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Friends and comrades of Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem were at the Yar’Adua Centre on 25th May to celebrate the life and work of this great African. He had made it easy by dying on AFRICA LIBERATION DAY, May 25th 2009 in a motor accident in Nairobi, Kenya. He was enroute to Kigali, Rwanda where he was to drum up support for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). He lived and died for Africa.

I was on election observation duties in Malawi when he died last year. The testimo-ny of his Africanness emerged the moment I announced his death at our review meeting in Blantyre. The Kenyan observer thought he was Kenyan and the Ugandan observer thought he was Ugandan, which he was because when he was in exile and Abacha had refused to renew his Nigerian passport, Musoveni had given him Ugandan nationality so that he could move around and organise the 7th Pan African Con-gress.Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem was born on Janu-ary 6, 1961 in Funtua, Katsina State and saw no contradiction in being an indigene of both Funtua in Katsina State and Ogbomosho.

Taju studied at Bayero University Kano where he graduated with a first class honours degree in Political Science. He then bagged the pres-tigious Rhodes Fellowship and proceeded to Oxford University where he graduated with a D.Phil.At the Yar’Adua Centre celebration, Labaran Maku, Minister of State for Information and Communication and co-chair of the event captured the mood of the moment by recalling the greatness of the African past bequeathed to the world in the magnificent pyramids and the tragedy of continuous bondage from the times of the Romans to the contemporary infiltration and takeover of the continent by the Chinese. The greatest Africans he declared are those who engage in the struggle to unite and liber-ate Africans.The other co-chair, Amina az Zubair, Senior Special Adviser to the President on the Millennium Develop-ment Goals who worked with Taju when he was Afri-ca Director of the Millen-nium campaign stressed his commitment to defending the com-mon person and promoting people centered development.

For Muthono Wanyeki, Executive Director of the Ken-yan Human Rights Commission who rep-resented the Kenyan comrades at the event, her emphasis was on why we should all strive to emulate Taju’s dogged, non-judgmental and self-tasking approach to popular struggles.Other speakers at the symposium were Abu-bakar Momoh of Lagos State University who spoke on the philosophy of Pan Africanism, the Director of Political Affairs of ECOW-AS, Musah Abdel-Fatau who focused on the imperative of integration in contemporary Africa, Adele Jinadu who stressed the signifi-cance of Pan Africanism and Tar Ukoh of the Mambisa band fame who both entertained with his orchestra and gave a moving speech on the importance of culture in the struggle for political and economic libera-tion.It was a moving trib-ute to Taju who was appointed General-Sec-retary for the Secretariat organising the 7th Pan African Congress in Kampala, Uganda.

He organised a very successful Congress in 1994 with delegates from 47 countries It turned out to be one of the largest and most vibrant gatherings of Pan Africanists in many years. Though the theme of the Congress was ‘Africa: Facing the Future in Unity, Social Progress and Democracy’; the Congress was overshadowed by the unfolding genocide in Rwanda.In response, Tajudeen accompanied a del-egation from the Pan African Movement to Rwanda, for a first hand assessment of what was going on in the country, but the delegation fell into an ambush near Kigali from which Tajudeen was lucky to escape unhurt. Paul Kagame, the Rwandan President sent a per-sonal message to the symposium regretting his inability to be personally present at the celebration of someone he knew as a personal friend and a comrade in the struggle for the lib-eration of Africa,Beyond the Pan Africa Congress, Tajudeen remained perhaps the most vocal cru-sader for his dream of a ‘United States of Africa’.What will never cease to amaze those of us who knew this great African was how he found time to write? He ran a regular column, Thursday Postcard, syndicated to many newspapers including Daily Trust and Pambazuka.

We remember Taju for his intel-lect, his loud laughter and his infectious ‘irrev-erent’ sense of humour. He was many things to many people, he was a journalist and column-ist, a political scientist, a campaigner and an activist; but perhaps the role for which he will be missed the most, is his support for African institutions especially the civil society.He was the founding chair of the Centre for Democracy and Development where I work, the Director of Justice Africa and the Pan-Afri-can Development Education and Advocacy Programme to name but a few. In recognition of his contributions, the Trust Conglomerate awarded him the post humus award of African of the Year. It is edifying that even in death; Taju still speaks and is recognised for his tre-mendous contributions to the development of the continent. The celebration of his life took place simultaneously in Abuja, London, Nai-robi and Kampala. Taju left behind his widow Mounira and two daughters Aisha and Aida. May his ideas continue to inspire us.