PBAT at 74: Reminiscences of a former envoy and spokesman, By Ajuri Ngelale

Daddy, on your 74th birthday and always, please accept my most profound expression of affection and gratitude for all of the knowledge, effort, and attention you poured into my development during the privileged time that I spent at your side… May God Almighty continue to strengthen and encourage you as you place our nation of destiny at the forefront of African leadership and global reckoning in the time to come. An old axiom famously states that the truest measure of a teacher’s greatness is the extent to which their transfer of knowledge resonates, not during the course of study, but long after the student ventures out beyond the four walls of the classroom. Today, I reflect on a great teacher. It is true that I was one presidential spokesman who will never write a book about my cherished time in that exalted office — not for lack of memory retention and copious documentation — but born out of a deep appreciation that the most prized experiences are sometimes best kept to one’s bosom until the end. However, for every year that God Almighty is pleased to add to the life of my Father and Boss, His Excellency President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (GCFR), I consider it a solemn honour and obligation to posterity to share specific insights I gleaned from the greatest strategic mind that our nation has ever produced. Ever discerning of all actors within the vast sphere of his influence — their strengths, weaknesses, histories, their motivations, the limits of their fidelity, and their utility in the larger development picture of the country — he oversees from the apex, with the magisterial eye of the 16th head of state, which is uniquely guided by the heart of a gardener; one who loves to see good seeds grow into all that they have been prepared to become. | | |---| While I certainly cannot and will never assert that I stand amongst Daddy’s illustrious sons and pupils, I can attest that the day I met HE Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, I was defined by a vulnerability that comes with most political outsiders and new-to-government technocrats: a knee-jerk instinct to immediately solve a problem once encountered. The Great Teacher — wielding profound examples, deep native wisdom, and ruthless pragmatism refined in the inferno of life-and-death problem-solving experiences — proved that in Nigerian public sector leadership, there are peculiar multi-phase problems for which attentive restraint and foresight are required to resolve. Some of these problems, in their later phases, reveal final solutions, which would be missed in the premature, impatient, but well-meaning rush to address them during their infancy. Daddy, in the silent night’s inner sanctum of the suit-and-gun fortified fortress, with his trademark depth of monolithic attention paid to me in the moment, paradigm-shifted me in hushed tones to understand that the heart to solve a problem is not enough for a leader to possess; neither is it sufficient to accurately diagnose a problem. But that the fullness of effective leadership entails the accurate sequencing, timing, tailoring, and application of solutions, while taking into deliberate account all prevailing factors within the ecosystem of the problem. In the frenetic time of throne room mentorship, I was double-appointed and tasked simultaneously at 37 years of age to be the voice of Africa’s most powerful leader and a mandate-carrying special envoy to the rest of the world on an existential crisis facing all of humanity. In the busyness of that season, much learning could not fully sink in. And yet, years after leaving office, new levels of understanding of rich but not fully grasped wisdom spoken to me years prior by the great teacher are unlocked. Presently, as an enterprise owner and father of five children, far removed from the intricacies and jousting of power’s corridors, I rely more than ever on words spoken to me by my Father and Teacher, while I write the content of this quiet chapter of my life. As inhabitants of a world in which hyper-ambitious but undertalented men rule over the best to the detriment of all, we are fortunate as Nigerians, in this defining hour of our national history, to be led by a man of merit whose brave rise was not defined by who he knew but by the measure of his performance at every pivot point on his hard-earned ascent to power. In honouring Daddy, I am reminded of the great men who led me to him: High Chief Aleogho Raymond Dokpesi, of blessed memory, who taught me how to endeavour; Chairman John Olatchy Momoh, who taught me how to be a professional; and my first direct political mentor, HE Professor Yemi Osinbajo (GCON), who painstakingly ingrained in me the primacy of structure and process orientation. But the president of every Nigerian indelibly taught me strategy and the various modes of execution upon which it is dependent. Of all that I have seen, the life of our leader remains the greatest embodiment of the everlasting words of Stoic philosopher and former Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius: “Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.” Daddy, on your 74th birthday and always, please accept my most profound expression of affection and gratitude for all of the knowledge, effort, and attention you poured into my development during the privileged time that I spent at your side. May God Almighty continue to strengthen and encourage you as you place our nation of destiny at the forefront of African leadership and global reckoning in the time to come. Happy Birthday, Daddy. Ajuri Ngelale was a former spokesman to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.