It was already getting late on Sunday, October 12th, 2025 when the call came. The caller was asking if one was in a position to absorb bad news.
Anytime he asked such a question, it meant something disorienting had happened either back home or to a common friend, mostly the tribe of activists. But this time, I thought I was ready for him because I had been more up to date about developments at home than him lately and I knew of no common friends who fell into any crease recently.
The late Abiodun (standing)
Then he said Comrade Abiodun Aremu had died, killed by a hit-and-run driver. It has been a long time since one has been in Lagos beyond the airport. Could Aremson (that’s been his more popular name) be in the few parts of Lagos where the traffic permitted the sort of speed that could kill instantly on a non-working day in the unique Lagos flow to spaces of worship on a Sunday evening?
But the information was solid. He had even spoken with the wife by then and it wasn’t the kind of accident that left a victim half dead/half alive. Aremson was already dead by the time they got to the hospital.
Given the kind of person he was, his death was bound to spread fast. By Monday morning, many who knew him had found the balance to string words together, a difficult task about Aremson.
He was a revolutionary. There’s no debate about that but revolutionaries do not come in an undifferentiated pack. In his own case, he wasn’t a polemicist. He wasn’t the cerebral type. He wasn’t into grand strategy in terms of the radical, cataclysmic moment that majority of Marxists are convinced about. He was the tireless master of permanent revolution in the literary sense of it. In sickness or in health, he was into organising one act of resistance to one manifestation of system malfeasance or another. That was his strength or area of comparative advantage.
Even the name of the platform by which he unfolded most lately speaks to his conception of activism. It is called the Joint Action Front (JAF). JAF was an attack formation in the hands of Aremson and Dr. Dipo Fashina, the ex-Obafemi Awolowo University, (OAU) Ile-Ife don. They didn’t succeed in overthrowing any unit of authority in Nigeria but they never failed to make the point at any juncture.
JAF was his formation in motion!
Aremson’s biggest credit in radical activism is that he never rediscovered himself, no matter the constraints, be they health challenges, limited finances or unemployed graduate children. He never rediscovered himself in the sense that he never japa, he never aligned himself to any big time politician, he didn’t become a defender of an ethno-regional or religious agenda, he didn’t join politics, he was in NGOism but on his own scales of measurement. He didnt suddenly become a born-again player. None of the self-rediscovery that happens to many comrades was his portion. He simply remained the radical that the defunct NANS molded him into. And he had thought far more systematically about cadre reproduction.
The radical democratic movement in Nigeria might be in disarray, organizationally speaking but there are still elements within it who made sure that Aremson was appreciated for his own unique approach to the struggle and as and when necessary. When these elements made his medical trip to Cuba possible, it was such a big relief and we all relaxed that the worst was over. No one suspected that an Aremson could fall to car hit and die without the luxury of a few days in the hospital so that comrades could visit him.
So, so sad!
Intervention has lost a difficult but engaging customer. If Aremson wanted editorial attention to something, it must be immediate. Not for him any explanations that editing Intervention has had to take the backseat recently because there has arisen more compelling commitments. In many instances, there had to be concessions to him just so that there would be peace. For him, the ‘revolution’ could not wait.
As a person, Aremson plotted or schemed against nobody. He envied none either, except Fidel Castro perhaps and whom he proclaimed on roof top as his all-time hero. And he was full of gratitude to those who cared for him!
Perhaps, someone will take up telling the Aremson story in greater details at the appropriate time!
