On the Podium, Adesina Grabs Attention

The Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian newspapers and renowned columnist, Mr. Debo Adesina, was the unassuming speaker at the public interest lecture series organized by The Island Club, Lagos. But his understanding of issues left his audience awestruck long

The atmosphere had the air of an academic inaugural lecture. The audience, indeed, included renowned academics, captains of industry, businessmen, renowned lawyers, other professionals and the movers of Lagos’ social scene. It was the Public Interest Lecture Series of Nigeria’s highly influential premier club, The Island Club of Lagos, and to deliver the third in the series was Debo Adesina, Editor-in-Chief of The Guardian and columnist.

As guest speaker, Adesina had been preceded by a highly distinguished cast: The first guest speaker six months earlier was Major General Ajibade, formerly the Director of Military Intelligence. Legal scholar and current chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council Against Corruption, Professor Itse Sagay, delivered the lecture at the second outing.

As Adesina took quick steps to the podium to deliver his paper on that third occasion, with ‘The Buhari Administration: The Economy and The Polity’ as the theme, the audience went into a frenzy of murmurs, fuelled by the simplicity of the guest speaker and his impeccable manners. Many knew the self-effacing journalist largely by reputation and were seeing him for the first time.

He took the microphone and delivered what was considered a very brilliant diagnosis of the problem of the nation and proffered profound far-reaching solutions.

“By the time he took over on May 29, 2015, Nigeria was a wounded nation with a deep physical gash on her body, inflicted by Boko Haram terrorists in their rampaging killings.” This, according to Adesina, was compounded by the moral wound on the nation’s soul inflicted by mindless corruption and inept management of resources. To cap it all, he said, a sense of disconnection and disaffection had set in to the extent that Nigerians felt only a distant relationship with their country.

”When he won the election therefore, what President Buhari got was a unique mandate: To heal Nigeria, renew her essence and be the architect of a national renaissance.”

He recalled how Buhari had run for President three times before over a period of 11 years and had even once said he was through with the quest. “In 2015, he came along just when the nation needed a figure of discipline and integrity most. And for the office of President, the man and the moment met.”

On the real job of governance, however, Adesina lamented the government’s slow pace and indecisiveness in some cases. He commended the war on corruption and acknowledged that only a person like Buhari could have taken the battle to the looters the way he has.

The renowned journalist then went on to sketch the way out for Nigeria, a country he said would never prosper without a functional truly federal structure of governance. “For some strange reasons, federalism in its purest form, restructuring, fiscal federalism and many more have become feared words to some people in Nigeria. Yet they are words we must not only live with, they are ideas without the implementation of which Nigeria cannot thrive!”

He lamented the fact that the administration is yet to fully appreciate its true mandate at this particular time in Nigeria’s history. The power sector, roads, the dams, the rails and the schools must be built but, according to him, those, as important as they are, are ancillary to the real assignment before this administration. “The real assignment of the Buhari/Osinbajo administration is the re-birth of Nigeria, not just its repair!”

According to Adesina, no one should need any persuasion that a situation in which the individuality of the different groups in Nigeria is denied and dubious unitarism is forced on a federal state is fraudulent and can only breed injustice and, of course, discontent.

He then bemoaned what he called “our rulers’ dexterity at the entombment of opportunities for redemption.”

“History has shown that Nigerian leaders have always been adept at making the best coffin or digging the deepest graves for the blessings divinely, freely bestowed on the country. I can only hope this administration would be different.”

The greatest efforts at undermining Nigeria, Adesina said, are made by those Nigerian leaders who find comfort in the existing wobbly structure that suits their hegemonic fantasies but takes the country on a downward slide into the fourth grade in the comity of nations.

Fast-forward to a few days ago. The audience was smaller but it was just as illustrious as the first one. Accountants, medical doctors, architects and many other successful professionals sat with business leaders and entrepreneurs. This time, however, everybody in the gathering had one thing in common: they were all indigenes of Oyo State. And this body of stakeholders, though gathered for the celebration of one of them who had just been elevated to a higher level in his profession, had asked the speaker to chart a path to the future for the state.

Adesina acknowledged the challenges of governance in Oyo and gave appropriate credit to those who had led the state so far. With poor revenue and over-dependence on the federal allocation, he said, it was only a matter of time before states like Oyo went into such crises of non-payment of wages and inability to appropriately fund infrastructural development as they are in now. But Oyo can prosper. “It will not happen overnight. But Oyo can prosper if the people and the governments, at the state and local levels, do not go to sleep.” First, he said, the laws must be changed by the government of Nigeria to allow a state like Oyo take full advantage of the many mineral resources embedded in its soil. He listed them as they exist in each local government area. He also suggested creativity in tapping into the state’s tourism potentials in different locations which he also listed.

Agriculture, using to maximum advantage the abundant and rich land in his native Oke Ogun and Ibarapa zones of Oyo State, Adesina told the gathering, is also key to the economic prosperity of the state. “There must be a strategic but massive investment by both the local and the state governments, not only in input but also in high-yielding products” if Oyo would ever prosper beyond the monthly federal allocation which has now proven hardly enough to cover government expenses.

The state, he said, according to studies, has one of the lowest utilization rates of agricultural input and this must be increased if a real economy would be created in the state. He cited the examples of China and Vietnam, with facts and figures, as countries that lifted more than 40% of their populations out of poverty within 10 years by aggressively and creatively investing in agriculture.

“If Thailand’s agriculture could enable it have one of the lowest unemployment rates in the world, about 1%, there is hope for the people of states like Oyo.” He referred the audience to the Ikere Gorge Dam, near Iseyin, Oyo North, which was abandoned ages ago but, if revived, has the potential to revolutionize power supply, water supply and even agriculture on a massive industrial scale in Oyo State.

The journalist also delivered a long and detailed plan for education, urban renewal and rural renaissance. In the new global order, education, he said, must receive priority attention in order to prepare the children of Oyo “for places beyond here and times beyond now.”

The thunderous applause that greeted each point Adesina made was then capped by a long standing ovation at the end of the speech.

He took a few questions and, self-effacing as ever, he made his way quietly out of the arena in Lekki where the event held. Expectedly, the discussions and speculations have begun.

A native of Okaka in Itesiwaju Local Government area in the north of Oyo State, having made editorship of a major publication at the age of 27 on the stable of The Guardian group of newspapers, Adesina has never looked back as a journalist. He has won many things winnable in the profession and distinguished himself as a manager. Even when he was appointed a Federal Commissioner in the Fiscal Responsibility Commission in 2008 by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, he soon gave the appointment up, saying he thought he was serving Nigeria better as the Editor/Deputy Editor-in-Chief of a major newspaper then.

Adesina has always been popular on the lecture circuit but as the invitations keep pouring in and he honours them, a pattern appears emerging.

His passion for the people and love for country are not in doubt. His commitment to the well-being of the people of his own state, on whom he’s known to have invested whatever resources he has through scholarship, employment and empowerment programmes, is never in question. His vast network of friends across Nigeria and in various areas, including politics, is well known. His ideas are genuine and fresh. And he is never reluctant or afraid to share them with anyone who cares to listen. Is he about to end his aversion for public office? No one knows. Or, those who know are not telling.

But one thing is certain: wherever Adesina appears, whether it is on the lecture podium or on the political circuit, he is one man to watch and listen to.