The one left behind the footprints of a ‘reactionary’ — or at best a ‘conservative’ — politician, showed no pretension to lofty governance ideas, preened around in ostentatious ornaments, but died and was canonised a ‘progressive’ because of the death of ideology in our body politic. That’s the first paradox.
The first man was Adebayo Alao-Akala, former Oyo governor who swaggered around Agodi government house in turquoise pendants and gaudy chains. The other man was Chief Ernest Shonekan, the boardroom czar who fell for Babangida’s dirty gambit and was handed a poisoned chalice. The last was Bashir Tofa, candidate of the defunct National Republican Convention who pronounced ‘June 12’ dead and held Nigeria’s most popular mandate in contempt.
The paradox of death does not only give meaning to life, it’s essentially the defining attribute of life. And that’s why the lives of some men aren’t only defined by the circumstances of their death, but by their footprints as a representation of the paradoxes of life and its intriguing complexities. Men like Alao-Akala, Tofa, and Shonekan.
In terms of governance philosophy, Alao-Akala never pretended to be a policy wonk, neither did he care that much about the niceties of constitutional frameworks for public procurement and policy execution. This opacity was perhaps the genesis of his battles with the anti-graft agency. He infamously stayed away from debates and other intellectual discourses in the media, too.
His most enduring attribute remains his generous spirit, a point Vice President Yemi Osinbajo made a tangential reference to in his tributes. He loved his Ogbomosho community to bits, and his most visible legacies endure in that town till today. Frankly, that he remained open-handed both in and out of government speaks to the genuineness of his generosity.
As chairman of the United Africa Company of Nigeria , a component of the British multinational Unilever, he was a shining star in Nigeria’s corporate environment. But when the scheming IBB took his chicanery to Shonekan, and handed him a poisoned chalice in form of the chair of the Transition Council , he couldn’t resist. Yet IBB’s was a transition vehicle cobbled together with no intent around transit.
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