Edwin Madunagu’s long march towards 80 years old

May 15, 2026 marked the 80th birthday of one of Nigeria’s most enduring revolutionary intellectuals, Edwin Ikechukwu Madunagu: mathematician, journalist, Marxist theorist, archivist, teacher, agitator and organizer.

For more than fifty years Edwin Madunagu has stood firmly on the side of workers, students, women, farmers and the oppressed. While governments changed, dictators rose and fell, and many abandoned radical politics, he remained steadfast in his belief that another Nigeria, a humane and egalitarian society, was possible.

His is the story of a man who transformed ideas into struggle, books into weapons and memory into resistance.

Edwin Ikechukwu Madunagu was born on May 15, 1946, in a Nigeria still under British colonial rule. He grew up during a time of political awakening across Africa, when anti-colonial struggles shook empires and new dreams of liberation spread across the continent.

From an early age he showed extraordinary intellectual discipline. Mathematics fascinated him; but the same goes for politics, history and social justice.

He began his formal education in 1952, attending five different primary schools, including St. Bartholomew’s Primary School, Iganga, Ilesha, Osun State. His secondary education was at Okongwu Memorial Grammar School, Nnewi, Anambra State and Obokun High School, Ilesha, Osun State, which he completed in 1964. He served as a junior mathematics teacher until his admission to the University of Ibadan in September 1966 to study mathematics.

Edwin Madunagu belongs to a generation that believed that education was not just for personal advancement. It was a tool to transform society. As a university student and then academic, Madunagu encountered Marxist thought: the writings of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and revolutionary thinkers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Those ideas would shape the rest of his life.

He did not see poverty as an accident. He saw inequality as political. He saw the exploitation as systemic. And he believed that ordinary people could organize themselves to change society and make history. Through essays, political analyses, lectures, pamphlets, and newspaper columns, he challenged military rule, corruption, imperialism, ethnic chauvinism, and capitalist exploitation. He wrote not for comfort, but for awareness. His language was sharp, ideological, fearless. He would become one of Nigeria’s most influential radical writers and public intellectuals.

You didn’t read Edwin casually. His writings forced you to think. Questioning power. Question yourself. For decades, Madunagu has been an important voice within the Nigerian left, helping to shape revolutionary debates on campuses, in trade unions, civil society organizations and socialist movements. To supporters, he was a principled Marxist. For governments he was a dangerous enemy of the state.

Throughout his revolutionary journey, Comrade Edwin Madunagu found not just a partner, but a comrade. Benedicta – known universally as “Bene” – became one of Nigeria’s most respected feminist activists, scholars and revolutionary organizers. Together, Comrade Edwin and the late Comrade Bene Madunagu built a political partnership rooted in shared ideals, sacrifice and collective struggle. Their home in Calabar became more than a residence. It was a meeting point for activists, students, intellectuals and organizers from across Nigeria and beyond. They lived socialism. Their lives reflected their politics: simplicity, solidarity, commitment.

For decades they have fought side by side for women’s rights, democratic freedoms and social justice. Their union became one of the most respected revolutionary partnerships in Nigeria’s progressive history. Throughout Nigeria’s turbulent political history, Edwin Madunagu has remained uncompromising in his criticism of authoritarianism and anti-people policies.

During the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo, Madunagu emerged as one of the persistent voices challenging state repression, neoliberal economic policies and attacks on democratic struggles. His activism came at a price. He suffered harassment, intimidation and detention. The state thought detention would silence him. Instead, he amplified his voice. His experience strengthened his lifelong belief that the fight for justice requires courage and sacrifice.

Revolutions are not supported only by slogans. They survive through memory. This belief gave birth to the Socialist Library and Archives, widely known as SOLAR.

The project emerged from the combination of archives and libraries built through decades of groundbreaking work by Edwin and Bene Madunagu, donations by Comrade Curtis Joseph, and recoveries by the family of Comrade Eskor Toyo. The SOLAR project was widely supported by its other comrades including Comrade Kayode Komolafe, Comrade Chido Onumah, Comrade Kole Shettima, Comrade Sola Olorunyomi, Comrade Femi Falana, SAN, Comrade Eno Edet-Traore and the late Comrade Biodun Jeyifo who served as Chairman of both the Board of Advisors and the Board of Directors.

In 2021, the collection was formally handed over to the Nigerian left as a permanent intellectual resource. SOLAR is not just a library. It is an archive of struggle. A memory bank of radical political struggle in Nigeria. From Marxist literature to feminist writings, from labor history to anti-colonial struggles, SOLAR preserves intellectual traditions often erased from mainstream history.

Even in his final years, Comrade Edwin Madunagu continued to organize, mentor, document and educate new generations. Another important pillar of his work was the program known as Conscientizing Nigerian Male Adolescents or CMA.

The initiative aims to challenge toxic masculinity, gender-based violence, sexism and social irresponsibility among young men. For Madunagu and his comrades, revolutionary politics is not just about state power; it is also about transforming human relationships and social conscience; teach responsibility, equality, critical thinking and respect for others. It changed the way many of us saw the world.

Then came the painful years.

On November 26, 2024, Benedicta Madunagu passed away peacefully at the Madunagu Residence in Calabar at the age of 77. For Edwin Madunagu it wasn’t just the loss of his wife. It was the loss of a lifelong comrade. A partner in thought.

A companion in sacrifice. A revolutionary comrade. Bene and Edwin were inseparable in their radical activism and the struggles of the Nigerian left. Together they built an extraordinary political and intellectual partnership.

But another devastating blow would soon follow.

On February 11, 2026, renowned scholar, Marxist intellectual and long-time comrade, Biodun Jeyifo (BJ) passed away at the age of 80. For decades, Biodun Jeyifo and Edwin Madunagu have shared ideological battles, academic struggles, socialist organizing and deep camaraderie. Two impressive fighting companions disappeared in the space of just over a year. Yet the movement resisted. And Edwin resisted.

It was at the height of the Civil War in 1968 that Edwin Madunagu first met BJ at the University of Ibadan. Biodun Jeyifo was more than a colleague; he was a “friend of my spirit”, in Madunagu’s words. Together with Bene they faced the decisive stage of their journey in 1975, after their liberation from military detention.

Within the Anti-Poverty Movement of Nigeria (APMON), a question has emerged: a gradual movement or a revolutionary leap? Eddie, Bene and BJ chose the jump. They formed the Revolutionary Directory (RD). Thus began an ideological journey that lasted 51 years, founded on the refusal to accept poverty as destiny or injustice as normal.

At eighty years old, Edwin Madunagu remains one of the last great witnesses of the revolutionary tradition of the Nigerian left. A man who refused silence. A man who chose commitment over comfort. A man who preserved his memory while fighting for the future. His life reminds us that revolutionary politics is not a moment. It’s resistance.

Comrade Edwin Madunagu taught us courage. He taught us discipline. He taught us to think historically. He taught us to never give up hope. From classrooms to prison cells; from newspaper columns to socialist archives; from political struggle to personal loss, Edwin Madunagu’s journey is inseparable from the history of radical democratic struggle in Nigeria.

For Edwin Madunagu the pen remains a vital tool for the mobilization of the masses. Fired by Obasanjo’s military regime in 1978 for supporting the fight against the increase in university fees, he turned his intellect to the historic column in The Guardian.

His work serves as a manual for popular struggle: The philosophy of violence (1976), The political economy of state robbery (1984) e Understanding Nigeria and the new imperialism (2006) among others. He waged a relentless ideological war against the military regimes of Generals Babangida and Abacha at the risk of his personal freedom and security. His vision is unshakable: the abolition of private property and the management of society in which the means of production are owned collectively and used for the good of all. Education, he insists, must be free.

When he turns eighty on May 15, 2026, comrades, students, workers, intellectuals and activists will gather not only to celebrate a birthday; but to honor a life of resistance. Some people pass through this world; others dedicate their lives to changing it. Comrade Edwin Ikechukwu Madunagu has chosen the more difficult path.

And eighty years later, the fight continues.

At 80 years old, comrade Eddie remains guided by Karl Marx’s categorical imperative: the struggle to overcome all circumstances in which human beings are humiliated, enslaved, abandoned and despised.

His appeal to younger generations is clear: do not romanticize the generations before you. Study them critically and overcome them. Reject neutrality in the face of exploitation.

The SOLAR collective includes comrades Kayode Komolafe, Sola Olorunyomi, Chido Onumah, Uwe Edeke, Unoma Madunagu-Agrinya, Ikpeme Friday, Ikenna Edwin Madunagu, Uyi Ekpo Bassey, Aniefiok Umoh Okon and Lavoraka Okafor-Onumah.