Exit of a good man
As we were having a memorial event in honour of our good friend and brother, Mohammed Sanusi Abubakar, last week, another good man, Alex Ekwueme, was being interred in Oko, Anambra State.
The lives of both men teach us that it is better to live for something than just being passenger in the train of life. When you touch many lives positively in your earthly sojourn, you cannot die even after taking your final breath. Good men don’t die. They live on in the grateful memories shared, in those they mentored, in the community for whom they were trailblazers, pathfinders or pillars of support.
For Ekwueme, the end came after 85 years. Within those years he had earned degrees in Architecture, Sociology, Philosophy and Law. The brilliant boy from Oko in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State went on to become Vice-President to President Shehu Shagari during Nigeria’s Second Republic.
Before that, his firm, Ekwueme Associates, was one of the pioneer indigenous architecture firms in the country with 16 operational offices. He left a very lucrative professional calling to join politics. Unlike many people today, politics was not his meal ticket. He set the template for what a vicepresident should be in a presidential democracy - an unobtrusive helper, a team player and sharer of the vision of his boss, the president.
Little wonder President Shagari eulogised him on his demise: “Dr. Ekwueme was a deputy I trusted. We understood each other well and it was impossible for mischief makers to drive a wedge between us. He was a loyal lieutenant and because of his excellent contributions to the success of our administration during our first tenure, I had no hesitation to nominate him to run with me again for second term,” he said.
“… In spite of the ordeals he went through in the hands of the military and the campaign of calumny against his person, his character remained impeccable and unimpeachable.
He has served Nigeria diligently. He has done his bit. In life he was a great man; a patriot; a statesman. Even in death his many achievements and greatness cannot be diminished.… I will continue to relish the memory of the good times we shared together.
I did meet Dr. Ekwueme a couple of times. He struck me as the ‘serious type’; the type not given to frivolities. That says something, given the proclivities of many a Nigerian carpetbagger who now calls himself a politician. Ekwueme’s serious mien was probably borne out of his conviction that politics was more than a game - it was about using available resources to bring out the best in people to achieve their potentials.
And there is a lot for the younger generation to learn. Any small boy or girl from one of the little towns or villages in any part of the country could achieve greatness and fulfil his/her destiny if he/she remains steadfast.
Nothing but doggedness and his belief in the unity of Nigeria made Ekwueme soldier on each time he lost his bid to be president. As far as I know, he never played the ethnic or religious card at any time. He sold his candidature as a Nigerian, bold, competent, detribalised.
Someday, historians will favour us with the full analysis of why such an eminently qualified professional never had a chance to govern Nigeria.
His burial last week provided a platform for many of those unfit to dust his moral sandals to play to the gallery. It is the way of politicians. Every opportunity to shine in the rays of another person’s setting sun is a godsend.
I think it is commendable that the federal government for once moved with dispatch to honour the departed statesman. Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo (who had had the honour of singing “Our God, Our Help in Ages Past”, alongside Dr Ekwueme in December 2016 when Former Nigerian leaders, Yakubu Gowon, Olusegun Obasanjo, Ernest Shonekan, and former deputies, Ebitu Ukiwe and Oladipo Diya delivered a hymn for a greater, united and peaceful Nigeria in 2017) announced the renaming of the Federal University, Ndufu Alike, Ikwo in Ebonyi State after the departed statesman in recognition of his selfless service to the country.
He said Ekwueme practiced the principles of personal sacrifice for others and would be remembered for many things not only by the people of the Southeast, but the entire country.
I thought I gleaned some quotable quote from the Primate of the Church of Nigeria, the Most Rev Nicholas Okoh, who, while preaching at the funeral said, “What we need in Nigeria is integrity and its allied products”.
Now, talking about integrity and its allied products, I felt good that Nigeria was, within the same week, cited for a positive reason by the African Union when President Buhari was named Africa anti-corruption Champion. It’s time we started rewriting our own story. There are positive sides to Nigeria. We are not just a nation of fraudsters, drug mules, kidnappers, human traffickers, armed robbers and thieving politicians.
Our anti-corruption war is being noticed far beyond these shores. It may not yet be perfect but it is a start nonetheless. As long as the structures are in place, the camels that escape through the eye of the needle today may be tomorrow’s suya.
If you understand that proverb, I expect you to say Amen.