GEN OGBEMUDIA: EXIT OF POLITICAL COLLOSSUS, LEADING MEDIA COLUMNIST, LOUIS ODION PAYS LAST GLOWING TRIBUTE
Ogbemudia: The perils of longevity
By Louis Odion
To secure a durable place in history, said John Kenneth Galbraith,
you have to die young.
By this assertion, the late great American economist would seem to
underline the paradox of early bloomers, the hyper-achievers who, on account of
packing so much Alphas into their early lives, often end up being sentenced to
the drudgery of spending their remaining years on earth in acute redundancy.
In a way, Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia partly fits Galbraith's
typology. Before losing out in the power-play that trailed General Yakubu
Gowon's overthrow in 1975, the Edo-born warrior had undoubtedly become a
household name and his visage engraved on the national memory. It is
however debatable whether any thing significant was added to that golden
identity by his political engagements in the decades ahead or any respect
earned from the lesser company he found himself.
One, his 3-month reign as civilian governor of Bendel State in 1983
was rather too short for him to make any appreciable impact that could, in
hindsight, be cited as enough justification for accepting to be used by NPN
mercantilists to truncate the progressive march led by Ambrose Alli of UPN
then.
Nor could his flirtation a decade later with the despotic and
discredited Sani Abacha as Labour and Productivity minister be said to have, in
good conscience, added any feather to his cap as a progressive maestro.
His appointment, by the way, was an accident. Abacha used to be his
boy back in the 60s. After he became head of state in 1993, Ogbemudia was said
to have stormed Aso Rock with a view to having his nominee appointed
minister. Instead, Abacha, never one to forget old favour or forgive
ancient score, reportedly insisted his old mentor should join his cabinet
as minister.
Taken together, what could then be counted as perhaps the redeeming
feature of the General with the trademark dimpled smile was that he, by a few
inexplicable mercies of history, had continued to draw from an usual staying
power that ensured he often rebounded to the zenith as often as he sunk to the
nadir in the last four decades of his mercurial life.
It then explains why, despite many personal setbacks, his shadow
miraculously remained undiminished till he drew his last breath last week. Thus
defying the Newtonian law of gravity.
Now, since his obituary announcement last weekend, the supreme irony
is that the wailings of those who had openly fought tooth and nail to make life
miserable politically for the Bini folk hero in his old age seem the loudest at
the doorsteps of his Benin home.
Ogbemudia's fame which they tried in vain to extinguish actually
began to grow from the late 60s on account of exceptional valor as war
commander and, more crucially, later as an administrator with visionary eyes
and a Midas' touch. His footprints and imprints stamped on the old
Bendel have remained indelible across Edo and State States till date. In fact,
they are now too familiar and well documented to warrant a recap here.
But what came to be known as the idolization of Ogbemudia was over
something much deeper than the issue of brick and mortal erected. It was partly
fed by the communal sense of nostalgia of the denial suffered at one critical
moment. There is a story the older generation of Mid-Westerners handed down to
the younger ones. It is the story of alleged abject deprivation after
the region was carved out of the western region in 1963 following a local
referendum. The new region, dubbed the enclave of "minorities", left
the old union without benefiting much in terms of asset-sharing with the Ladoke
Akintola-led western region government based in Ibadan.
From virtually nothing, Ogbemudia built something. So, the communal
adulation of him was in recognition of his creative spirit. The original
Mid-West had morphed into Bendel State in 1967. David Ejoor who arrived after
the 1966 coup is perhaps best remembered today for "disappearing"
when the Biafrans invaded Benin City in 1967 only to re-appear in Lagos before
the Commander-in-Chief with a rather apocryphal tale that he rode down on
"a bicycle". (Hence, the addition of "bicycle story" to
Nigeria's bourgeoning political lexicon.)
Enter the brave Ogbemudia. He led the titanic rally of federal
troops that dislodged the Biafrans from the land of Igodomigodo. In
the years ahead, it took his vision, vigour and vivacity to turn Bendel
(covering the present Edo and Delta States) into Nigeria's new center of
excellence in sports and mass industrialization despite the ravages of a
full-blown civil war, thus investing the doughty people of that province with a
new sense of identify marinated in pride.
So domineering had Bendel become in national sports that it came
tops in the National Sports Festival of 1973. The feat was easily attributed to
Ogbemudia's personal touch. And so impressed was the formidable Dr. Tai
Solarin, ordinarily never one given to flattery, that he penned a glowing
tribute for Ogbemudia in his popular column in Tribune newspaper
then.
On account of such sterling performance in sports and breakthroughs
in other spheres of human endeavor, the appreciative people of Bendel naturally
began to view Ogbemudia as a pathfinder.
But, overall, the most nightmarish of his post-Army engagements
should be his political association with the swashbuckling Chief Tony Anenih
who, until Adam Oshiomhole's emergence in 2008 as governor, held court over Edo
landscape like a medieval potentate.
Even though Ogbemudia's golden name was leveraged to sell PDP at
formation in 1998, he was soon shoved aside by the scheming Uromi chief.
At a personal level, my earliest direct contact with Ogbemudia was
about fifteen years ago as a newspaper editor. From time to time, he sent
articles to Lagos from his Benin redoubt for publication, usually
hand-delivered by his aide or couriered by our circulation driver on the Benin
route.
Ever so humble, there was usually an accompanying note
"soliciting for space", as if a mere line by the legendary Ogbemudia
in itself was not already news-worthy. A deep thinker with restless mind, he
found time to weigh in on national issues periodically.
Two years later, this writer witnessed, in the course of
duty, what one had considered quite abominable in Benin. A motley crowd of
PDP chieftains were seated in a lounge. As Anenih, Obasanjo's then reigning
"Mr. Fix It", walked in, Ogbemudia, otherwise a giant of history and
orator with prodigious intellect, was - like the rest - obliged to rise in near
idol-worship of the lesser Uromi chief who left the police unceremoniously as
assistant commissioner, long after the great Ogbemudia liberated the Midwest
from Biafra, invented the "Up Bendel" brand and had been inducted as
an authentic modern hero of the acclaimed "cradle of black civilization".
He was harassed and oppressed with ill-gotten federal talisman. Such
was the hands-behind-the-back humiliation the foremost Army General in Bini
history had to endure at the hands of his intellectual inferior in the twilight
of his political odyssey.
But as legends always prove, a true soldier can
only be destroyed, not defeated. In a final act of defiance - thus
self-redemption, Ogbemudia would muster the energy to stand up to his political
hostage-taker for once in 2012. As then Information Commissioner in the Oshiomhole
administration, this writer had the privilege of a ringside view of a bit of
the dark conspiracies, feints and derring-do that paved the the road to
the July 14 election in Edo.
When it became clear that Ogbemudia, a big PDP masquerade, would not
openly identify with Charles Airiavere around Benin, a powerful team was
drafted by the "almighty" godfather, the capon of Tuketuke politics,
to persuade him to join the train. After listening to their impassioned
entreaties that night, Ogbemudia reportedly began, in his characteristic
sardonic humor, by asking them which road the emissaries took to his residence.
Of course, they chorused "Iheya road".
"Good," he continued genially. "Don't you see how
beautiful the newly constructed road is, not to talk of the streetlights
shining brightly and the solid walkways?"
At that point, his guests, unwilling to compliment Oshiomhole for
the remarkable infrastructural stride, simply lapsed into a convenient silence.
Seeing an opening, Ogbemudia then reportedly landed the killer
punch. For ten years PDP ruled the state, he whined, Iheya never featured on
the official radar, even if only to save him a personal shame. Now, it has
taken Oshiomhole, his supposed "political opponent", to revamp not
only only Iheya road but also reclaim the adjoining 12 streets long
written off to silt and erosion.
So, his final big question: "Do you think the people in this
area will clap for me if I tell them to vote against the man who did this
wonderful job for them? I'm afraid they may not even hesitate to stone
me."
Now thoroughly deflated, the PDP team gathered their tails between
their legs and soon disappeared into the night.
Of course, Ogbemudia saw tomorrow. By the time the votes were
counted on July 15, Oshiomhole, an Etsako man, won an unprecedented 75
percent of the ballot, with the no less historic distinction of humiliating his
opponent, the homeboy, right in his polling unit and ward in Benin City.
That finally signposted Ogbemudia's parting of ways with the now
jaded godfather and his wrecking Tuketuke crew in Edo PDP. Expectedly, few
months later, he formally renounced his membership of the party of umbrella and
would henceforth wish to be addressed simply as a statesman.
Ogbemudia's accustomed prescience was again on display last year on
the eve of Oshiomhole's exit. He was the first notable political heavyweight to
openly endorse Godwin Obaseki as the worthy successor. The rest, as they say,
is now history.
Doubtless, Oshiomhole did the right thing by celebrating and
immortalizing Ogbemudia lavishly while alive - the last of such efforts being
the hosting of a state banquet to mark his 83rd birthday last September. But
that could only be decorative of the Ogbemudia mystique. For his past golden
record had already etched his name in people's minds. To live in the hearts of
loved ones is not to die. It is precisely from that point that Ogbemudia
attained political immortality.
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