Akin
Mabogunje: An African institution.
By
Owei Lakemfa.
PROFESSOR
Akinlawon ‘Akin’ Ladipo Mabogunje was an African institution established for
all-round development. He is also widely accepted as the Father of African
Geography. By 2000, the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, was fed up with the
National Housing Fund, NHF, which in the eleven years of its establishment had
failed to deliver on mass housing for workers. Under the scheme, all those
earning the National Minimum Wage and above, contributed 2.5 per cent of their
monthly income.
Although
workers had contributed about N6 billion to the fund, the Federal Mortgage Bank
of Nigeria, FMBN, which administered the fund had disbursed only a paltry N280
million, while the FMBN and its Siamese twin, the Federal Mortgage Finance
Limited, FMFL, had become fat bureaucracies by dipping hands into the
fund. Even with this, they were heavily indebted, including owing
outstanding pension to their retired workers, totalling N5.5
billion
The
NLC instructed workers to stop paying to the fund. Many state governments also
joined in stopping the deductions to a fund that was not even audited. Rather
than fight back using its federal might to enforce the NHF law, the Obasanjo
administration on March 6, 2002 established the Presidential Technical
Committee on Housing and Urban Development chaired by Professor Mabogunje. The
Committee asked the NLC for a meeting to explain why the NHF had not delivered
and what was being done to reverse the trend.
I was
part of the NLC Negotiation Team. Mabogunje had picked Mr. Tanimu Yakubu as the
new Managing Director of the FMBN. Some of us in the labour delegation were
familiar with Tanimu because together, we had been student union leaders and
knew he was passionate about workers. When we got back to review the meeting
and plan for subsequent ones with the Committee, I told the delegation that we
needed technical support as this was an unusual government team.
I
explained who Mabogunje was, including his being part of a group of
intellectuals who in the First Republic had evolved an ideology called
‘Democratic Socialism’ which was adopted by the main opposition party, the Action
Group. There was Mr. S.P.O Fortune-Ebie who as head of the Federal Housing
Authority, FHA, had built the sprawling FESTAC Town in Lagos, and
Ms Kare Yekwe, a brilliant lawyer I had known over the years.
The
Mabogunje Committee was open and showed so much sincerity that even when it had
to lay off some workers in order to bring in professionals through public
advertisement and transparent interviews, the NLC could not raise objections.
Mabogunje
was a major professional in the building of the new capital of Abuja. He came
away with a number of lessons that still defines Nigeria. He had led a
team of scientists to the site to determine the ecological conditions of the
proposed capital, how many people were to be displaced, the range of assets and
compensation to be paid for them. First, a professional in his team, Mr. Bawa
Bwari had to be dropped, not because he was incompetent but because the Emir of
Abuja did not find him acceptable.
Bwari’s
‘crime’ was that he had served as the Secretary of the Gwari Students
Association, an organisation that was insisting on the rights of the indigenous
Gwari people not to be ruled by traditional rulers from outside.
When
Mabogunje needed a manager for the field station, the Emir brought a man who
had not even passed basic school certificate and had zero experience. When he
enquired why he could not hire a professional and experienced Gwari indigene,
he was told this was not politically acceptable. Mabogunje wrote: “This was
historical and derived from the colonial administration’s obsession with
the indirect rule system creating or imposing a traditional ruler even in areas
where such did not exist before.”
Then,
Mabogunje and his team needed accommodation and the Executive Secretary of the
Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA, decided to import porta
cabins for the purpose from the United States. By the time they arrived, the
work was over and the scientists were packing to leave. When it came to
building the new capital city, Mabogunje argued that it should be handled by
distinguished Nigerian town planners and architects who would go through
competitive bidding assessed by an international panel. But the government
rejected this and rather advertised abroad for planners to design the new
capital. Subsequently, an American group, International Planning Associates,
IPA, was awarded the contract.
The
Mabogunje team had to provide the firm all data collected. Despite this,
Nigerian professionals had to join the IPA in reworking its basic design to
provide a final and acceptable design. Mabogunje said of this sad tale: “ …If
we had arranged to critique the design of a group of Nigerian planners as
vigorously as we did that of the foreign firm, we could have had as good, if
not better, a product for our money.” In analysing why there is an
obsession for foreign contractors, he said: “It is difficult to dismiss
the insinuations that this is because it is easier to secure foreign exchange
through graft when contracts or professional consultancies are handed over to foreign
organisations.”
One
more experience of Mabogunje on Abuja. For a man who was so involved in
building the city, all his applications for a plot of land were unsuccessful as
plots of land were allocated by officials “mainly to friends”. He said one day,
as the Chairman of the National Board of Community Banks, he visited then FCT
Minister, General Gado Nasko, to request for land to build its national
headquarters. During the discussions, he let it known that despite his choosing
the exact site Abuja city was built, and participating actively in its
construction, he did not have even a square foot of land in the territory. He
said when the Minister confirmed this, he was allocated a plot in
Asokoro. But it took him eight years to secure a certificate of occupancy for
the land; the result of a skewed civil service.
Mabogunje
traced Nigeria’s problems to the deliberate ploy by British colonialists to
“frustrate all serious developmental efforts” and lay faulty political
foundations that led to a civil war and three decades of military rule. He
agreed that the country, given its diversities, needs an inclusive
system: “But to use the idea to catapult relatively unqualified and
inexperienced individuals to strategic management positions
simply because they come from a particular part of the
country, is to court a situation where every major
institution of our national life has failed to live up to
expectation.”
The
global, intensely intellectual and professionally-minded Professor Akin
Mabogunje held to his positions until Thursday, August 4, 2022 when at 90, he
left, leaving us his very rich legacies.
