RETIRED Brigadier-General Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, two-time governor of Mid West State and later Bendel State, was born in Benin on September 17, 1932. He joined the Nigerian Army in 1957 at the age of 25 with very minimal opposition from his only surviving parent, his mother.
He attended the officer cadet school at Aldershot, England in 1960, and was commissioned second lieutenant in 1961 and served with the UN peacekeeping force in the Congo for 16 months, and in Tanzania in 1964. He was appointed as an instructor to the Nigerian Military School, Zaria in 1964.
In January, 1966, a coup d’état overthrew the civilian government of Nigeria and Major Samuel Ogbemudia played a pivotal role in the July 1966 counter-coup by disarming his troops in Kaduna. One month later he was transferred to the area command, Benin City, fighting with government forces in the Nigerian Civil War.
Ogbemudia was later appointed military administrator of Mid-West State in September 1967 following the liberation of the state from the secessionist forces.
A populist, dedicated to reconstruction after the war, he initiated improvements in the areas of sports, urban development, education, public transportation, housing and commerce. He built the Ogbe Sports Stadium, now named after him, and in August 1973 he commissioned the 3-storey National Museum in Benin City.
Other projects included the Agbede Mechanized Farm, Rural Electrification Board, Bendel Steel Structures, Bendel Pharmaceuticals, Bendel Boatyard, the University of Benin and the Bendel Line. In later years, people looked back on his governorship as a time when much was achieved, followed by stagnation in later administrations.
In July 1975, he retired alongside 11 other military governors by Gen. Murtala Muhammed. The retirement of the governors found guilty of corruption was converted to dismissal. Among these was Brigadier General Samuel Ogbemudia, whom Murtala had appointed eight years earlier, and whom he replaced with Colonel George Agbazika Innih. Ogbemudia was tried for abuses while in office, but acquitted. As the man marked his 80 birthday, he spoke to Vanguard on his days at the Government House, Benin and other national issues. Excerpts:MANY Nigerians recall with nostalgia the lofty contributions of Afuze and Ogbe Hard Court and many other sporting activities and they are of the opinion that you are the real pillar of sports. When you look at the rot in the nation’s sports today, how do you feel?The answer to your question would make me step on toes but I do not mind. I cannot mark my own script. I cannot score myself, whether I am the authentic pillar of sports in Nigeria or not.
Now looking back I will say what I believe. I don’t think that it is only Ogbemudia that is unhappy with current development of our sports sector. Do you remember how Nigerians felt when we won the Under 17 World Cup?
General Ogbemudia
Now we couldn’t even qualify for African Nations’ cup. It is that bad, not only football but also for other games. We are not making progress. Just look at the London Olympics, what do you see yourself? You ask me what we can do to turn things around.
Entertainment and recreationThe ball is in the court of Government. I have always said and I appeal even at the risk of repetition, that if we want to use sports only for entertainment and recreation, then our attention to it and investment in it so far is okay.
But if we want to use sports for national mobilization and galvanization, massive economic revival and influence foreign affairs, etc, then our attention to it and investments in it must not just double, it should triple or even quadruple!
My belief is that government has not been able to effectively cross-breed various ideas for sports development and aggregate these ideas and interests for possible policy formulation that would emancipate the Ministry of Sports from the current syndrome of abysmal failures in every international outing to that of fame and respect for sports loving Nigerians. I call on the Federal Government to take control and reorganize sports.
You were once a Minister of Labour and Productivity. Where did Nigeria get it wrong? Why do we have a large army of unemployed youths ?The Ministry of Labour and government generally cannot provide all the jobs Nigerians need. The private sector is mostly responsible for employment.
That must be understood by everybody. The expectation for employment from Government by the people is too high. Government tries to meet this by employing people that sometimes are not needed, and the Labour Unions would not allow Government to retrench, rationalize or downsize the work force.
That is why government bureaucracy is too large, leading to high recurrent expenditure. Worse still, productivity is low because of redundant workers, yet there is still unemployment. The universities and other higher institutions of learning are turning out graduates yearly into the Labour market. The answer does not lie in one jacket.
It is multifarious, but government must show the light, by creating the enabling environment where private sectors could probably take the lead. You were talking of Sports moments ago. Let me tell you, Sports and Agriculture if well developed can absorb a sizeable number of our unemployed youths and even some that are unemployable.
Look at the Sports Industry in Europe and America; even Asia. You can understand what UEFA is now trying to do with Sports.
Without Sports, millions of their children would be jobless and perhaps would also be militants. That is also the case with Agriculture, which has demonstrated its capacity to employ people in the past, with huge potentials for the future.
The film industry is also there and Nigerians are trying in that regard. So there are lots of opportunities for employment generations that are yet to be tapped. All we need is to convince ourselves that we can do it, and develop the courage to match our conviction with action.
Fifty-two years after political independence would you say that the Nigeria of your dream has evolved?I am not one of those that dreamt of Nigeria. Our political leaders did. I was a soldier then. My duty was to support civil authority.
The dreams as expressed by our leaders were lofty. Unfortunately, they couldn’t manage the politics and things fell apart. Fifty two years in the life of a man is a long time. Such a man will most probably be a grand-father, doing the second lap of his journey. However, 52 years in the life of a nation is very small.
The advanced democracies of this world are much older. Having said that, we must admit that mistakes have been made and we should courageously avoid such areas or mistakes for the future. We must take care to build a nation as we develop our country, otherwise the possibility of secession would remain.
Specifically, will you say that subsequent leaders of Edo State have followed your development blueprint? I was governor of Mid West as a military officer and later Bendel State as an elected civilian governor; not of Edo State, although the present Edo State was an integral part of Mid West and Bendel State. The challenges of development were a little different at the time I was on the saddle. There was civil war. And I needed to protect our people.
Nigeria’s unity was threatened and Mid West sacrificed a lot to help the Federal Government to restore it. The State received the brunt of the war and we needed to rebuild it. We also needed to modernize it to meet world’s standard.
In most of the areas we addressed, a futuristic view was taken into account. To construct a road for example, I would ask the Commissioner and the engineer, what do they think would be the volume of traffic this road would carry in 10 to 20 years time? And we set out to construct the road to meet the projection. That applied to all other areas.
Now, as regards blueprints, I do no think that successive governments were bound by what we did. They were free to accept, adopt, adapt or abandon anything, provided what they chose to do meet the challenges of the time and the aspirations of the people as they saw it.
On a comparative note, Mid West or Bendel State cannot be the same as Edo State today. While it could be said that development in my time commensurate with the economic expectation of that era, the expectation of today, brought about by the issue of globalization of the economy has tended to stretch development beyond snapping point.
Thus most governments have not been able to muster enough strength or build up equal alacrity to rebound in the face of too many requests. But government should strive to do something constantly for the people in order to restore hopes even if these developments are not seen to be total.
Are you a fulfilled man?Not just fulfilled, also a grateful man, grateful to God, to Nigeria, to Bendel and to my people. That is why all the energy left in me is now put at the disposal of God, my Country and my people. I am not looking for job or contract but willing and ready to do anything that would contribute to the growth and happiness of our people.
Looking back now, what are those things you would have done differently?Sometimes when I see how bad things are in Nigeria, I regret that most politicians have not learnt any lesson. I was too loyal to the military and to government. There was little or nothing I could do since my main duty was to support civil authority.
However, I look at the past with nostalgia when Nigerians used to pull one string with rapture and enthusiasm. When the military finally decided to quit and restore civil government, I sought a political party that would adopt sports, transportation, agriculture, education and health care delivery as the central theme of its government but failed. Rather, the party would generalize everything and step out on all fronts. These seem to be falling apart today. However, I thank God for everything.
One of the hallmarks of your 80th birthday is the launching of the Osaigbovo Ogbemudia Foundation. What do you aim to achieve with this?The main thrust of the Foundation is to support the prevention and control of diabetes, which I have found to be posing a major health challenge to Nigerians. It is even more malignant for older persons and I think I could help put smiles on their faces so they could have hopes of counting more years on earth particularly for those who are managing to eke out a living.
The other objectives of the Foundation are on some of the issues above, including Good Governance and Development, especially for the youths which will manifest with time.
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