Morgan Temidayo Omodu: A Patriotic Nigerian Activist Goes Home

Today the body of Morgan Temidayo Omodu will be laid to rest in Gudu Cemetery in Abuja after his demise about a week ago. It is very hard to pen a tribute to a colleague that was a principle activist and a patriotic Nigerian. He died from complications of an illness that lasted about 5 years from what I gathered. Not many were aware of Morgan’s ill health including me. I interacted with him late July and he did not mention it. Trust Morgan to believe in himself and God to see him through. From my knowledge of working closely with him on turf of advocacy and activism, Morgan is a good man with a good heart.

We met for the first time in the Office of the Speaker of House of Representatives, Rt. Honourable Dimeji Bankole, where he was appointed as the Special Assistant on Youth and Students’ Affairs and I was the Special Adviser to the Speaker on Communications in 2009. I got to know his reputation as one of the students detained by the military for agitation for human rights at University of Ilorin. From what I gathered his appointment was at the instance of Honourable Hembe from Benue State, himself a student union activist that found himself elected a member of the House of Representatives in the 6th National Assembly.

Following the numerous orchestrated crises of the House under Rt. Hon. Bankole and the need for my office to properly engage the media and the public with relevant information through various channels, Morgan became a reliable ally working under me to achieve numerous targets of engagements as part of efforts that successfully thwarted about five attempts to oust the Speaker from his office. We were travelling together to Lagos, Ibadan and elsewhere to engage youths and civil societies’ personalities to explain the position of the Speaker and the fact that attempts to remove him from office was targeted at stopping his reformist moves of that era and not any wrong doing. Morgan played a critical role in these engagements in relating with mostly his comrades in the struggle who respected him as a soldier for human rights. It was during these engagements that I met and became friends to many civil society operatives including late Yinka Odumakin, Femi Lawson, Buska Oladosu among others.

It is therefore, not surprising that Morgan got a mention in my autobiography “Colours of Perception” published in 2022 at page 236. He was indeed part of my success story of working as a public official in the largest parliamentary body in Africa. At the early part of social media when global internet interaction was still restricted to yahoogroups alone, Morgan was very supportive of my various intellectual engagements of Diasporas seeking information about the parliament and its operations. Just as in real life of these engagements, Morgan became a noted educator of our brothers and sisters on the issue of our parliament and governance for the Diaspora.

As he is interred today, I pray for the peaceful repose of his soul and the fortitude for his wife and young children to bear the irreparable loss. May gentle soul rest in peace or as his colleagues in the civil societies will say rest in power, Morgan. A human rights fighter has fallen.

Chief Kayode Odunaro
Osorun Isaga-Orile writes from Abuja.
kayodunaro@hotmail.com