Tribute: Comrade Segun Osoba Joins African Socialist Ancestors

By Godini Gabriel Darah

Professor Segun Osoba, a historian, played a role at the University of Ife comparable to that of Comrade Ola Oni at the University of Ibadan and Professor Eskor Toyo at the Universities of Maiduguri and Calabar. Through their radical yet humane mentorship, many young activists identified and carried out their revolutionary goals. I was involved in that environment at Ife between 1978 and 1990.

Osoba received his historical training in the Soviet Union. In addition to his academic work as a lecturer and scholar, he participated in the movements and uprisings that shaped Nigeria’s 30‑year struggle against military rule from 1966 to 1999.

He is best known for co‑authoring the 1976 Minority Constitutional Report with Yusuf Bala Usman of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. A pragmatic dialectician, he consistently supported progressive national development initiatives. In 1976, the Nigerian government sent Osoba, Omafume Onoge, and Bala Usman—three Marxist scholars—to China to study its education system, likely to advise the Obasanjo‑Yar’Adua military junta.

Rather than mourn, we should mobilise. Osoba lived a long and fulfilling life, earning him a place among Africa’s ancestral heroes and heroines. His example should inspire, provoke, and challenge Africans to pursue the anti‑imperialist revolution that lies ahead.

*G. G. Darah, a Professor of Literature in English, writes from Udje Heritage Centre, Ovwian Town, Delta State*