Akande: Mentor, role model at 80
As former Interim National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Bisi Akande, celebrates his 80th birthday today in his home town, Ila-Orangun, Osun State, Group Political Editor EMMANUEL OLADESU writes on the career of the astute politician, his ideas and lifestyles, and lessons for the political class and the younger generation.
HE is a man of honour and integrity. In private and public life, he has led by example; highly incorruptible, bold, brave and courageous; self-disciplined, loyal to the progressive cause and shunning avarice and tendency towards primitive accumulation, which has become the hallmark of political life.
At 80, Chief Bisi Akande, Asiwaju of Ila-Orangun, former governor of Osun State and Interim National Chairman of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), is hale and hearty. He will host eminent Nigerians from all walks of life for his birthday at Ila today. His associates and followers will throng the ancient town with gifts. But, the celebrator may only be looking for two gifts: Akande wants the youths to emulate his lifestyle and shun evil. Also, he wants Nigerians to sustain the APC progressive administration in power beyond 2019 with their votes in February.
The old political warhorse has paid his dues. He is not contemplating political retirement. Yet, political office may not be his priority again. Akande looks forward to a better society, a truly federal nation-state, and a country whose past will not be better than its future. In his view, that goal can only be realised under a selfless, humanistic and progressive government.
These objectives motivated him to enter politics, not as an occupation, but a vocation. In the various positions where he had served, he left indelible marks. As a ‘councillor,’ member of the 1977 Constituent Assembly, Secretary to old Oyo State Government, deputy governor, governor and party chairman, his public acts were worthy of commendation. Outside power, there is no cause for fear. Unlike some people, he is not in the radar of anti-graft agencies.
Even, in little things, Akande is honest. Record keeping was limited in the agricultural Ila community of his early time, making him to acknowledge January 16, 1939 as his assumed date of birth. At 13, he entered primary school. At that teenage age, his right hand, placed effectively on his head, could touch his left ear. At the Native Authority Primary School, Oke Aloyin, Ila (1946 to 1952) and Methodist School, Oke-Idanre, he excelled in academics. At Oke-Idanre, out of 21 pupils, he took the first position. Between 1957 and 1958, he was at the Divisional Teachers’ Training College, Ile-Ife, where he served as Health Prefect. From 1959 to 1963, he later did correspondence courses at Wosley Hall, Rapid Results College and School of Accountancy in England. In 1963, he qualified as an Associate Member of the Institute of Chartered secretaries of Great Britain. Akande was at the University of Lagos briefly.
Later, he attended more professional courses in the International Computers Limited Training College, Beaumont Winsdor, England (1974), London School of Computer Technology, England (1975), and International Institute of Public Management, Washington DC, United States (1979).
At the age of 15, Akande started working and earning income. He was a Shop Clerk with B.M Akadiri Medicine Store, Idanre. He was a teacher in some primary schools in the old Western and Northern regions between 1955 and 1963. Between 1963 and 1979, he was an Accounting/Computer Management Staff in the British Petroleum Nigeria Limited.
Politics has been in his blood from childhood. The traits of leadership manifested when, as a student of teacher training college, he enlisted in the student, union which sensitized and mobilised the people of Ila into founding the first grammar school in the area. As a grassroots activist, he served as the General Secretary of Ila Union in Lagos between 1968 and 1078. The association fought for the creation of an autonomous council for Ila out of the Osun Northeast Local Council proposed in 1971 by the defunct Western State Government. Also, he was a member of the Osun Northeast Consultative Committee, which fought fought for the creation of the Ila Local Government. He was a member of its management council. In 1970, Akande was a member of the Ila Electricity Planning Committee, which mobilised the people to provide funds for the supply of electricity to the town. When the government later provided electricity for the town, the money realised was used to establish Igbonnibi High School, Ila.
In 1977, Akande was on the popularity scale. He wanted to represent Ila and Odo-Otin councils at the Constituent Assembly. His rival during the contest was the First Republic politician, Chief Kola Balogun, a former minister, who he defeated. He shone brightly at the Constituent Assembly, thereby attracting the attention of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The great leader, an expert in talent hunt, asked another member of the Assembly, Ayo Fasanmi, to bring him to his house at Apapa, Lagos. ‘I remained determined to use that encounter to study what he was. We both discussed my various questions, without any interruptions, for two hours and 10 minutes. In the end, I became convinced that Chief Awolowo had an enormous mastery of both western psychology and oriental philosophies,” Akande recalled.
Since he met Awo, he has not looked back. Although he was inclined towards Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) in the First Republic, he joined the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN), led by Awo. In 1979, he became Secretary to Government in Osun State under Governor Bola Ige. The administration was dedicated to the implementation of the cardinal programmes of free education, free health services, full employment and rural integration. Akande was loyal to Ige and Awolowo. In November 1982, following the exit of the late Chief Sunday Afolabi as deputy governor, he became the deputy governor. Many believed that the 1983 poll was rigged. Thus, Ige and Akande lost the seats to Dr. Omololu Olunloyo and Olatunji Mohammed. When he was detained by the military ruler who also jailed Ige, he humorously described his ordeal as going to a “higher college”.
In 1994, Akande became a member of the National Constitutional Conference set up by the dreadful military Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha. He was elected to represent Osun Northeast comprising Ila, Ifedayo, Boluwaduro and Boripe councils. However, he later boycotted the conference, following the directive by the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO), which believed that it was a strategy to prolong military rule.
In 1998, Akande became the Osun State Chairman of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). He did not show interest in elected office. At the crucial meeting of Afenifere, the pan-Yoruba socio-political group, where the decision on the candidates were to be taken, aspirants were asked to go out to allow the leaders to deliberate. Akande did not go out. Ige told him: “Bisi, go out; you are also contesting.” The rest, as it is said, is history. His contemporaries as governors were Asiwaju Bola Tinubu (Lagos State), Aremo Olusegun Osoba (Ogun), the late Lamidi Adesina Oyo), the late Adebayo Adefarati (Ondo) and Otunba Adeniyi Adebayo (Ekiti).
Governance was not a tea party while Akande was in the saddle. He inherited many challenges. There included N1.2 billion local debt, US $ 235 million foreign debt, four and half months unpaid salaries, unpaid pensions and gratuities, dilapidated education, health and social infrastructure, abandoned projects, disillusioned public service and Ife/Modakeke crisis.
Akande worked for the progress of Osun State. He opposed the culture of graft in high places. He abolished the office of First Lady, saying that it was unconstitutional. He rejected pressures to inflate contracts and ran a government of credibility, transparency and accountability. “As public servants, it is a sin to indulge in serving ourselves to the exclusion of the masses. Hence, we have all shunned entreaties for self-aggrandizement,” Akande said.
In less than four years, former governor built the gigantic state secretariat named after his leader, Ige. He was also frank and sincere. He often cautioned against opulence and covetousness, reminding government officials that Osun State was poor. In his 2000 budget speech, Akande said: “In Osun State, there is neither industrial production nor serious crop agriculture t justify the type of consumption patterns desired by the residents.”
Testifying to his experience, commitment and capacity, Ige said in 1999: “Except for the three months or so which Col. Leo Ajiborisa (as he was then) spent as military governor when Osun State was created eight years ago, our state knew no head of government who really cared for the welfare of the masses of our people. By May 29, 1999 when Governor Bisi Akande was sworn in, the state treasury had not only been depleted by administrative and military looters, huge debts by ways of arrears of salary of teachers and workers, littered the path of the new Government of Osun State.
“It is with confidence that Governor Bisi Akande is tackling these problems, which are not of his own making or the result of his own mistakes. I have no doubt that he will succeed enormously, and the people of Osun State will congratulate themselves for making the obviously right choice of giving him their mandate to change the face of Osun State for progress, justice and freedom for our people.”
However, crisis broke out between Akande and his deputy, Iyiola Omisore, who left the AD for the PDP, like his Lagos counterpart, Senator Kofoworola Akerele-Bucknor. Following Omisore’s defection, Akande appointed Sooko Olawoyin as deputy governor.
It was distressing to Akande that Ige, Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, and Afenifere deputy leader, was killed at his Bodida, Ibadan residence in December 2001 by yet to be identified assassins. In post-Ige era, the crisis in Afenifere escalated. That murder was the baseline for the political earthquake that swept the Southwest during the 2003 elections. Historians will still have to unravel the circumstances surrounding the inexplicable collaboration between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Southwest AD governors in the future. Only Tinubu of Lagos survived the onslaught.
Although Akande was appointed as the chairman of the Afenifere Reformation Committee, the organisation later split. Up to now, Akande is adamant that the new Afenifere, in contrast to the previous original Afenifere of Awo/Adisa Akinloye era, could be attributed to the efforts of Ige and other patriots in the fold.
Also, the Ige camp was divided, following the struggling for the AD chairman between Akande and Senator Mojisoluwa Akinfenwa. There were two parallel congresses. Akinfenwa was elected in Abuja. Akande was elected in Lagos. The Akure Declaration signaled the parting of ways. The Acting Leader of Afenifere said it appeared to the group that the Abuja convention complied with laid down regulations. Rejecting Fasoranti as leader, Akande, Tinubu, Osoba, Adebayo, Olusi, Durojaiye and other Afenifere chieftains stormed the Jibowu office of the group and proclaimed Senator Fasanmi as Deputy Leader. Efforts by the Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG), led by Third Republic House of Representatives Chief Whip Olawale Oshun to reconcile the two factions failed.
When Action Congress (AC) was formed, Ige became the national chairman while Akinfenwa and Chief Michael Koleoso, the Babalaje of Oke-Gun, continued their war of attrition over the AD chairmanship. Akande was consoled by the fact that Southwest recovered from the 2003 onslaught when the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) later produced the governors of Ekiti, Osun, Edo, Lagos, Ogun and Oyo states.
Akande also had the honour of playing a leadership role in preparing the ground for the dignified participation of the Southwest in mainstream politics. As a key figure in the alliance and fusion talks, he as the interim national chairman of the APC and other compatriots — Tinubu, Audu Ogbeh, Tony Momoh, Ogbonnaya Onu, Bukola Saraki, Aliyu Wamakko, Musa Kwakwanso, Rochas Okorocha — midwifed the Buhari administration.
Few years ago, Akande became a widower, following the demise of his wife, Sidikat Omowumi. She was survived by children who have made the couple proud.
When he clocked 70, Akande relocated home, thus escaping from the stress and strains of combustive city life. He said he was returning to farming, the ageless occupation of his forefathers.
The eminent politician is held in high esteem by Asiwaju Tinubu and other leaders in the Southwest and Nigeria. His is not a prophet without honour at home, where he is the Asiwaju of Ila-Orangun. He has also been honoured by many communities and institutions. Akande is the Agba Akin of Oke Ila, Balogun of Aramoko Ekiti, Jagunmolu Oodua of Ijebu-Ife, Apesin of Ilasa-Ijesa and Basorun of Ilobu. On February 23, 2001, he was honoured with the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration by the Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso.
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