had an insider view, without being a card-carrying member, of the formation of the PDP through the late Chief Bola Ige.
At the risk of being accused of repeating myself, I knew Ige when he could be called child himself because he was the classmate of my eldest brother, the late Chief Sanu Sobowale. The two started and finished at Ibadan Grammar School the same year and both ended in Grade
1. My family was then based in Zaria, while the Ige family was in Kaduna. Among their classmates, Bola was the ‘Kaduna boy’; while Sanu was the ‘Zaria boy’. I first heard Latin being spoken when Ige came to our house with my brother in their final year in school. They both read law and joined the Action Group Youth Movement on the same day. They were in the progressive movement until my brother died in 1990. I have no doubt that my brother would have joined the G-34 which parades the most courageous Nigerian politicians ever and which was the nucleus of what became the PDP.
INTRODUCING THE GALLANT G-34.
“Courage is the rarest and most admirable of human attributes” by Ernest Hemingway, 1898-1961.
I have read loads of history; especially those demonstrating human courage by a few peoples, who risked everything (properties, limbs and lives) in order to save their fellow men from bondage. Nigeria’s G-34, led by Ekwueme, in 1998, exhibited bravery, bordering on suicide wish that should rank among any in history. They boldly asked General Abacha to leave and return the country to civil rule instead of attempting to perpetuate himself in office. Their petition was conveyed by the late Chief Solomon Lar who nobody expected would return from Aso Rock on that day. This is not the time to reproduce the letter written to Abacha. I have another fish to fry; and let me start by introducing the Courageous G-34. Here they are once again. I still tremble each time I see the list. I will glorify them all my life.