He wears his “Gobi” to the front rather than to the side. His “Gobi,” (a Yoruba genre of cap) emblematic of a comforting cave, gives him a unique identity in the manner he wears his own. Jaggy in its beauty, its bent to the front is deemed a figurative expression of progressivism. Projecting a snarl of a ferocious reptile, it is an insignia of his courage, his fearlessness.
Many see him as a “radical.” Some see him as a “revolutionary.” Others see him as a “reformist.” Others yet would be satisfied with characterizing him as a “progressive.” Going by his trajectory, some would describe him as a “leftist.” Yet, there were other times in his trajectory when the term “socialist” would have been a perfect fit.
He certainly would be many things to so many people and in different generations. But to those who encountered him in the late 1970s and 1980s, he was a fanatic of OBAFEMI AWOLOWO school of thought. He was and still is, simultaneously, a student and a master of Awoism as a philosophy of politics, economics, and social order.
Although he has undergone variety of transfigurations, his core has remained. His essence has been steadfast. The nub of his intellectual soundness could not be numbed. The kernel of his philosophy remains kinetic. The crucible of his crux could not be crushed. Despite the vicissitudes to which his trajectory has been subjected, Ebino Topsy is still Ebino Topsy.
The effulgence of his brilliance is permeating. It dazzles and sparkles. It gleams and glitters. Usually garbed in his Fidel-Castro outfit, he would reel out inspiring narrations of struggles against tyranny and oppression across the planet in luminescent ways. His narratives are essentially to educate and inspire. His brilliance is like the rays of the sun from which there is no hibernation. His attention to details, arresting. His love of facts and figures, inebriating. One may not agree with his position, but one has no choice than to respect it.
A very prolific writer and author of democratic bent, Chief Ebenezer Babatope has written about twenty-seven books including “Awo & Nigeria: setting the record straight,” “Student power vs militarism, 1971-1975,” “Nkrumaism: the struggle continues,” “Awo’s great life battles,” “Murtala Muhammed, a leader betrayed: a study in Buhari’s tyranny,” “Ghana revolution: from Nkrumah to Jerry Rawlings,” “Nigeria: the socialist alternative,” “Nigeria, ‘Elections 1979’: the betrayal of a nation,” “Not his will: the Awolowo-Obasanjo wager,” and “Inside Kirikiri: prison memoirs of a politician” among others.
Today, Chief Ebenezer Babatope, the one and only Ebino Topsy, is 80. We are celebrating a political icon and Ijesa son. It is a celebration of a political intellectual, an historian of note, a leftist who got moderated by Awoism into being a social democrat, a brilliant mind, a firebrand, very courageous and indefatigable. We wish him a happy birthday and many returns of this beautiful day.