Activists, friends and admirers of the late Prof Abu Momoh as well as Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem have another opportunity to memorialise their departure. The memorial event for this year comes up June 3rd, 2024 in Abuja, courtesy of the CDD-West Africa with which both were closely associated, one way or the other.
Prof Abu Momoh died on May 29th, 2017 in Nigeria while Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem died/was killed (depending on which version one believes in) on May 25th, 2009 in Kenya.
The late Prof Momoh
The late Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem
The two have emerged as the image breakers in the struggle for the remaking of Nigeria. While Abu Momoh operated in the academy, Taju (as almost everyone else called him) took the entry point of Pan-Africanism. In his own case, Taju lived it out on a continental scale, meaning he was not as known in Nigeria as he was in Europe and the rest of Africa. He was the first ‘Áfrican president’ that never was. Momoh, on the other hand, came through by way of the ethical high ground as an academic, publishing, living out the scholar as a global worker through fetching or depositing knowledge in several of the leading centers of knowledge production across the world but without dodging the activist/commitment component of that profession.
CDD is, understandably, saying the June 3rd memorial event “is dedicated to celebrating their profound contributions to social movements and their unwavering commitment to radical activism, essential for fostering democratic transformation.” And that the event will feature what it calls insightful panel discussions on various aspects of the legacies of the twosome and how the discussion of the legacies could inspire and revitalize contemporary social movements and civil society organizing in Nigeria.
Dr. Otive Igbuzor, Ene Obi, Nkoyo Toyo, Y. Z Yau, John Odah, Juwon Sanyaolu, Gbenga Komolafe, Tolulope Fagbamigbe, Adam Khalid, Olu Adegbeye, Zikora Ibeh, Fakhuus Hashim are, amongst others, those who will critically situate the icons over three panels viz ‘Learning from our past: From social movements to civil society’; Learning from the present: Popular organisations and radical politics in contemporary Nigeria” and ‘From civil society back to social movement: Strategies for bridging the divide’.
