Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin

thumb|Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin Justin Ahomadegbé-Tomêtin (January 16, 1917 – March 8, 2002) was a Beninese politician most active when his country was known as Dahomey. He arose on a political scene where one's power was dictated by what region of Dahomey one lived in. He served as president of the National Assembly of Dahomey from April 1959 to November 1960 and as prime minister and vice president of Dahomey from 1964 to 1965. Quotes I was shocked when my third-year students scoffed at me when I told them that the Ijebu people gallantly fought the British and could have won but for the maxim guns that the British had developed, and some Yoruba treachery. Sad that the teaching of history was being wiped out by Nigerian misleaders, thereby robbing our children of so much that could build their self-confidence to better operate in today’s world. If my students did not know about the Magbon war, I wonder how many Africans are aware of the Abomey/Dahomey Mino. I hear Hollywood has shown some interest in the courage of these women. I also read that Lupita N’yongo interviewed the last Amazon many years ago. She has since passed on, leaving Lupita and others to tell more on the role of these women in trying to save their portion of Africa from direct control by Europeans. The first time I visited Cotonou, it was the capital of what was then known as the Republic of Dahomey. Then came Lt. Col. & later General Mathiue Kerekou’s coup of 1972 and his regime’s declaration of a “revolution” in 1974. The revolution resulted in the change of the country’s name to Benin Republic. The popular beer that I could not partake of given the fact that I was about 13 years old during my said first visit was known as Sobrado. I could only drink Youki – a carbonated yellow sweet drink. Sobrado, like the country, also had a name change to La Béninoise. But the joke was that the beer, like the country, remained with the same content in spite of the declaration that Benin Republic had gone through fundamental change and under Marxist-Leninist ideology. In French, one says: plus ça change, plus la meme chose. The people succeeded in forcing Kerekou to undertake a Sovereign National Conference in 1990 and he lost the following election to Dr. Nicophore Soglo although he succeeded Soglo again. During my Christmas 2022 visit to Cotonou, I started wondering if Nigeria had a hand in the 1972 Kerekou coup. Nigeria had just ended its civil war in which its immediate neighbour to the West, Dahomey, under Justin Ahomadégbé-Tomêtin, had made itself readily available for French support to the Biafran side during the Nigerian civil-war. Similar was the situation with Félix Houphouet-Boigny’s Cote d’Ivoire which concretised its role by readily providing asylum for Lt. Col. and later General and later Chief Odumegwu Ojukwu. External links Category:Politicians from Benin Category:1917 births Category:2002 deaths