Samson Folarin
The President of the Women Arise and Centre for Change, Joe Okei-Odumakin, has described the late Ambassador Walter Carrington as a man of uncommon courage and conviction.
Okei-Odumakin said the deceased while serving as the United States of America’s Ambassador to Nigeria stepped on powerful toes and spoke for civil liberties.
She noted that the late Carrington never discriminated against people based on their class or position in society.
The human rights activist stated these in her tributes to the deceased on Thursday.
She said, “There are so many things that we will forever remember Ambassador Walter Carrington for. The first was his skin: he was black as black could be, being a Black American or African-American, as Jesse Jackson, another notable American of African descent, taught us to call it.
“Carrington was, perhaps, the first black skin to be America’s ambassador in Africa’s most populous Black country. He was an ambassador who did not act ambassadorial but mixed with the hoi polloi.
“He had no airs, but moved in both low and high circles, taking in the whole essence of the Nigerian society.
“Carrington was here at, perhaps, the most critical period of this country’s political history: The struggle to end military dictatorship and return the country to democratic governance. He minced no words in speaking out for civil liberties; he left no one in doubt that he was making his stand with the people.
“In this, he stepped on powerful toes; he drew the ire of military goons and was at the receiving end of their viciousness. Undaunted, Carrington stood like the wall of Gibraltar and gave the much-needed courage and hope to Nigerians fighting to see the back of the soldiers of fortune.”
She said the late ambassador signed an everlasting pact with the country when he decided to marry a Nigerian, Arese.
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