Bisi Akande: A man contemptuous of formal power, By Lai Olurode

He is a most faithful person in his private and public lives. He rarely challenged his political associates. His deference to Bola Ige was unbelievable. He was definitely shattered by the murder of Bola Ige. He was convinced that the killers of the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice were known to government. He has a disdain for protocols in government, except they add to the quality of governance.

Pa Bisi Akande turned 84 on 16 January. Just as his role model, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Bisi Akande was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He struggled to attain greatness through dogged determination, self-discipline, hard work and providence. By all standards, he is certainly a statesman, an ascetic person and an unusual politician who had provided leadership at the topmost level for political parties at their formative years and nurtured them to the point of winning at local, state and federal levels. But he isn’t the type who throws money around or subscribes to the general notion that money solves all problems. Really, in this regard he isn’t a popular politician. He has a disdain for the notoriety of the money culture in politics. Rather, he prefers to deliver social services to electors in place of stomach infrastructure, an idea popularised by former Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State. He would rather not spend government money the way he won’t spend his own. As a governor, he was miserly with public expenditure. At his inauguration as governor in 1999, he turned down requests by his aides that he should hold a lavish inauguration ceremony. He only spent N50,000 of his own money. Throughout his tenure as governor, he jealously guarded the need to separate his private expenses from public ones, even during private social celebrations.

He is a most faithful person in his private and public lives. He rarely challenged his political associates. His deference to Bola Ige was unbelievable. He was definitely shattered by the murder of Bola Ige. He was convinced that the killers of the former Attorney General and Minister of Justice were known to government. He has a disdain for protocols in government, except they add to the quality of governance.

His philosophy of power is about what it can be used for to advance the interest of the majority. His politics could be described as low profile, as he prefers being loud on governance rather than politics. To him, the campaigns for power grab are essentially deceitful and unethical. He would rather be meagre with campaign promises, rather than build castles in the air during campaign rallies. He is ever frank with voters. Elections are not a duel nor must they be won at all cost. If you refer to him as Mr Governance, you will be dead right. If you pay a visit to Bola Ige House in Osogbo, an architectural masterpiece, you wouldn’t believe that the government of Akande never borrowed to execute the massive project. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, at the commissioning of the secretariat, marvelled at how Akande did it without borrowing. How are we to explain Akande’s accomplishments as governor? His major asset is his formidable ethics and down-to-earth approach to this ephemeral life. He is a conservative fund holder. Being prodigal with public fund isn’t for him. But he can be an embarrassment to typical Nigerian politicians, with their flamboyant traits and wastefulness.

In the words of Professor Wole Soyinka, a Nobel laureate, in his Foreword to Bisi Akande’s My Participation: “Power hates truth…Power engages in image-making, image burnishing, credit hustling, indeed, image fabrication…(but in the hands of Bisi Akande) power feels exposed….”

A serious politician that Bisi Akande is, he wasn’t familiar with brown envelopes to cultivate media practitioners. As governor of Osun State, he refused to indulge his wife as the First Lady and never allocated funds to that office. When he was accused of not being gender friendly in his administration, his response was that the office of the First Lady was not mentioned in Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution, as amended.

In demistifying power and unveiling the phenomenon, Bisi Akande was embarrassingly simple – hardly would you recognise him as your guest if you’re hoping that he would be heralded and ushered into a venue by a convoy of expensive jeeps. In and out of government, Baba Omokeke (as his admirers refers to him) has remained himself.

Whatever might be the situation, Pa Akande always talks straight, no matter whose ox is gored. He rarely does media packaging. He could be truthfully brutal when, in talking about a former deputy of his as governor, he said that the fellow “…crept into my life like a silent and malignant cancer.” He was certainly full of regrets. That he is now in the same party with this former deputy of his is an indication that Akande is capable of cultivating political expediency when necessary.

Without doubt, President Muhammadu Buhari wouldn’t have hesitated in conceding any ministerial office to former Governor Bisi Akande, but Akande wasn’t the type that is desperate to occupy any office at his age. He just fought for others to occupy juicy power in Buhari’s administration.

His life is dedicated to serving the public public good, and nothing really personal. At 84, Pa Bisi Akande should feel fulfilled having facilitated a formidable alliance between the Yoruba of the South-West and the Hausa-Fulani group of the North-West. Without doubt, Akande is hopeful that his political investments in fixing a ‘progressive’ government will be reciprocated in the election of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu next month.

To a gentleman politician and a ‘rebel’ (with apologies to Professor Azeez Olaniyan, in “The Bisi Akande Phenomenon?”) in government, I say happy birthday sir.

Lai Olurode is a retired professor of Sociology in the University of Lagos (Unilag) and former National Commissioner with the Independent National Electoral Commission.