By Tony Eluemunor

Once in a long while, someone who just knew what to do would come upon a society in a predicament, and he would, effortlessly it seems, lead that society in the right direction.   Others would marvel at how simple it all seemed to the hero. Or as David Crosby put it in a 1994 song titled the Hero, “And he never wondered what was right or wrong/He just knew, he just knew”.

Brigadier-General Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia just knew …what to do when he was the Military Governor of Midwest, which was later renamed Bendel   State from 1967 to 1975 – and now, he towers, heroic in public estimation, above his governor colleagues.     If Prusia’s Fredrick The Great is still known as Stupor Mundi (Wonder of The World) because “he took a hand in everything: arts, laws, sciences, poetry, universities, crusades, parliament, wars, politics, contention with the papacy” as Barbara Tuchman wrote in The March of Folly”, then Ogbemudia would remain the Stupor Nigeriana. He undertook an all-round development of the state to .the extent that many may be so focused on the physical and economic structures he set up that they may miss getting an insight into the man himself; that would be terrible .

Take this as an example: in an unsigned tribute to Ogbemudia, the anonymous author noted that …..”Schools were established all over the place, including the School of Agriculture, Awain, Asaba, Collage of Education, Agbor, the University of Benin and the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. We remember the New Nigeria Bank, Bendel Insurance Company,   Iyamomo Rubber Research Institute, Urhonigbe Rubber Plantation, Warrake Farms, Agbede Cattle Ranch, Ughelli Fish Ponds, Bendel Food Production Company, Bendel Brewery, Bendel Pharmaceutical Company, AsabaTaxtile Mill, Ughelli Glass Factory, Okpella Cement Company, Bendel Line, Bendel Woods Company, etc. These organisations provided the money that did the magic. He provided General Hospitals in major towns and Health Centres in rural communities as well as potable water and rural electrification in virtually all parts of the State. He built the Ogbemudia Stadium and other Stadia in major cities across the State; the Afuze Games Village; and the Ogba Zoological Gardens and Recreation Centre. In the area of mass communications, Ogbemudia established the Midwest Television, now the NTA, Benin and the Bendel Newspapers Corporation, publishers of the Observer titles”

Great observation; except that to set the record straight, the 1963 to 1966 Mid-West Region administration of Dr. Dennis Osadebay established the Ughelli Glass Factory, the Asaba Textile Mill, Okpella Cement Factory among others.

Ogbemudia

The story here is not really what Ogbemudia established but what inspired him to so do. In 1988, Bendel State celebrated the 25th anniversary of its creation. I interviewed the man who moved the motion for the carving out of Mid-West from the Western Region; Rev.Cannon Ayeni, Ogbemudia himself and the First Governor of Mid-West, Osadebay (he told me that the famed and lyricized Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s development of the Western Region did not impact on Mid-West and that on the new region’s coming into being,   the West dismissed the civil servants from the new region and they gathered, like refugees, on the grounds of Edo College, Benin-City) …and there was no grant, no loan, just absolutely nothing for the Mid-West   – from the Western Region. And there was nothing of import from Auchi to Warri, and from Benin to Asaba.

Worse still, the Biafran incursion into the Mid-West, and its liberation by the Federal Forces reduced the state to a war theater and its infrastructure seriously depleted. It was this degraded state that the then General Officer Commanding the Second Division, the then Col. Murtala Ramat Muhammed appointed Ogbemudia to be its Military Administrator on 20 September 1967. Six weeks later, with the state totally liberated, Lagos ratified Ogbemudia’s appointment and named him Military Governor – 13th of November 1967.

Ogbemudia told me that the first challenge was to unite the polarized state; the Igbo-speaking areas of Aniocha, Ika and Ndokwa   areas, now known as Anioma had supported the Biafran incursion or were considered to have done so. Thus, as Biafran forces were pushed back, the Mid-West Igbo people deserted their posts and fled home. The first thing Ogbemudia did was to ensure that all the houses the Biafran and Mid-West Igbos abandoned were captured in a census, rents on them were collected and banked and they were handed back to their rightful owners whenever they showed up –with the rent accruals.

To show that this was a product of a particular mind-set, Ogbemudia was to donate 2000 seats and desks to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, at the end of the Nigerian Civil war. Then, the Anioma officers who fought on the Biafran side were given appointments in state-owned parastatals, with the eight colonels among them as Managing Directors. To reassure the Anioma people that they too had a stake in the state, he said he appointed Dr. Isaac Okonjo, from Ogwashi-Uku, as the Secretary to the State Government.

Did Ogbemudia set out to build a super state?   Yes, he answered, saying that Okonjo brought up that idea at an Executive Council meeting that Mid-Westerners would be contented only with a super state to show the Western state that severance from it was not a mistake, as the Osadebay-led administration was already doing before Nigeria’s first coup d’état.

From there, there was no stopping Ogbemudia as he turned the state into Nigeria’s most developed. He introduced the Mid-West Line – Mercedes Benz air-conditioned luxury buses and cars (Peugeot 404 station wagons served the need of the lower class)   to cruise from Benin, its base, to far flung parts of Nigeria. Like, a national airline, the Mid-West Line flew the state’s flag. Passengers would be served meals during the trip. There was a departure and arrival time-tables too. Within Mid-West, an inter-city bus service made transportation cheap, easy and hassles-free. Students in uniform had a reduced rate.   Many of the bus drivers were women!

Everybody has heard that Ogbemudia made Bendel number one in sports, and that he established a Sports Camp in Afuze village.   But not many know that Ogbemudia would spend weeks at a go in that camp with the athletes, answering the 5.30 am roll call with them   and hosting the Executive Council meeting in Afuze whenever he was there.   Under him the state craved for the little ways of doing things differently just to set the state apart from the rest. Thus, at the 1973 First National Sports Festival, other states took the match-past in track suits, but the Mid-West athletes received a sustained ovation when they appeared in Ankara traditional up and down style with the state’s map and Ogbemudia’s face emblazoned at the front and back of the bearers.

Medal-winning field and tracks athletes from school competitions were removed from their schools to congregate at Edo College, Benin-City. Promising student footballers were sent to New Era, Benin.   Table-Tennis players were sent to Hussey College, Warri. The entire Mid-West schools were a vast sports factory that churned out athletes who were sent to the designated schools to gain from burnishing by coaches.   Some, like St. Anthony’s College, Ubulu-Uku’sAninye Jonathan (alias Atangana) won a silver medal at the under 13 junior Table-Tennis category at the 1973 National Sports Festival, and earned a six-month training stint in Shanghai, China. Senior category athletes who have represented the state were routinely sent out to schools as “coaches” to prepare students for competitions and bring out the best in the students – and earn some cash too.   That was how Coach Odudu came to teach Lawn-Tennis at St. Anthony’s College Ubulu-Uku, and while he represented the state in the senior category that 1973, his ward, Emmanuel Obiora did the same at the junior level – and earned a silver medal.

It is easy to remember that Ogbemudia built many tertiary institutions but not many still remember that twice a month, trucks and boats filled with books would tour the state – as part of Mid-West Mobile library and card-holding members would borrow books. Ogbemudia also set up the Institute of Continuing Education centres   for the   adult’s informal education.   This enabled many over-aged people and workers to attend school in the evenings and earn certificates.

Not to leave the villages behind, Ogbemudia provided T.V viewing centres in them, powered by small electricity generators. It was in one of such, in Ubilu-Uku, Aniocha North LGA, Delta State that this reporter watched Mohammed Ali’s defeat by Joe Frazier in 1971. People gathered in such places to watch the evening news and popular TV plays…and football matches.

Still on education, Ogbemudia set up the Ethiope Publishing Company to churn out books for the state’s secondary schools and the Mid-West Book Depot to import books at reasonable prices. Many teachers took advantage of Ethiope Publishers to become authors.

Yes, you may have heard that Ogbemudia extended social amenities as much as he could. But it is hard to believe that a state Governor would, on seeing some students going to the stream in the evening and stop his entourage to chat with them.   He wondered why St. Anthony’s College Ubulu-Uku did not have pipe-borne water. The result was a contract that provided an over-head tank that would store water that would be piped in from the nearby Iyi-Ago stream. Pipes were laid across the school from which taps protruded; those pipes and taps still remain dry to this day. Lesson; even Ogbemudia could not finish all the projects he started …or did a conscienceless contractor swindle the state?

Yes, many Nigerians know that Ogbemudia was elected Governor of Bendel (Mid-West became Bendel in 1976) State in 1993. But not many know that Ogbemudia aspired to become President in 1999. When he informed Gen. Ibrahim Babangida that he wanted to run to be president, IBB told him to forget it because the Generals had decided to GIVE it to Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo.   A realistic Ogbemudia accepted the fact, went to Ota to pledge his loyalty to Obasanjo, dismantled his campaign machinery, and asked his spokesman, Mr. Steve Itugbu, to work with Obasanjo. What if…Ogbemudia had become Nigeria’s President in 1999?

Through Steve Itugbu, I met Ogbemudia several times in Abuja. His favorite hotel was the Command Guest House, not the top class Transcorp-Hilton; he was that simply. Actually I remember him the most because of his simplicity. In 1988, at the Gala Night of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of Bendel state, as Victor Uwaifor played away on his guitar, I met Ogbemudia as he was returning, a plate of food in hand, to his table, introduced myself and asked for an interview date.   I followed him to his table and he simply asked: “can we talk now, or must it be later”?   I opened my notebook and began to work. I brushed off his advice to go and collect some food.     Then, he asked me to give him a few minutes, and off he went. He returned with a plate of food – for the reporter! He was that unassuming..

Did he succeed in building a super state?   He said that a super state would entail having a well-educated populace, proud of their history, truly confident, never happy to take the second position in anything and hopeful of their future. He then said that it was when in Ilorin, Kwara state, he overheard a girl say to another: “See, I have no fear. I know no fear. At the very worst, I can return to Bende, or don’t you know I’m from Bendel,”?     that he knew that his efforts were not wasted.   He said that he would wish that the Bendel can-do spirit would spread over the whole Nigeria so that Nigerians would lead Africa in the contest for the control of the world’s resources.     Oh, I didn’t tell you that he also had a company that fabricated machinery – just as he set up Bendel Phamacueticals   Company and Wood Works to produce things.   In Agbede Cattle Ranch (which came ever before itinerant Fulani cattle herdsmen began clashing with farmers everywhere) , he introduced Bufallo rearing for meat production.

No wonder he told someone: “It is a time when there is the need to formulate a National Sports Policy that will clearly draw the line on whether our sports should be for recreation only or for national   mobilisation, economic growth and international diplomacy.” Now, you have seen the soul of this man who wanted to make Bendel a super state and succeeded. To him, sport was a means to an end, a calculated end!

To end the story here is to pretend that Ogbemudia never had his ups and downs.   Like other Military Governors, he was swept out of office by the 1975 coup that brought in the Murtala/Obasanjo administration. That day the public looted his poultry in Benin. The Ogbemudia Farms were trashed. When in 1976, a probe panel found him guilty of corruption, newspaper columnists excoriated him. But his rehabilitation was complete when he was elected Governor in 1983; he had been only months in office.

Ogbemudia was a man of energy, of foresight, of purpose; a man who raised his state to the highest estate – a man who was never afraid to experiment.

• Tony Eluemunor is Chief James OnanefeIbori’s Media Assitant.