I should have paid this public tribute to Pa Alfred Rewane last Sunday on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of his assassination and the launch of A Link With The Past–a collection of his essays and thoughts on the Nigerian condition, but the provocative release of the Arewa Consultative Forum which was literally begging for a quick rejoinder prevented it.

Throughout the last weekend, many newspapers published fulsome tribute to this remarkable man. I read all of them. Nevertheless, I believe that there is no amount of tribute that is paid to the memory of Pa Rewane that is too much. Pa Rewane deserved every single kind word, every single tribute paid to him.

Pa Rewane was a human gemstone–a rare breed. He was multi-talented, multi-lateral, multi-dimensional, extraordinarily extraordinary. I make no pretences to the fact that he was one person that I admired intensely. In his deserved rest from the organised chaos that living in Nigeria has become, I am very sure that Pa Rewane would be disappointed beyond words that I would not pay a tribute to him. Rather, I take that back. I will totally be unable to live with myself if I do not give a public reflection on the life and times of Pa Rewane.

In my life, through the instrumentality of this profession, I have met an almost bewildering variety of "homo sapiens". I have met the high and the low. The cocky, the pompous, the arrogant. I have met people when the mythical wheel of fortune had propelled them to the height of eminence and power and prestige and fame. I have met the meek, the gentle, the mellow. I have also met the dreadful, the vicious. I have encountered colourful characters. I have related to the totally despicable –from the late Haile Selassie of Ethiopia, the self-styled "Negus Negusa"–that is King of Kings. I have met General Andon and Teferi Benti. I have sat with the fear-inducing Mengistu Haile Mariam–one-time Ethiopian President. I have met with Indira Ghandi, an extra-ordinary and determined woman in her own right with a lot of commanding presence. Oh yes, I have met Chairman Mao Tse Tung, one of the titans, indeed one of the makers of the twentieth century. I have met Robert Mugabe during his nationalist days, when he, his late Attorney-General and other Zimbabwe Freedom Fighters were brought down to Salisbury from jail to begin negotiations with the rogue regime of Ian Smith. Will I ever forget the emotional encounter that Robert Mugabe had with his late Ghanaian wife, Cecilia I think her name was , when she was brought in to meet Robert after 12 years of forced separation as a result of the nationalist struggle. She leapt at Robert, embraced him and overcome by her emotions, she passed out. Oh yes, I have met Joshua Nkomo, Ndabaningi Sithole, Gacha Buthelezi, Kenneth Kaunda, Augustino Neto, Julius Nyerere, Pierre Trudeau. Oh yes, William Tubman, Jerry Rawlings, the Sardauna, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, soft-spoken Tafawa Balewa, charismatic Awo and colourful lexicologist K.O. Mbadiwe ("When the come comes to become, we shall come out.")

"Under the Abubakarian government of Nigeria, I had the great honour of being the first Minister of Aviation," Harold Wilson, Zeek of Africa, S.L. Akintola who had such a colourful grip of the English language that has not been equalled since his 1966 violent transition. Very few, take Awo, Indira Ghandi and maybe one or two others, very few men of affairs have impressed me or won my heart like late Pa Rewane.

He never became a Prime Minister. He was no Governor. He was no Premier. He was neither a founder of a political party nor a Party Chairman. He never ran for President — but if Awo was the " best President we never had," Pa Rewane was the "next best Presdient Nigeria never had." I have no doubt at all that he would have made a wonderful President of Nigeria and had this been so, he would have transformed Nigeria into –for want of a better way to put it–" an African Singapore." It is ironic that Nigeria, which is at least 50 times the size of Singapore, would wish to be described in terms of Singapore.

I would put late Pa Rewane in the same class as Harold Wilson, Lee Kwan Yew and Dr.Mahatar Muhammed. True, Chief Awolowo was the public face of development in Western Nigeria in the mid to late fifties, Pa Rewane was the brainbox of the economic development of the era. He was the first chairman of the then WNDC–Western Nigeria Development Co-operation. The forerunner of the present day Oodua Group. The Ikeja industrial and residential layout as well as the Ilupeju layout were his ideas. So also was Bodija Estate, Western House–the first of its kind in Nigeria.

Alfred Rewane positively impacted the lives of every single person that came across him throughout his lifetime. I first met him in 1976 long after he had established a great name for himself in Nigeria’s social, political and economic life. He already had a larger-than-life personality. The occasion was during the first epiphany of Olusegun Obasanjo when Pa Awo, Rewane, S.O. Gbadamosi, Bola Ige, Bisi Onabanjo, LKJ and others, including yours truly, were holding the then clandestine meetings of the "Committee of Friends" which later metarmophosed into the Unity Party of Nigeria. Pa Rewane took a liking to me and thus began an unbroken relationship that lasted till Abacha’s goons came calling on him to assassinate him five years ago.

He had a winning way with business. He was foresighted and almost had a magical touch. Long before other young men of his generation, Alfred Rewane had become a very rich man, perhaps a millionaire early in life exporting timber, palm products and animal skins to Europe. He made money when money really had value. He acquired his money-making skills from some old Britishers who worked in the ancient Unilever Company. Ever the extrovert, he made friends easily and wormed himself into the hearts of the white Unilever managers who taught him the magic of making money. He mastered the entrepreneurial art so well he could teach his teachers. If he had been a Greek, he would have rubbed shoulders with the great Aristotle, Socrates, Onasis or Niarchos. If he had been an American he would have been after the order of J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockfeller or Henry Ford. If he had been British, he would have been a forerunner of Richard Branson. He was none of these. He was a great, and confident Nigerian–a proud Itsekiri patriot, a true original.

How he saw some 40 to 50 years ahead of his generation to develop a winning industrial formula which has stood the test of time and withstood the worst machination of hardened political adversaries, I will never be able to say. His strategy was simple. Invite a distinguished foreign industrialist to form a partnership, cede majority shares plus management to the foreign partner, then go to bed. Ensure that you invest in strategic sectors of the economy and diversify your investments so much so that it would take the complete collapse, the total annihilation of the economy to affect you. That was what Pa Rewane did. Secondly, he also had the foresight to have a partnership with an American industrial group. He had probably reckoned also that whoever also wanted to touch him must invariably think of taking on the United States.

Pa Rewane never went to a university but there was no evidence that he did not. He knew more about economics, political science and world history than many graduates of those disciplines.

He never made bones about his being a capitalist. He believed in capitalism with a social conscience but he could politically cohabit excellently with Awo who was a democratic socialist.

He was fiercely loyal to Awo. He admired him intensely and I doubt if there was anything more important to him apart from life itself than to ensure the happiness, welfare and helping to realise the political ambition of Chief Awolowo.

He said one of the most painful things that ever happened to him in life was to have had to leave Awo in prison after they were all arrested for treasonable felony.

Awo reciprocated his love. He called him "my junior brother that my mother never had."

He had met Awo early in his business life and had been struck by the old man’s personality, integrity, discipline and political vision. He remained a life-long apostle. He had determined to put his money and all his energy behind all that Awo stood for and he continued with this even after Awo passed on through financing the struggle for democracy in Nigeria. He did not believe in acquiring and piling up money so that people could worship him, nor did he also believe in building or acquiring houses all over the place.

While less financially endowed Nigerians acquired TudorManor or Victorian style castles which they rarely used in Britain in those days, all Pa Rewane had was a modest flat tucked in a big block in Central London. He longed very much to be part of a group to build modern Nigeria that every single Nigerian could be proud of and which could hold her own in the international community. The closest he got to achieving this was when he became part of the team that achieved the "Western Nigeria" economic miracle of the 50s. There is even a story behind that.

After putting all his energy and resources behind the Action Group victory and considering the level of his political understanding and loyalty, it was natural for him and indeed everybody that he should expect to be a minister in the first Action Group government in Western Nigeria–but not Pa Rewane. He was a rare breed. Can you imagine anybody doing so much to ensure a party’s victory and yet not desiring political appointment?

According to him, he had rejected appointment as a minister at that time because he believed he could not live on a minister’s salary, which was princely as of then. Besides, a cabinet job would not give him time to look after his businesses. By the "strange political philosophy of that era, you did not go into public office to enrich yourself, neither did you accept political office without giving it all of your attention.

Telling him plainly that he was as selfish in choosing not to accept political appointment, Awo reasoned him into taking on the responsibility of being the first chairman of WNDC. The imperishable record is there today. How did you people establish these beautiful residential and industrial estates? I had once asked him. He had contracted an old British boss in the Unilever group that he admired. That one had put him in touch with the best urban housing and industrial planners in Europe at that time. He had brought them down and allowed them to do the job. Were they to be living in these amoral times, the members of the WNDC board would have shared out all the houses in the estates to themselves. They would have cornered all the shares of the companies Dunlop, Guiness, Vitafoam, Textile Mills Nigerite, ICI, Berger Paints et al in these estates. But these were extraordinary people–Awo, Rewane, S.O.G, Bode Thomas, FRA Williams, Dosunmu, Ajasin, Enahoro, Ighodaro and many others. They could easily be compared to the generation of Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton and Co. When next are we going to see that kind of collection of unique people?

If he was an achiever in public life and a totally public-spirited politician, it is as a compassionate, loving, caring, empathising, sympathising human being that I think Alfred Rewane achieved an almost saintly status.

He could not endure to see an unhappy or a sad person around him. Although, he was not a christian, he radiated the best of christian virtues. He was his brothers’ keeper. He was forever binding up other people’s wounds.

To me, he was the best proof there was of the truth of the biblical injunction–"Give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down and running over shall men give unto your bossom."

Pa Rewane was forever giving money to the needy as if his life depended on it–to old men, women. People from all walks of life, of all tribes, of all religious persuasions. It seemed that he would never run out of money or assortment of products from his various factories–frozen fish–barracuda and shirming nose were his favourites and of course flour, and Ovaltine, to give out. His banks, whether in Nigeria or Britain or the US, kept him in very generous supply of crisp mint fresh currency notes. For all I know, in the twenty years or more that I knew him, Rewane never touched any currency note that had been handled by any other human being. That man had style. I was told that he developed this habit when it was discovered during the colonial era that a lot of people contacted tuberculosis handling dirty currency notes.

For the last 40 or 50 years of his life, he therefore only used mint fresh notes.

This is a very extraordinary claim to make but outside of the Bible, I don’t know of any human being who enjoys, really enjoys doing good to other people, lifting other people up, blessing other people and desiring other people to achieve success.

As soon as he detected untapped talent in any young man or woman, Rewane practically adopted that person as a son or daughter. It is within this context that he "adopted" Governor Segun Osoba, Felix Adenaike, Peter Ajayi and the reigning Olu of Warri, Atunwase II and yours truly among many others. Once he adopted you, it would be difficult for an outsider to tell through his treatment of you the difference between you and his biological children. I will give an example. Toward the end of the campaign for the 1983 elections, I had contacted Hepatitis as a result of eating rough while on the campaign trail. I had therefore on account of being hospitalised been absent for over two weeks from attending Pa Rewane’s evening tea-time ceremony, a wonderful time during which he shared fellowship with business and political associates on the balcony of his Ikeja mansion. Reporting for the day’s tea ceremony, I was "sentenced" to taking all the accumulated cups I had not taken for the last fortnight before I could be restored to my broken relationship with Pa Rewane’s fine cognac. I retorted that very unfortunately I could not touch cognac for a while. He was alarmed that I had contacted Hepatitis and remembered that that was what took the life of his friend–the late Rev. Akin Adesola, Thereupon, he went into his room, put a call through to London and arranged an all-expenses paid trip for me to go for a thorough and complete check-up at the prestigious "London Clinic" the next day. Within five hours of this telephone call, he had put me on a plane to London.

He was a man who could not keep any malice. There was a remarkable story about him and a friend of his who has now equally passed on. This friend had actually taken an unconscionable advantage of Pa Rewane and swindled him of N7 million. As far as I know, he never got back this money.

On the occasion of Awo’s last public outing in Warri, which was the coronation of Atunwase II, I along with other friends, associates and "children" of Pa Rewane were going through our tea "ritual" the evening before the coronation when this friend drove up. He had reserved accommodation for us all at his Palm Royal Motel. We all were a little embarrassed to see this man. But not Pa Rewane. He had sent him an invitation, reserved accommodation for the man. When the man showed up Pa Rewane was the perfect host, genuinely fretting and fussing over him, seeing him personally to his room, making sure he was perfectly comfortable. He was not embarrassed to see the man and the money never strained, let alone broke their friendship. He ony wished the man had told him the truth and he would therefore not have expected the money back.

May the likes of Rewane never cease in Nigeria and may the Lord remember for good and show favour on Doris, his beautiful wife, Tosan and his other beautiful children he left behind.

I am only pained that Pa Rewane,s although practised all christian virtues of love and charity and affection, yet he was not a christian, not even a freelance Sunday–Sunday christian. He was a traditionalist.

I just hope that the good Lord full of grace and compassion would remember Pa Rewane’s good works, numerous offerings and alms-giving like he did to Cornelius and give him an apartment in Abraham’s bosom.

Culled from the Comet News of October 15, 2000  www.cometnews.com.ng