It was a glamorous occasion as Family, friends, associates, and comrades in the civil society community gathered on Saturday, July 8, to celebrate one of their friend, Comrade Sina Odugbemi on his 60th birthday at the multipurpose hall of LTV 8, Agidingbi, Ikeja Lagos.

Comrade Sina Odugbemi and wife at the event.

Comrade Sina Odugbemi was born on the 4th of July, 1963, in Ibadan Oyo state. During his University days, he was the Students’ Union President at the University of Ibadan, where he studied Chemistry. After 3years of sojourn outside Nigeria, he returned to the country to join the foot soldiers against the dictatorship.

When the history of the fight against military rule is written, Sina Odugbemi’s name would be written in gold and a dogged foot soldier in the frontline led by late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, his mentor and leader in the struggle.

He will be regarded as one of the few Nigerians whose courageous and selfless activism is devoid of personal gains, he always stands up for the truth, he believes in equity. Sina Odugbemi is an activist, anti crusader, humanist, composer, music performer.

 Comrade Odugbemi Performing on stage.

Comrade Odugbemi, expressed profound gratitude to God for protecting him especially while going through the dangerous landscape of the Sahara desert en route to Libya, and for keeping him alive to share his experience.

   Comrade Odugbemi and friends cutting the cake.

However, he advised the youth who are often desperate to go abroad countries in search of economic fortunes to take caution. The celebrant used the occasion of his 60th birthday to launch his book titled, “Japa”: A Journey Through Sahara Desert, My Maghreb Nightmares as well as unveil his Album and musical skill to thrill everyone as the hall erupted in euphoria.

Comrade Odugbemi In an interview with The Torch News and other journalists said, “Yours sincerely, I feel great celebrating my 60th birthday, I feel great, especially with the caliber of people I have around me, my colleagues most of them that we have been in the trenches together.”

Reacting to the question why he had to wait till 60 years before unveiling his musical band, he said, “Honestly, if you ask me that, what I can only tell you is that, there’s always time for everything. Perhaps, there’s a force that feels now is the time and that I should go out with the music. As you can I see, am growing old now.”Some of those songs I sang are music I wrote over 20 years ago.

“Now, the point is that I have been a placard-carrying individual for a long but now, I’m 60 years, and the energy is depleting.“So, I want to use music now as an instrument to fight for social justice.

So, it will be less of the placard and more of the music because the energy is no longer there to embark on a marathon walk.”

Comrade Odugbemi revealed that his driving force is to see that society gets better than what it is now and the urge to see that he contributes his quota towards making society better.

He further disclosed that the late music maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti greatly influenced his life while growing up such that he was regularly visiting the Shrine to watch him play.

He stated, “Honestly, I grew up knowing Fela and I will tell you what I mean by that; when I was growing up, we used Fela’s language in our house and so we grew up using Fela’s lexicon. Not only that, I met Fela as a Student Union leader, I went to negotiate and invited Fela to our shows. Aside from that, Fela’s Shrine was a Mecca of sorts.

” I grew up in Ibadan but there was no week that I did not come to Lagos, Fela’s Shrine to watch either the Ladies Night or even the rehearsals. So, Fela has been a part of me. I so much liked his message dissemination style,”

Responding to a question on the state of the nation, Comrade Odugbemi said, “You cannot take the people for granted; you can’t ride on the people for too long. There’s propaganda now that people are putting up with the situation in the country, but I can tell you, if nothing is done urgently, I foresee an uprising in the nearest future against this government.

“If things continue the way it is now, people will definitely rise up against the government, there’s no two ways about it. People are just patching up but I can tell you, in the next six months, there will be a massive uprising if things continue like this.”

Comrade Odugbemi is happily married to his lovely wife and blessed with amazing children.

People Present at the event were;

Mr. Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN),

Comrade Omoyele Sowore, founder of Sahara Reporters,

Comrade Achike Chudi,

Comrade Debo Adeniran, president of CACOL,

Comrade Adeola Soetan,

Comrade Wale Adeoye, and many

other people not mentioned.