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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Bola Tinubu has joined the global community in mourning the death of American civil rights legend Reverend Jesse Jackson, who passed away this morning at age 84.
In a statement he personally signed, Tinubu described Jackson as a “servant-leader who captured the global imagination as a young activist, alongside civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, fighting for the dignity of black people, the oppressed, and the voiceless.”
The President reflected on his own time as a student in Chicago during the 1970s, Jackson’s battleground against injustice. “I witnessed firsthand how, as a faithful servant of God and humanity, he pointed the arc of American society to the great promise of the American dream,” Tinubu said.
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Tinubu credited Jackson with paving the way for Barack Obama’s historic presidency, noting his presidential runs in 1984 and 1988. “When Barack Obama broke the glass ceiling as the first Black president in America, it was Reverend Jackson who first inflicted the cracks on the ceiling,” the statement said.
The President noted that Jackson’s ties to Nigeria and Africa ran deep. He highlighted Jackson’s resistance to apartheid in South Africa, his push for Nelson Mandela’s release, and his role as US President Bill Clinton’s Special Envoy to Nigeria in 1997 and 1999 during military rule. “During the dark era of military dictatorship in Nigeria, Reverend Jackson stood in defence of human rights and the restoration of democratic rule,” Tinubu noted.
The President praised Jackson’s enduring message: “Reverend Jackson lived a remarkable life as a strong voice for the universal ideals of justice and human progress…” He wanted us to ‘keep hope alive’.”
Tinubu prayed for Jackson’s eternal rest, calling him a “great friend of Nigeria and Africa”.
