Osun: Don’t summon the demons of 1983, by Funke Egbemode

I was a slim teenager on August 15, 1983, but what I saw was fat and unforgettable. I came close, chest-to-chest close to death. A big box containing my parents’ certificates, documents was on my head when they stopped me.

With eyes red from rage and other things, they bellowed at me. I explained, tears in my eyes and voice. The streets were empty. 

Residents of Ikirun, in today’s Ifelodun Local Government Area of Osun State, were all behind doors. Only “the boys” were on patrol. The sky was dark from the smoke of burning houses, sawmills, shops.

My father’s Action Group identity card was our get-out-of-tragedy card. And yes, my father was a politician years before I was born and he could have lost everything that day.

Our landlord, Alhaji Atanda, was not so lucky. He lost houses and sawmills. The drums of palm oil that his wife just took delivery of were kicked on to their sides until there was a big red pool of red oil.

He, I believe, also lost the will to live because he locked himself up in his burning house. His friends had to break doors to pull him out.

My knees shaking and heart panting so loudly I thought it was going to jump out and run on its own legs. I saw flashing blades of newly sharpened cutlasses. 

I saw blood. I saw and felt fear. I heard screams of pain and despair. I saw destruction of property and livelihood, the kind that made the owners give up on life.

What was the occasion? Was it a war? Yes and No. A communal war? Yes, a war where brothers forgot they were brothers because they wore different party emblems. It was supposed to be just an election, governorship election but the two leading political parties, the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) and the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) turned a simple contest into a bloodbath that left in its trail widows, widowers, orphans, and painful gnashing of the teeth. It was a terrible season. 

August 15, 2026, 43 years after that day of pain and sorrow, history beckons again, with another two leading parties in a governorship race in Osun State, I am just wondering and worried. Imagine the coincidence! The governorship election was held on August 13, 1983. The trouble announced itself on August 15, 1983 after a radio broadcast by a politician. Another August 15 is almost here. And another politician has spoken, his hands on the two legs of a soundly sleeping ghost!

According, to George Santayana, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. In Osun, are those who should remember 1983 remembering it correctly? Or they think it was reality TV that must have a Season 2 in 2026?

There are statements that should never come from the lips of a governor, a leader. There are memories that responsible leaders should never awaken. And there are ghosts that should be left in their graves, like the 1983 ghost.

As Osun prepares for the August 15 governorship election, political temperatures have risen, with accusations and counter-accusations between the major camps over violence, intimidation and alleged plots to influence the outcome. Against that backdrop, reports that Governor Ademola Adeleke invoked the possibility of “1983” if the election is not properly conducted have naturally stirred anxiety because that year occupies a painful place in the political memory of old Oyo State and in the hearts of victims like me.

Young Nigerians may not understand why older people suddenly became uncomfortable as soon as after-election violence is mentioned. It is not because people of my generation saw it, saw fathers being pushed into a burning house. The smell of burning and burnt human flesh scars you forever. 

Those who were born after the dust settled may think 1983 is just another year in a history book.

It is not.

It is a scar.

It is a wound.

It is a cemetery of dreams.

It is a reminder that democracy can bleed and go into coma.

Old Oyo State was not just Oyo as we know it today. It included what is now Osun State. When old men in Ilesa, Ikirun, Iragbiji, Ororuwo, Ila, Ife, Ede, Iwo, Ogbomoso, Ibadan, Saki or Oyo mention “1983,” they are not discussing politics. When the people of Owo, Ado Ekiti, Akure, Ondo remember 1983, what rushes through their minds is a lot.

They are remembering fear.

They remember sleeping with one eye open.

They remember mothers hiding children under beds.

They remember fathers refusing to light lanterns at night.

𝕤𝕖𝕖 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖/𝕨𝕒𝕥𝕔𝕙 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕧𝕚𝕕𝕖𝕠 𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖