Lagos — Surely, the decision of the United Nations General Assembly to make July 18 Nelson Mandela International Day is not a surprise to those who follow the sterling life and times of the former South African president.

Perhaps, more than any living human being, he is a symbol of fortitude in the face of heart-wrenching oppression, the certainty of freedom against monstrous odds and, even more sublime, magnanimity at victory towards erstwhile murderous oppressors.

Today, Mandela's profile places him on an overwhelming global pedestal. Six decades out of his 91 years on earth were spent in activism in an impossible millieu. The entrenched apartheid system in the old South Africa had crushed the bones, lives and minds of many people in that enclave, except a few guiding lights including Mandela. But when he emerged from the ashes of the world's worst case of racial discrimination and assumed the leadership of that same country, he surmounted the mundane, resisted the lure of retaliation against the white minority and embraced forgiveness and reconciliation.

And throughout his tenure as president, like a wise builder, he concentrated on giving his multi-racial, multi-cultural society the kind of foundation that would not crumble under the weight of its traumatic racist history. The relative stability South Africa enjoys now, a phenomenon that confounds the skepticism that had greeted the birth of its new socio-political era, is traceable to the principled position of one man. Therefore, immortalising him by devoting his date of birth to matters relating to world freedom, while he is still alive, is a worthy, commendable mark of honour by the global body.

The informed reactions that have so far trailed the United Nations' action further validate that choice. In the words of former President of United States, Bill Clinton, "The legacy of your (Mandela's) struggle leaves future generations of South Africans with a freedom their ancestors could only dream of. Your charities will continue to give them a real chance for a brighter, healthier future - and the power of your example provides people everywhere with a source of strength for their own long walks to freedom."

Prime Minister of Britain, Gordon Brown, equally spoke the minds of Mandela's numerous admirers around the world. He said, "Nelson Mandela is a leader no prison cell, no intimidation, no threat could silence. A man whose belief in the future was so powerful that not even 27 years behind the bars and barbed wire could destroy his dream that millions could be free."

Also Mandela's predecessor as South African President and the last apartheid leader, who shared the Nobel Prize for Peace with him, W.F. De Klerk, responded thus: "After his inauguration, Nelson Mandela used his personal charm to promote reconciliation and mould our widely diverse communities into an emerging multicultural nation. This, I believe, will be seen as his greatest legacy."

We believe that on all accounts, Nelson Mandela is a great man.