Adaba, Ruma: Where are they now?

More Nigerians have come under the searchlight as their impacts in the public square have not been felt even though they were movers and shakers of their respective callings when they held sway.
ELEOJO IDACHABA takes a look at these living legends.
Dr Abba Sayyad Ruma He was a Minister of Agriculture and Water Resources as well as Education under the administration of the late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
His last known public office was in 2010 after he was dropped during a cabinet reshuffle by former President Goodluck Jonathan who succeeded President Yar’Adua.
As a member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), he was among the people that allegedly constituted what was known as cabal in that administration, being a member of Yar’Adua’s kitchen cabinet.
The major role he played during the period President Yar’Adua was in hospital abroad over undisclosed illness indeed goes to prove that he was one of them.
As a member of the then Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he along with Dr Tanimu Yakubu, Yar’Adua’s Economic Adviser, Senator Garba Yakubu Lado, and Dahiru Mangal, a business man, were considered to belong to the faction of the party that called the shots from Abuja as against the decision of Katsina state leadership of the party under Governor Ibrahim Shema.
Ruma was not new to politics before he became a minister.
He was a former council chairman and later became the Secretary to the Katsina State Government, when Yar’Adua was governor, before he was subsequently nominated by the same administration to serve as a member of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s cabinet as Minister of State for Education.
Following the election of Yar’Adua as president, Ruma was again appointed as a Minister of Agriculture.
One of his landmark achievements was his approval of the ministry’s policy on decentralisation of the distribution channel for fertilisers as against the erstwhile reliance on private individuals in order to improve access by farmers.
According to him, Nigeria had no food crisis, but the then rising cost of rice.
After he was dropped from the cabinet by Jonathan in 2010, he seems to have gone on self-imposed sabbatical.
Analysts are of the opinion that Ruma, still a young man, should have taken advantage of the common origin factor with the current President who also hails from Katsina.
Reports indicate that he is now based in Rome where he works as the chairman, governing council of International Fund for AgriculturalDevelopment (IFAD).
Adaba, Ruma: Where are they now? Dr Tom Adaba A foremost broadcaster and administrator, Dr Adaba was the first Nigerian to bag a doctorate degree (PhD) in Mass communications.
He, however, has something unique about him.
He is credited to pioneering some important organisations in the country; for instance, when the Nigerian Television Authority training school was established in Jos, he was appointed as its pioneer Principal.
That is not all, in 1991, when as a deputy director in NTA Lagos, his name was pencilled down among those to be affected through an outright down-sizing thereby ending his career from public service prematurely.
Luck, however, smiled on him as then Military President Ibrahim Babangida in 1992 appointed him as the director- general of the newly established National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), a position he held for seven years before he finally bowed out of public service in 1999.
Born in Okene in the present day Kogi state, he is of the Egbira extraction which constitutes the second largest ethnic group in the state.
As a nationalist, he does not shy away from drumming support for Egbira cause anytime he has the opportunity.
For instance, during the administration of Captain Idris Wada, the former governor of Kogi state, Dr Adaba was one major voice that spoke against what he termed the marginalisation of his people, insisting on power shift.
In a public outburst, shortly after Wada left office, he said: “What I was really worried about was when we, in the other parts of the state, complained very bitterly about marginalisation, the Wada government would tell us that there was nothing like that in the state which to me was an insult on all sorts of people.” That was the zeal with which he serves his people.
Since his last public office, he has quietly retired into private life.
As someone who has raised six biological children who are into broadcasting in various media organisations across the country, he is said to be a fulfilled man.
His wealth of experience is, however, said to be needed in modern day Nigeria, especially his home state which leadership appears to be drifting after the much-anticipated powershift was realised.
Tunde Ogbeha This is a Nigerian that one finds difficult to describe because of his involvement in several sectors.
Having served in the military until he retired as a General and also having represented Kogi West Senatorial District as a senator in the National Assembly, floating the first private radio station in the state as a businessman, he can be described as a man of many parts.
A pioneer military administrator of Akwa Ibom state, at creation in 1987, Ogbeha also served in the same capacity in the old Bendel state under former President Ibrahim Babangida.
He was a vocal member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on whose platform he was elected a senator.
Since he left the Senate in 2007, Ogbeha has not been vocal anymore unlike when he was in active service both in the military and the Senate.
Born in Lokoja, the capital of Kogi state, he is said to be the arrowhead in the creation of the state by the IBB administration because of the closeness he enjoyed with the then president.
Although he would not want to take full credit for the creation, he simply said “I only acted as a go-between.” He, however, said: “Many of the elders and indigenes of Kogi state who were privy to his underground effort hold him in high esteem in helping to actualise the dream and aspirations of hundreds and thousands.” Although he was said to have confronted Yahaya Bello, the governor of his state, over what is generally believed to be maladministration in the state, he appears to have retired quietly into private life.