Sunday, September 21, 2025, made it 20 years after one of the few sincere Nigeria pro-democracy crusaders and activists, Comrade Chima Ubani, died.

Officially, he died in a road accident along Potiskum road, Maiduguri, during a nationwide protest which was organized by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to fight for the welfare of Nigerian workers.

I said ‘officially’ because those of us who were very close to him knew differently.

The truth is that Comrade Ubani had a premonition of his death.

He knew that he was hunted by the Nigerian state but like Socrates he was committed to his struggle for freed and better life for all Nigerians that he refused to compromise or surrender.

Comrade Ubani was well aware that the Nigerian State was not happy with him after all the effort they made for him to tone down or even to abandon the struggle for better Nigeria and ‘cross over’ to their side but he refused.

In my last interview with him before he left to Maiduguri, which had made front page of the Sun Newspaper then, he had told me that “life is a continuum” and that he was not afraid of die.

Another very important thing that he told me was that he was concerned about who would succeed him because a lot of the activists that I was seeing all over the country were not sincere.

He had said that It was because of that he had to go to Enugu to bring the current Executive Director of Civil Liberties Organization (CLO), Comrade Ibuchukwu Ezike, to Lagos.

In the book, “Abuse of Power, How Democracy Turned Into Tyranny of the Few”, which I dedicated to him (Chima Ubani), Bamidele Aturu, Beko Ransome Kuti and Omoyele Sowore, which Comrade Ibukwuchu Ezike wrote the Foreword, he talked about the haunted days of activists in the country.

Recall that General Sani Abacha as Nigeria military head of state had ordered the arrest and execution of Comrade Ibuchukwu Ezike, former President Olusegun Obasanjo and others for standing against military rule and bad governance.

In fact it was the morning that they were to be shot and their bodies fed to the lions and crocodiles in Aso Rock that news filtered in that Gen. Abacha had passed on in the night, the reason Comrade Ezike, Olusegun Obasanjo and others are still alive today.

If you want to know the true story of the struggle for democracy in Nigeria check https:www.amazon.com/dp/9786960126 or search Peter Anosike.

The vacuum left by Chima Ubani remains unfilled as most of them parading themselves as activists are simply agents of government. They criticize government in the day and in the night go to the same government for reward.

One thing Comrade Chima Ubani refused to do, the more reason why some people decided he must die.

•Peter Anosike, Ph.D, is a seasoned journalist and author. He writes from Lagos.