In a few years from now, most Nigerians would probably not be familiar with these individuals who once served the country in different capacities and at different times; this is the reason ELEOJO IDACHABA wonders where they could be now.
Sam Oyovbaire
Professor Sam Ejite Oyovbaire was the minister of information under former President Ibrahim Babangida during the military administration. He was appointed immediately after the late Tony Momoh served in that capacity. Oyovbaire is a professor of Political Science and was the president, Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA), between 1984 and 1986. At the beginning of his stewardship with IBB, he was appointed as the political adviser to Babangida and later as information and culture minister. All these were prior to serving as special adviser to Admiral Augustus Aikhomu who was the second-in-command in that administration. In that capacity, he engaged in rationalising the regime’s political programme.
In specific terms, he extolled the virtues of the Transition Programme, the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Mass Mobilisation for Self-Reliance Social Justice and Economic Recovery (MAMSER), Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) which was the home-grown version implemented by that regime without the standby facility of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In February 2002 long after he left office as minister, he along with Vanguard’s Chidi Amuta wrote in defence of Babangida’s programmes. Part of it read, “The socio-economic reforms of the IBB regime created the enabling environment for a generation of Nigerian professionals who were self-reliant, confident and challenged to break new grounds in the Nigerian political economy.”
He presented Babangida’s administration as the foundation of modern Nigerian political economy. On the missing $12.2 billion Gulf War oil windfall, Oyovbaire wrote in that defence that, “The IBB regime did what it had to do with the dedicated funds. Therefore, the divergence of opinions between the Okigbo committee and the IBB regime on this matter was essentially conceptual and not substantive.”
These confirm the perceptions of public commentators, including intellectuals and academics, about the success of Babangida’s patronage politics, the creation of several programmes and maintenance of steady incomes for many academics despite the allegations against those programmes. As at 2010, Oyovbaire become coordinator for the activities of then PDP presidential aspirant, Abubakar Atiku.
Earlier when Babangida again nursed the ambition of contesting for the presidency in 2011, an ambition he later dropped, Professor Oyovbaire was named his director of policy and strategy. However in December 2010 when Badangida was ruled out of the 2011 elections, that was when Oyovbaire reportedly became the head of Atiku’s campaign for the presidency in the South-south region following the harmonisation process of the Babangida, Gusau, Atiku and Saraki Campaign Teams in the region.
Not too long ago, he turned 80 years with accolades coming from far and near including from President Muhammadu Buhari who congratulated him on his journey of life. It is, however, not certain where he is presently.
Omobola Johnson
Mrs. Omobolaji Johnson was a minister of communication technology, a ministry established by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan to transform the technology sector of the country as part of the transformation agenda of that administration. A technocrat and the honorary chairperson of the global Alliance for Affordable Internet, Mrs. Johnson, according to analysts, has left indelible marks in the ministry that no one has been able to surpass. What is today known as internet revolution was laid while she was in office.
She earned several public commendations after taking up her first government assignment as minister in 2011. After then, she made numerous achievements for her ministry notably among which is the launch of the NigComSat-IR Satellite. This, no doubt, helped to complement the country’s efforts at fibre connectivity and the provision of greater bandwidth. The ministry under her watch also deployed more than 700 personal computers to secondary schools in the first phase of School Access Programme (SAP), while no fewer than 193 tertiary institutions in the country were connected to the internet in the Tertiary Institution Access Programme (TIAP) and 146 communities have access to Community Communication Centres deployed around the country.
On 30 May 2013, she presented the Nigerian National Broadband Plan from 2013 to 2018 to President Jonathan. Following a minor cabinet reshuffle by President Jonathan in September of that year, she was saddled with more responsibilities of supervising the operations of the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, which is like a sister ministry to Communication Technology. Mrs. Johnson is a trustee of the World Economic Forum’s Future of the Internet Initiative, a founding chairperson and trustee of Women in Management in Business and also served on the board of a number of leading Nigerian and multinational corporations.
She has a Bachelor’s in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Manchester; a Master’s in Digital Electronics from King’s College London, and a Doctorate in Business Administration from the School of Management of Cranfield University. While writing on her, Efem Nkanga said: “Mrs. Johnson is a known workaholic with a knack and passion for turning around challenged entities and make them viable. At Accenture, a world renowned consultancy firm where she worked for 25 years, her legacies still speak loudly and no doubt, the ICT ecosystem is benefitting from her expertise. The creation of the ministry was an answer to the clamour by stakeholders for the creation of a separate ministry that would focus and fast-track the development of ICT in the country and transform Nigeria into a digital economy.”
The effect of Mrs. Johnson, according to Nkanga was felt when immediately she resumed as minister, in collaboration with ICT stakeholders, she set in motion a harmonisation and development of a national ICT policy to drive the digitalisation agenda of the federal government.
Since she left the cabinet in 2015, she seems to have put behind her everything about political appointment in the country.
Patrick Ekeji
A former player and coach of the national team, The Green Eagles, he is a complete sports personality who was a delight to many, especially journalists, when he was in service. Before he was appointed national director of sports at the National Sports Commission in 1994, Ekeji was also a director of sports in Imo state. At a point, he became director of sports development at the National Sports Commission in 2001 and director-general, National Sports Commission in 2009, a post he retired from in 2013. While commenting on the problem of sports development in Nigeria after his retirement, Ekeji who had seen it all in the sub sector said, “The first challenge is that of administration. When I say administration, I need to explain it.
For the ordinary people out there, when they look at sports administration, they zoom in on the National Sports Commission as that is where the problem is, but the problem is not really at the National Sports Commission. NSC is a government body that is expected to come out with policies and these policies are now expected to be driven by other sub-players.
“For instance, at state levels, the state sports councils are not funded at all, not to talk of being properly funded. At the school levels, they have their programmes, but the NSC, even as much as we try to admit them into our games, cannot make them to align their programmes with what we have at the NSC. I can tell you that the National Sports Policy, which was passed in 2009, is one of the best in the world, but sadly, we cannot enforce those policies on these schools where the first talents are to be sourced form.
“At the state level, there are many unqualified staff. At the local government level, they have sports committees, which are non-existent. Now at the NSC, what do you expect us to do with the products brought by all the other levels of sports administration?”
Since he retired from service over eight years ago, nothing has been heard about this ex-footballer and sports administrator again.
