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Bankole Oki At 85
By Adekunle Oyesanya
I WORK with a jolly grand old man who will be 85 years old on November 15, 2004. This means he was born in 1919, the year that the 1st World War ended. The historical irony in this war year of his birth is that his father was installed the Balogun (War Lord), of Lagos in that same year. His father was one of the few wealthy men in Lagos of that time. His father was the late Abibu Oki, the "Olowo Ebute" (the wealthy man of the seaside) in whose memory there is an Abibu Oki Street in Lagos today.
The jolly grand old man of whom I speak and of whom I now write is The Honorable Tanimosebikosoluwa Abioye Bankole-Oki, OON, CON, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (T.A.B for short). He was among the first national awardees in 1965 when General Yakubu Gowon honoured him, most deservedly, with an OON. He is also among the recent national awardees. President Obasanjo has, again most deservedly, honoured him with a Command of the Order of the Niger (CON) almost forty years since he got the first award. He is amongst others a traditional (White Cap) Chief of Lagos having been appointed and installed as the Alaagba (Baba Oba) of Lagos by the Government and late Oba Adeyinka Oyekan II, of Lagos. This article is written in honour of this great Nigerian who has served this great country gallantly, but who, unfortunately, is always regretting the way this country has turned out.
I started by saying that "I work with" this grand old man "who turns 85" on Monday November 15. The first irony that comes to mind is that this 85-year-old man is still working. Yes, he is a lawyer, called to the famous English Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1950. He had a busy public life both in the service of the old western Nigeria and the Federal Government of Nigeria. Later he became the Attorney-General of Lagos State between 1970 to 1975 under Brigadier Mobolaji Johnson. So he retired most meritoriously. But today, his pension is always three or four months late in coming.
There was a time he never got it for almost one year. Pray, if he was not a lawyer, who after public life had gone into private practice, how would he have survived his retirement years? Yet this old man and many more of his generation, some of whom have died unsung, have been victims of this shameful ineptitude of some Government officials who have not learnt from history and are incapable of reasoning that if they do not leave behind a foolproof pension payment scheme, they will also fall victims of their own ineptitude and greed.
So, this old man and many more of his ilk, who are lucky to have something to do and strong enough, have to work, because Nigeria has no plan for her aged people. But how much work can they actually do as septuagenarians or octogenarians? Even though Chief Oki is a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, next in seniority to the legendary Chief Rotimi Williams, he does not do much of court work any more. In fairness to him he is still excited by the glamour and intellectual battle of litigation in the court room, but I do not allow him to go any longer. I can see that it is a lot of effort for him to even get himself ready for court and to go through the rigours of argument in a highly contentious matter. These days, even when he goes for ceremonial occasions in the High Court, he has to be helped to ascend the flight of stairs. Yet he must work even if in Chambers as consultant solicitor, to augument his pension that never comes.
At times he looks back in time to the 1920s when he was growing up at Porto Novo Street (Now Abibu Oki Street) as a young lad; the 1930s when he left secondary school (CMS Grammar School); the 1940s when he went abroad to fight as a pilot in the Second World War as a Volunteer from Nigeria alongside the likes of late Dr. Tai Solarin, Mr. Nwajei, Dr, Akerele etc; the 1950s when he returned to Nigeria and joined the famous Legal Department of the colonial service; even the 1960s when he served under the legendary Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Sir Ladoke Akintola as Director of Public Prosecutions and later under Major General Adeyinka Adebayo as Commissioner for Boundary Settlements and the one question that keeps escaping from his lips is "where did we go wrong?"
Often times, he would sit with me in my room in Chambers in the evenings and regale me with memories of the good life that characterised old Lagos. He would tell me of how moral and social values were high in the daily agenda of Nigerians whether in private life or in public life. He would tell me of how the future of Nigeria held so much promise that young men of his age were ready to offer their lives to the service of God and country as it happened to him in 1942 when he volunteered to go to England to serve as a Pilot in the World War II in the name of Nigeria. He would recall with nostalgia how he still met those values even when he came back in 1951 and Nigeria was in the twilight of political and historical change. He would then tell me that he never thought he would live to see this country degenerate into the present rot that is our lot today. He would conclude with misty eyes that it is up to my generation to do something about the rot, and I would say, almost soliloquizing, that herein lies the irony of Nigeria's history.
I am an "independence child". By this I mean I was born in the year of Nigeria's independence. By the time I was growing up to consciousness in the first decade of my life, Nigeria was in the grip of a bitter civil war that nearly threatened her very existence. By the next decade, after the war, the political fortune of Nigeria had turned for the worse with the military dabbling into the game of governance, a vocation for which they hardly had any training at all. In the event that followed, we were ruled at almost all levels by men in uniform, some of whom were near-stark illiterates and most of whom had no vision and mission like the Winston Churchills, the Woodrow Wilsons the Charles De Gaules , etc of history. In the process, Nigeria has been too busy grappling with her political tragedies than to bother about her youths and therein lies the irony of Nigeria's political history. My generation of youths, whom Chief Bankole-Oki relies on to sort out this mess, are disillusioned about this country. Many of them, hard-core professionals in most cases, are not even in these shores any longer. They have migrated abroad where life and existence have a better meaning, where you can be assured that your pension years will not be your tension years.
I listened to a television interview recently where my dear old revered Law Professor, Akin Oyebode, referred to the American Visa Lottery as a form of modern slavery where the slaves now willingly go to their masters to be made slaves as opposed to slavery in the olden days where the white men came to these shores to force our people into slavery abroad. He reasoned that American needs people from the underdeveloped world to come and sustain their social utility system such as the rail system, the hospital system and other essential areas of their national economic life. But he quickly chipped in that if our leaders would be responsible enough to run this country in a manner that will be beneficial to all, we would not witness this unfortunate exodus of our young people. If indeed the youths are the future of this country, then the future of Nigeria has simply taken flight and there is nothing to hope for any longer.
But Chief Bankole-Oki may not necessarily go to his grave a sad and hopeless man, if the powers that be in this country allow us to discuss the future of this great country. Leaders like President Obasanjo seem to think that to convene a sovereign national conference is to sound the death knell of Nigeria. But it does not have to be so. There is no other answer to Nigeria's problems than to create regions to which more power will be devolved and the centre made attractive. That way, we can tackle our problems in smaller, more familiar dimensions, and the whole of Nigeria will come out better for it.
To my knowledge, Chief Bankole-Oki's greatest dream is to see this National Conference convened and concluded in his lifetime so that he can leave Nigeria better than he met it. The only way I know by which I can assist Chief Bankole-Oki to achieve his dream is to pray, first that God in His grace, mercy and wisdom should spare his life to live some more years in sound health, and secondly that God should change the mind of the people that matter, for as the Bible says "Even the heart of the king is in His hands".
Better still, God may cause something to give like He did to Pharaoh of old, for if it is His wish that Nigeria will yet witness greatness and any leader wants to be a stumbling block, God will definitely have His way. Happy Birthday Chief T.A.B.
- Oyesanya is the Managing Partner of Bank Oki, Oyesanya and Co, a law firm in Lagos
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