Solarin
By Edwin Madunagu
Nigeria’s 2019 elections, particularly the recent governorship contests in Kogi and Bayelsa states, have forcefully brought back a prediction which the late Tai Solarin made about 40 years ago in the aftermath of the 1979 elections. Of course, recalling this prediction is also recalling my response to it at the time. I was then 33.
It is appropriate to begin any story I might wish to tell here by introducing Tai Solarin to young Nigerians who were not born when the prediction was made. This set of Nigerians now constitutes the majority of the Nigerian population. Tai Solarin was a prominent Nigerian male from Southwestern Nigeria who was a secular humanist and educationist, but whose humanism was exceptional because it was all-round (that is, in thought as well as in action), consistent, courageous and well-informed.
