On January 23, 2025, Pa Bisi Akande, a former governor of Osun state will be 86 years old having been born on January 23, 1939. Bisi Akande had occupied many important public offices which included that of the secretary to the government of the old Oyo state, the deputy governor of the same state and that of the governor of Osun state between 1999 and 2003.
Of course, many Nigerians had occupied similar public offices in the past. But there are some distinctive and indeed exceptional features which set Bisi Akande apart from the genre in this crowd of former public office holders. One of these uncommon characteristics is Pa Akande’s ascetic life style, prudence in public finance and discipline. If you’re looking for a spoilt and flamboyant ex-governor, Akande will certainly not be your model. Nor was he one whose money culture is reckless and who throws money at addressing the challenges of development that a typical Nigerian state is confronted with. As a trained accountant, Akande displays a high ethical standards in disbursing private and public funds.
In his administration as the governor of Osun state, anyone who visited the state secretariat would marvel at the monumental architectural master piece which Akande put in place in spite of the paucity and meagre resources of Osun state as a primarily civil servant state. When he visited Osun state when he was the president of Nigeria, Pa Olusegun Obasanjo couldn’t believe what Bisi Akande put together in less than four years of his tenure at Abere, the government secretariat. If there’s anyone who would spend public money the way he spends his own, Bisi Akande wouldn’t be in that entourage.
But really, the area in which Bisi Akande has truly distinguished himself is in his dexterity in the administration of political party bureaucracy. Political parties are indispensable in the modern world of democratization. Political parties are different from interest groups. Political parties provide platforms through which their members can aspire, become candidates and seek elections to occupy competitive elective public offices. In most of the world where political parties have become central to public life, political parties are often a space for managing disputes and resolving conflicts on a continuous basis both within and outside of Political parties. Political parties thus display oligarchical tendencies. Thus, Robert Michel, admits that he who says organizations says oligarchy. The iron law of oligarchy, as propounded by the elitist theorists, no doubt get manifested in the internal administration of political parties. Thus party administration at the highest is perennial conflict management about who gets what and how.
When Bisi Akande lost election in the aftermath of the 2003 massively rigged governorship and the Federal elections of that year, the Alliance for Democracy (AD), the party leadership persuaded him to assume the chairmanship of the party. As the new chairman, he put in his best to rejig a largely provincial political party and reposition it for the future. But Akande’s dexterity in managing political parties became powerfully registered when he emerged as the pioneer chairman of the then nascent All Progressive Congress (APC), a merger from three or so political parties.
It would be recalled that Akande had previously been the chairman of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). But it was in the historic merger of the ACN, the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) and splinter groups of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) and of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) that Akande image blossomed. One of the reasons which made his role easier was his being a disinterested person. He was primarily concerned with building a pan Nigerian political party that could dislodge the PDP from the centre of Nigerian politics.
At the zenith of its electoral victories, the PDP boasted that it was destined to rule for sixty years or so. Ousting it from power seems an Herculean and indeed beyond the contemplation of many ordinary folks. And the reason was simply the failure of the progressives in the context of Nigeria’s politics to form an alliance that could transcend ethno-religipus boundaries.
By 2013 and under the chairmanship of Bisi Akande, serious merger talks had commenced between the Northwest and the Southwest. Akande and Buhari, from their life styles seem to share a lot in common than Buhari and Tinubu. But it was Tinubu that provided the strategic plan and supported a most diligent execution. In his widely read book, My Participations. Akande on page 445 says as follows:’In the new year 2013, Bola Tinubu began to engage me consistently on the need for the Yoruba in the Southwest to work politically together with the House and Fulani of the Nortwrast…It was my first time of meeting Buhari in his home and I was attracted to his personal values and austere life.’
Without doubt, Bisi Akande’s role in the success of the merger conferences and protracted meetings, sometimes frustrating, that finally saw the birth of a formidible political party that sent the PDP into retirement, at least for now, was a major revolution in our recent political history. Members of the then ACN deserve credit for waiting patiently for eight years which ended Buhari’s two terms tenure. The success of the APC is in its understanding of Nigeria’s complex power dynamics. The lesson is that, as Nigerians we can always negotiate our differences and still come out with a win-win scenario. Bola Tinubu and Bisi Akande took a risk which almost failed. But I guess providence and bonafide were on their side. The odds were frightening.
At 86, I joined millions of Nigerians, home and abroad, in wishing Pa Bisi Akande many more years of service to Nigeria. In a way, you have facilitated a measure of the late sage, Obafemi Awolowo’s dream for a Nigeria in which everyone can aspire to the highest political office and occupy the same. Indeed, leadership position shouldn’t be the exclusive preserve of any untouchable group. I need to mention, however, that Nigeria of our dreams remains a work in progress. Congratulations to a friend and a mentor, indeed, the inseen power behind the president.
