AIYEKOOTO : PA REUBEN FASORANTI: THE PASSING OF A CENTURY 1926–2026

A Tribute to an Omoluabi, an Awoist and a Custodian of Yoruba Political Memory

The passing of Pa Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti at the age of 100 is more than the death of an elder statesman.

It is the closing of a chapter.

With him, Nigeria—and particularly Yorubaland—has lost one of the last living links with a political generation that believed public life could be an instrument of service, education a weapon against ignorance, and government a solemn responsibility to the people.

Pa Fasoranti belonged to a generation that did not merely hear about Chief Obafemi Awolowo; they encountered his ideas, lived through his politics and absorbed a political philosophy that placed education, social welfare, justice and responsible government at the centre of public life.

He became an Awoist not as a fashionable political identity but as a lifelong commitment.

His journey began in education.

Fasoranti became a teacher, school administrator and principal, devoting years to the formation of young minds. He later served as Commissioner for Finance in the old Ondo State under Governor Adekunle Ajasin between 1979 and 1983, when the administration sought to translate the progressive philosophy of the Awolowo tradition into practical programmes of education, healthcare, rural development and social welfare.

But the true measure of a man is often revealed when the privileges of office disappear.

The military coup of 1983 ended the Second Republic. The political generation to which Fasoranti belonged was pushed out of government. Yet he did not abandon the principles that had brought him into public life.

When the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election plunged Nigeria into another national crisis, Fasoranti became part of the struggle for the restoration of democracy. He stood with those who resisted military authoritarianism and accepted the risks that came with doing so. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in mourning his death, specifically recalled his role in the pro-democracy struggle and the dangers he faced under military rule.

That part of his life deserves to be remembered.

Democracy did not arrive in Nigeria as a gift.

Men and women struggled, suffered, were detained, threatened and, in some cases, gave their lives for it.

Pa Fasoranti was among those who remained on the side of democratic government.

He subsequently became one of the principal custodians of the Afenifere tradition and one of the most respected elder voices in Yoruba political affairs. His commitment to true federalism, restructuring, social justice and a more balanced Nigerian federation remained central to his public interventions.

But perhaps the most important thing about Pa Fasoranti was not the offices he occupied.

It was the moral authority that accompanied his age.

He lived long enough to witness almost the entire modern political history of Nigeria.

He was born under colonial rule.

He witnessed independence.

He lived through the First Republic.

He experienced the turbulence of the Civil War era.

He saw military governments rise and fall.

He witnessed the struggle for June 12.

He saw democracy return.

He watched successive generations of political leaders emerge.

And he remained, into his hundredth year, a voice in the conversation about the future of Yorubaland and Nigeria.

That is an extraordinary historical vantage point.

But longevity alone does not create legacy.

What one does with longevity does.

And Fasoranti used his century to serve.

His life also contained personal tragedies that would have broken lesser men. He lost his wife in 1991. In 2019, his daughter, Funke Olakunrin, was murdered by gunmen along the Benin-Ore road. Yet he continued to engage public life and speak about the security and future of Nigeria. His endurance in the face of private grief became another dimension of his character.

This is where the Yoruba concept of Omoluabi becomes relevant.

An Omoluabi is not simply a person who speaks good Yoruba, belongs to a particular political organisation or occupies an important position.

It is a person whose character gives credibility to his words.

Pa Fasoranti’s life reminds us that character is itself a form of public capital.

He may have had political disagreements with people who shared his ideological ancestry. Indeed, the later history of Afenifere revealed profound disagreements about leadership, political alliances and the direction of Yoruba politics. Those disagreements should not be erased from history. His tenure as Afenifere leader was itself marked by internal divisions over the organisation’s direction.

Nor should those disagreements diminish the value of his contribution.

A mature civilisation must be able to honour its elders without turning them into saints.

Pa Fasoranti was a human being, a political actor and a product of his generation.

He had his convictions.

He made his choices.

Others disagreed with some of them.

But through all of this, he remained part of the long conversation about what Yoruba political leadership ought to mean.

And that conversation must now continue without him.

This may ultimately be the greatest challenge presented by his death.

Who carries the torch now?

For decades, Yoruba political life benefited from elders who could speak from the accumulated experience of another era. Fasoranti belonged to that generation. With his passing, following the deaths of other great Yoruba political elders, the South-West enters another historical phase.

The question before the Yoruba people is therefore not simply:

Who will replace Pa Fasoranti?

No individual can simply replace a century of lived experience.

The better question is:

What will we preserve from the generation that has now passed?

Will we preserve its commitment to education?

Its belief in public service?

Its insistence on justice?

Its advocacy for federalism?

Its defence of democratic government?

Its culture of consultation?

Its belief that political office should be a trust rather than a personal inheritance?

Or will we preserve only the photographs, titles and funeral tributes?

That is the real test of legacy.

The late Pa Reuben Fasoranti was described by the Ondo State Governor as a patriarch and a beacon of wisdom, integrity and selfless service. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu likewise mourned him as one of the last great titans of Awolowo’s progressive political family.

Those tributes are deserved.

But perhaps the finest tribute would not be another encomium.

It would be continuity.

If the principles that Fasoranti spent his life defending can be studied, debated, refined and transmitted to another generation, then his century will not have ended with his death.

It will have become an inheritance.

Pa Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti came into this world in 1926.

He departed in 2026.

Between those two dates lies an extraordinary Nigerian story—and an extraordinary Yoruba story.

A schoolmaster became a political disciple.

A political disciple became a public servant.

A public servant became a defender of democracy.

A defender of democracy became an elder.

And the elder became a repository of memory for generations that increasingly knew the history he had lived only through books.

Now the repository is gone.

The responsibility of remembering has passed to us.

May his memory be a blessing.

May his family be comforted.

May the people of Akure and Ondo State be strengthened.

And may Yorubaland find the wisdom to preserve the best of the generation that has departed while having the courage to build what that generation could not complete.

Àgbà kì í wà l’ọ́jà, kí orí ọmọ tuntun wọ́.

When the elders are no longer in the marketplace, the younger generation must not allow its head to become empty.

Rest well, Pa Reuben Famuyide Fasoranti.

You have completed your journey.

Lanre Ogundipe, Public Affairs Analyst, Former President Nigeria and Africa Union of Journalists, writes from Abuja.