The Lagos State University, (LASU) at Ojo in Lagos promises to be the battleground of critical contentions on the radical tradition in Nigerian politics in memory of one of its stars, Prof Abubakar Momoh who died on May 29th, 2016. At the time he died, he was the Director-General of The Electoral Institute, (TEI), the research arm of the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), a position he came to from Deanship of the Faculty of Social Sciences of LASU.
Subsequently, LASU has institutionalised an annual lecture in his memory, this year’s being the second and featuring Comrade Owei Lakemfa, a veteran journalist and activist as Guest Lecturer. Prof Olanrewaju Adigun Fagbohun, the Vice-Chancellor of LASU as well as Prof Wahab Elias, the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences are other key personalities who would attend the annual lecture on August 28th, 2019, according to the graphic announcing the event.
Until his death, Prof Abubakar Momoh, a political theorist of pan-Africanist gaze, maintained the position that the Structural Adjustment Programme, (SAP) and its various modifications remained the most fundamental challenge to a developmental leap for Nigeria. While alive, he was an activist scholar who tested his theories of democracy, equality, freedom, etc in the politics of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), among many similar platforms.
Although a Second term was his for the taking, he was set to return to academia before he died without sickness in Abuja, leaving a wife and son behind. He was a profound humanist.
