The morning of the first Saturday of 2005, Gov. Victor Attah of Akwa Ibom State (as he then was) made an evergreen telephone call to me. I arrived the Hilltop Mansion, Uyo, late afternoon the following day to honour his invitation to what I thought would be a brief meeting, only to leave after three hours, filled for life. No, that had nothing to do with food, drinks or money, none of which I took. Yet, that event reverberates to date in my mind’s ear.
It was the first time I had the privilege of being up, close and personal with a man that powerful, distinguished, and venerable. The incredibly soft tone of his voice all through taught me volumes about humility. He was the first to confirm to me that full vessels make no noise. The other virtues I gleaned from the private meeting were his monumental warmth, his uncanny openness and his courageous patriotism as a leader.
My book, The few good Nigerian politicians I’ve encountered, out next August, will bear the finer details you crave. Meanwhile, here’s the essence of this history. Forty-eight hours after our sweet telephone talk and 12 hours after that didactic time together, the then governor arrived the studio of NTA Channel 12, Uyo, to be a shock guest on AM Express Extra, the daily live independent production my team and I ran at the time. Compelled more by the events that had transpired between us the two intervening days, I opened the exclusive interview asking about his childhood.
I nailed it. He hammered it. He told me things I can never forget. His father, the late Bassey Udo Adiaha Attah, taught the family “to add ‘please’ every time they needed a favour even from a servant; to say ‘thank you’ once served or helped; and to offer ‘sorry’ sincerely anytime they fell short.”
One more extract from my encounters with the iconic architect that befits this context is how he recollected the first and last time (?) his father caned him. In those days, the family had a chauffeur who took them wherever. However, one day, their father wanted them to experience commercial transportation. When school resumed, young Victor waiting by the car and running late screamed a line he had heard at the motor park: “driver, oya, oya, oya!”
Immediately, his disciplinarian father peeped from upstairs, asking him what he just said. Innocent Victor repeated the motor park lingo. He was summoned back upstairs, given 12 lashes on the buttocks and thereafter reminded of the respect he owed the driver, an elderly man. He cried all the way to school that fateful morning, learning the hard way never to forget his family values!
Fast-forward to penultimate Wednesday, 23rd September. Family had gathered at Prof. Ernest Ojukwu’s Abuja home that evening over dinner to commemorate the Senior Advocate of Nigeria’s 60th birthday. I was sitting with the international ‘legal educationist’ and his wife, Justice Ijeoma, when his younger sister (Mrs. Odi Lagi) who is well above 40, came to seek permission to serve a bottle of wine from his collection. While that stunned me, for crying out loud, she’s a big woman and his sister (I mean, why seek permission for a bottle of wine during an event), but as I always tell Mrs. Nneka Irene BUSH, I treasure that family trait of theirs.
In December of 2007, children of the family had converged on Uyo to spend Christmas with us. The memory of the noise, the fun and the love they generated and distributed generously in those three short weeks will hang for eternity on the wall of my heart. Anytime, they needed a drink or biscuit or something, they would dispatch the boys, Kamachi Ojukwu, Nnamdi Uduma, et al, to come for permission. Considering none of them was up to nine or 10 at the time, I always wondered why, unlike most children their age, they never simply helped themselves to what they needed and even more how the permission-seekers were so smart to open their requests with, “We were wondering if we could have…?”
The foregoing is proof that family is fundamental in how we all turn up. Parents and communities of youngsters and juvenile adults who have turned the social and traditional media space into channels of insults, ingratitude, blackmail, entitlement and hate, must accept responsibility for upbringing failure. We have blamed government, ad hoc agencies, schools and worship centres for too long, erroneously. The time to dash back to winning ways is now.
And, Edo State helmsman, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, and his deputy, Mr. Philip Shaibu, have shown the way. Going round the state, the South-South region and the country within one week of their re-election to thank people who directly or indirectly helped them is something that warms the heart in a thankless society such as ours. Beneficiaries who take years to thank God and forever to appreciate helpers must not only imbibe the Edo example but also realise that a big thank you expressed late becomes small, a small one spoken in time becomes big and, as Gov. Obaseki and Deputy Gov. Shaibu have demonstrated, a big thank you given hot-hot assumes an eternal, didactic significance!
Judging from the Edo State chief executive telling Aso Rock Villa press, after having met President Muhammadu Buhari and later Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, that there were no plans to recrosstitute to the All Progressives Congress and coupled with his deputy’s refusal to abandon him despite all the pressure, it’s clear that both leaders were well raised and are epitomes of loyalty, respect, honour, humility and leadership. They displayed tremendous courage when their political benefactor abandoned them in the middle of nowhere. They consulted widely, including Governors Udom Emmanuel (of Akwa Ibom), Nyesom Wike of Rivers and others who have first-hand experience in such political guerrilla warfare. They stood up for their rights, they fought a good fight and they won a popular victory, as could be gleaned from the mood nationwide.
Still, both men must go the whole hog by extending their thank you to Comrade Adams Oshiomhole who got them here in the first place and whose mind-change facilitated and accentuated this second term victory. As Christians, they should remember that, if Joseph’s brothers and Mrs. Potiphar had not taken turns to deal so devilishly with him, he would never have had the fare to Egypt and without that would not today own the prison-to-palace copyright. The two victors need not descend anymore with anger on their estranged godfather, except to sportsmanly pick him up. Messrs. Obaseki and Shaibu cannot and should not teach us goodness in half doses.
God bless Nigeria!