Sir Michael Agbolade Otedola: An Undying Whisper from the Past
Nike Jones
One of the finest persons I have ever met and worked with was Sir Michael Agbolade Otedola. The General Ibrahim Babangida administration had foisted a two-party system on Nigerians in 1989 following the president’s inclination to end his military junta and embrace the civil form of government seen around the world. Nigerians had no other option apart from the established National Republican Convention (NRC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). Babangida’s transition idea led to a high definition jostling and tent pitching either with the NRC or the SDP among politicians and Nigerians.
I was a budding woman at the time with an inchoate idea for a pan-Nigerian social order. The politics of the region which Sir Michael and I came from has a clear political idiosyncratic peculiarity. The choice of many elders of thought among the Yoruba people was the SDP. The SDP became the dominant party among the Yoruba people. The likelihood of the NRC winning any state of the Yoruba people was going to be a herculean task. Sir Michael knew this but chose to stride along this unpopular path for the NRC and for his persuasion.
Both parties were preparing for their various State Elections, Congresses and National Conventions. I was a delegate for NRC, representing the Lagos Mainland Constituency. My euphoria of this political accomplishment as a youthful woman was reaching the skies. I was hopeful with clearness and I was prepared to give the best of my talent for this political process. As I watched the contestants lobbying for our votes, I saw Sir Michael in his glittering white apparel from afar as he exchanged greetings with people and listened as they talked and responded with a few words and signs of assurances. Some of the contestants have spoken and lobbied for support and vote. I kept my mind opened until I heard the last of them. My choice must come from my conviction.
Sir Michael was plain. You would find no sensationalism or sentimentalism with him. His plainness was piercing and penetrating. If you cared for pragmatism, you would choose him over the voluble charismatics who mesmerised listeners with fancy words.
Having listened to almost the contestants at all levels, I saw a number of delegates around with positive energy throwing the support for Sir Michael. At this point, I was already on board in support of Sir Michael. I knew it would be the beginning of a greater political relationship with the sage.
The hour came and it was like streaks of light breaking through the forest glades — Sir Michael was walking slowly towards a few of us from Lagos Mainland Constituency. He was accompanied by the late Otunba Anthony Olusegun Odugbesan and two other persons. He stopped and greeted us pleasantly and said, “Look at my people, I know we have the same dream to make Lagos State the centre of excellence. Please join me and let us get it done.” The whole of my mental configuration changed when I heard him say these words. Little did I know that time would present him with the opportunity to coin an official sobriquet for Lagos. He presented “Lagos: Centre of Excellence”. This slogan has come to stay. Every governor after him struggled to make Lagos the Centre of Excellence. No one has set a better challenge to succeeding governors than Sir Michael Agbolade Otedola.
He spoke of his plan about how to make Lagos a Centre of Excellent. We were so amused at his vivid, artless, and realistic plan for infrastructure, education and entrepreneurship. His goal was a people oriented vision. He wanted to raise a population of youths from dependence to entrepreneurial capacity and humane capitalism. He believed that reducing poverty among Lagos residents would be a way to growing a giant economy for Lagos. He told us that having a plentiful wealthy population would ease the government from the burden of avoidable liability because a wealthy population’s contribution would cut across investment and employment of labour, infrastructure surplus, education improvement, healthy culture and physical planning.
After Sir Michael addressed us, I was chosen amongst the 3 delegates to respond, and I asked why he chose NRC as his platform given that the majority of Yoruba elders chose SDP, a factor that made the party to have a greater hold on Lagos and other Yoruba region states. I wanted to know his drive for taking a path with a slim or infinitesimal chance of winning the gubernatorial seat of Lagos. He looked at me as if he was trying to find a connection with me for choosing the NRC. He said, “Maybe you and I are here for the same reason. I don’t need to conform to the popular leaning to win this election. I don’t need to win through a crowded system. We are at a time people knew what they want. I have to defeat that crowded system because I know what my people want. The path to glory is usually narrow, visible and lucid for a nonconformist but it is difficult for a conformist to see with clarity while on the broad way.”
The manner he presented his response was like there was no strong challenge against him. I could see in him a dawn reality. He was so sure that he was steps ahead those on the otherside of the divide. His courage was spilling over me and I quipped, “Baba, I agree with you and I am going with you all the way to win with you. I am ready for any task.”
“Thank you for your choice”, he responded. He added, “Here in Lagos, the NRC is the narrow path and that is why I am with them. The narrow way screens you more than the broad way. You have to work and recreate things with attention and focus but in the broad way you will be faced with distractions, wrangling, many lackeys brouhaha, shortchanges, distrust, and even patching up with irreconcilable differences. Governance is not a party of lackeys but a process of building sustainable bridges between the government and the electorate. We will win and make Lagos the Centre of Excellence. Can we do it together?”, he asked with self-effacement.
Before I made my answer, he took me by the hand and we sauntered softly towards the exit door of the arena. “Nike, we have a lot more to talk about. I’m inclined to giving you some tasks to do.”
“Sure Sir, I’ll do them”, I said unassumingly. He handed me his private telephone number and requested me to call him after the meeting for further conversation. It wasn’t a feeling of excitement moving in my sinews as we parted but I wondered how magical it was that I made a wish earlier and in a moment it became realistic. That wonderment hovered over me until the end of the meeting. I was super excited when he was declared the winner and announced as the NRC gubernatorial candidate for Lagos. As a man without rancor, he was accepted by all concerns within the NRC as the arrowhead for us all. A lot of us moved into the campaigns with the satisfaction and assurance that we have a credible and ingenuous candidate to face the sprawling political juggernauts.
A night after the congress for gubernatorial election, I called his telephone line. He was as full of life as he spoke. He said to me, “Nike, there is no time for delays. We have to meet this afternoon. I want to know what you can do before I start assigning responsibilities for the general election. Can you come to my Impact Press office at 2.30pm?” When I got to his office area, his personal assistant led me in. Late Otunba Anthony Olusegun Odugbesan was in the office with him. He was a man of undeniable discretion. Sir Michael asked as he looked at me with a beam on his face, “Nike, may I know you more”? “Sir, I am a Lagosian. I acquainted him with my origins— both paternal and maternal lineages. He was persuaded of what I stood for as a rising woman that I would be useful and resourceful to him.
Sir Michael commended my bearing and youthful savvy. He told me that he believed that I had the capacity and the ability to mobilise support for him in no small way. My first assignment he placed me in the fundraising dinner committee along with Mr. Nduka Obaigbena as the headship of the committee, a youthful tested doyen of journalism, Dr. Doyin Okupe, Engr. Buba Galadima, Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode, Mr. John Dara his Personal Assistant and Ms Queenette Alagoa (one of Chief Tom Ikimi’s aides). After telling me that he wanted me to be in the fundraising dinner committee, he said to me, “The destiny of our party in Lagos is in our hands. I won’t fail but you all have a big role to play to help me deliver my promise of winning. I will break the fortresses of our opponents. I didn’t rebut his suggestion of having me on the fundraising committee even though it was a difficult one.
After that meeting with Sir Michael, the late Otunba Anthony Olusegun Odugbesan became a man I could run to when I needed direction. He was open to enquiries and was always prepared to suggest useful applications. If anyone was worked up and began to suffer from a drought of ideas, Otunba Anthony was the relief we could count on. I remembered 10 years when Sir Michael passed on, I was unavoidably absent during the rites of passage. Entries of tributes had been closed but Mr. Bisi Lawal, a former Chairman of the Board of Eko Hotels Ltd was able to help me reach Mama – Lady Doja Otedola who ensured that my tribute is received and published among the eulogies for his funeral.
Sir Michael was a genius in managing his teams. For him, our success depended on working with ease and leverages. He would make us to understand that failure begins with going out without a plan of what to achieve and a strategy for achieving it. So we created plans and formulated strategies and followed through to realise every plan without distraction. We knew what we wanted at every point and went for it without delays and distractions.
The SDP was very loud and widespread. The late Chief MKO Abiola of the SDP, as the presidential candidate (God bless his memory). They dominated the media, they dominated the streets with rallies, funfairs and posters. Sir Michael pushed for a different campaign strategy. “Win the electorate one-by-one”, he told us. He said, “If we win them one-by-one, you would have extracted a promise or a commitment from the voter because of a mutual relationship and trust you establish with them.” Thus, we decided to embark on the campaign with a door-to-door evangelical approach. The people we met understood us and assured us that they are with us. They heard our voices and we heard theirs. Hearing the people’s voices was Sir Michael’s strategic measure of identifying with the people and telling them directly that he was for them all the way.
On December 14 1991, the general election took place. We were in the situation room with a host of Sir Michael’s campaign strategists and key players. There was no tension. We were conversing and laughing. No one took the process with a do or die behaviour. Sir Michael was in a good spirit as usual. He cast his vote at his home stead, Odoragushin in Epe Local Government Area. Everyone in the room believed that the results of the election will be in our favour. We were not surprised at the outcome.
Sir Michael Otedola’s administration was short-lived. General Sani Abacha interrupted the Third Republic democracy and imposed his junta before the Interim Government led by the late Chief Ernest Shonekan could fulfill its mandate of reorganizing the annulled June 12 1993 general election. After Sir Michael’s NRC was announced as the winner of Lagos gubernatorial election, he started planning for assumption of office with a clear mindset of what he wanted to do. He had plans for every of his key campaign players, and has ardent supporters but he wasn’t imposing his desire on any of them. When he called me that he has plan for me – that he had earmarked something for me in his government, I quipped like a child full of exhilaration, “I want to be on the board of Eko Hotels.” I didn’t wait for him to say what he planned giving me. He was stunned at me. For the first time, I noticed what the surprised looks of Sir Michael was like. He made no attempt at persuading me to put aside my desire. He softly asked for a couple of times, “Are you sure that is what you want?”
“Let me take off with that for now, Sir”, I responded. Being resilient and enamored with my answer to him, he appointed me into the board of Eko Hotels shortly after his inauguration on January 2, 1992.
Sir Otedola assumed office after years of military governorship administration. He worked like a horse and intentionally touching every segment of Lagos State public service, overturning restrictions and replacing them with viable designs and policies. The maestro held that the government must not be impeded by blockades if it must be seen as the government of the people. He owed the electorate the promise of constructing bridges between the government and the people and the duty of making the state a centre of excellence.
Choosing the sobriquet, “Lagos: Centre of Excellence” Sir Michael intended to remind everyone that is resident in Lagos that we have a collective responsibility to make Lagos the Centre of Excellence. However, the intent of the slogan has been so thoroughly abused or unexecuted. We must ignite the intention of the message and let Lagos residents to intentionally and consciously start doing things for the sake of the excellence of Lagos.
It is on record that Sir Michael could work till 1:00 am before leaving his office at Alausa and still resume work at sun rising. It was unfortunate that he was allowed no time to sow the much he planned— the military came back!
Sir Michael was a man of many parts and was profound in all the parts. He was a man of a deep religious affiliation, a teacher, a trained journalist, a public relations connoisseur, an industrialist, a politician, a loving husband, and a delectable father. His passion to execute his conviction was never transient until a perfect outcome was actualised. However unpredictable he was, he kept a convivial and magnetizing ambiance. His atmosphere was full of light and sweetness. There was no boredom around him. Once he believed in you to be capable of something positive and impactful, he would provide you the platform to run with your ability.
He would be calm and wait for you to tender the report of your task at the expected time. Sir Michael had no time for a close marking. He expected that we demonstrate our sense of creativity and skills ingeniously and truthfully. He would let us know that our results would announce us. If, therefore, you want to be announced, show him your impactful work in record time.
On this date, May 5 2014, of his demise, I reminisced the past and recollected this beautiful experience with Sir Michael. Everyone that has worked with him must have something of excellence to say about him. Put all stories about this quintessential legend from whomever, you will find that the straightness of Sir Michael Agbolade Otedola is indelibly captured in all testimonies about him as an exemplar of a sound leadership marshal.
Live forever, Sir Michael!
Jones writes from Lagos
