He was a spectacle at whichever head office of the Nigeria Labour Congress, (NLC) you met him, be it at Yaba in Lagos or at the Central Business District in Abuja. He wasn’t a sentry but it was unlikely for anyone who knew him to enter without encountering him. He never got tired and he could talk.
The fire dragging him was Pan-Africanism of the essentialist type. And no one can blame him. He had lived in its various spaces – of fire, water, air and the relative freedom that came with independence for African countries. He is Martin-Luther Kassonghov Kasmarlot.
For him, Pan-Africanism was not a remote notion or practice but something to be applied to all the issues and situations that arises.
His spirit would thus be gratified if the dead could weep at his/her own funeral. It would not have been an error of judgment if it were ever possible to transmit this morning’s tribute session to him, given the summoning power he commands in the hopeful presence of past Nigerian labour leaders. It is even greater it is being done from Nigeria, making it a statement that humanity is the homeland.
