YESTERDAY, was exactly 38 years when  Nigeria’s first Finance Minister, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh was assassinated during Nigeria’s first and bloodiest military coup on January 15, 1966. The coup, which was planned by five young majors of the Nigerian Army was led by Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu. In the broadcast announcing the coup, the mutineers told Nigerians that they decided to forcibly take over government because the politicians, who had only ran the country for six years since Nigeria got her independence from Britain, were corrupt and inefficient. They accused the politicians of several sins and promised Nigerians an eldorado. Whether what they promised to do was ever achieved by those who benefited from their coup, since they were not allowed to implement their agenda, is a matter only history and posterity can judge.

 But one of the ironies of military take-overs in this country has been that, the military usurpers always have a way of turning their political predecessors into villains. They would always find a large quantity of black paint and a huge brush to paint the politicians black before the public. And because the Nigerian public is ever so gullible, having been victims of mis-governance by inept leaders, they always buy the picture painted by the soldiers.

This has been the lot of many First Republic politicians. Most Nigerians who were born between the time the country gained independence and today, have all been made to believe that there was nothing good at all in the First Republic politicians. One of the most vilified is Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh, Nigeria’s first Minister of Finance. This writer grew up to believe that Okotie-Eboh had nothing to offer Nigeria but corruption. Stories were told of his flamboyant lifestyle. How he would arrive the Tafawa Balewa Square venue of the parliamentary building dressed in the now popular Itsekiri/Urhobo traditional attire, with a piece of his clothing large enough to sew dresses for three adult females. He was said to have employed the services of two young boys to help him carry the long wrapper about. I was made to believe that he made an open, almost obscene, display of ill gotten wealth.

However, further research and study has shown that Okotie-Eboh is one of the most mis-represented politicians in our history. Military propaganda has tended to obliterate all the fine qualities and contributions of this great Niger- Delta son, to the birth and early development of modern Nigeria. How many people, for instance, know that Chief Okotie-Eboh was already a very wealthy man before he made a foray into the murky waters of politics? How many people remember that Okotie-Eboh was a great team player and a compromise builder? He was known to be very close to Alhaji Tafawa Balewa, the then Prime Minister. In fact, they were said to have died together having been kidnapped by the military coupists. This was not just because he was the Minister of Finance, yet he was a member of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC, while Balewa belonged to the Northern Peoples’ Congress (NPC).
Indeed, for several years, he was the Treasurer of the party, NCNC. If for nothing else, this is a testimony of the man’s prudence and accountability, no wonder he went on to become Nigeria’s first Finance Minister. This was after proving his mettle as Nigeria’s Labour Minister. He was the first Nigerian Labour Minister to lead a Nigerian delegation to the International Labour Conference (ILO). One of the landmark achievements of Chief Okotie-Eboh as Labour Minister was when in January 1956, he led a Nigerian delegation to the tiny Island of Fernando Po where Nigerian labourers working there were subjected to inhuman treatment under the Spanish colonial authority. The agreement he extracted from the Spanish authority guaranteed improved service conditions for Nigerians in that country. Amongst others, the agreement provided for a wage increase of 25 per cent for the workers, an increase in the number of labourers who could be legally employed from 600 to 800 monthly and compensation to be paid by the employer to a labourer or his family in the event of any injury sustained at work.

Even at independence, when a diplomatic row threatened to break out between Nigeria and the Spanish government over the position and status of the tiny island in a post- independent Nigeria, it was Okotie-Eboh, who even as Finance Minister, went on a diplomatic mission to Fernando Po, met with the Spanish authority and brokered peace. This was at a time when the Spanish government was already mobilising her military arsenal to Fernando Po. Some Nigerian leaders and a section of the Nigerian press were also at this time calling for Nigeria’s annexation of the tiny island immediately she attains  independence. It was Okotie-Eboh’s recommendations that served as the guiding light when Nigeria eventually took a decision on the matter and a possible war with Spain was averted.

Again, when the issue of southern Cameroun came up, when most politicians were advocating an all out battle to retain southern Cameroun as part of post-independent Nigeria, preaching the “Churchillian principle of what we have we hold”, it was also Chief Okotie-Eboh who gave a moving address on the floor of the Federal Parliament that saved the day. His recommendations as Finance minister were adopted and applied to solve the problem. He was a great orator whose speeches were reported on the world service of the BBC.

As the first federal minister of finance, Okotie-Eboh laid the foundations for the financial institutions that were established at independence. The framework for fiscal and financial policies of a post-independent Nigeria were drawn up under his supervision and guidance. He was the man who took Nigeria to the World Bank as an independent country. He led Nigeria to join the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

All these achievements were despite the fact that Okotie-Eboh was from the tiny minority tribes of Itsekiri/Urhobo in the then Western Region, later, Mid Western Region. He held his own at the national level where one’s background and numerical strength counted for or against one’s chances. On the home front, Okotie-Eboh was a loving husband, a caring but firm and disciplined father, a generous uncle and a leader of his people.

Certainly, latter day Nigerian leaders have not accorded Chief Festus Samuel Okotie-Eboh his rightful place in the annals of the nation’s history. Perhaps when the true history of this country would be written, not according to the gospel of coup propagandists and military apologists, posterity would truly recognise this great man from the rich geo-political zone of the Niger-Delta, as one of the authentic builders of modern Nigeria.