| Adeyemi-Bero: Tribute to 'Mr Lagos' |
|
 |
| Written by Reuben Abati | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Friday, 22 August 2008 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Adeyemi-Bero: Tribute to 'Mr Lagos' PAPA Joseph Omotoso Adeyemi-Bero, one of the original four civil servants who joined Lt. Col. Mobolaji Johnson (as he then was) to set up the government of Lagos state when it was created in 1967 died on Saturday, August 16 aged 83. He was seconded from the Federal Civil Service in 1967 to assume duties as acting Administrative Secretary in the newly created state. He had once told me the story of how he was summoned by his boss and informed that he was going to be sent on a new assignment. In those days the civil service was so disciplined junior officers were not in a position to query or disobey their bosses. He had attained a level of respectability in the Federal Civil service, the posting to the new state seemed like an adventure into the unknown. But in those days a sense of duty was more important than personal considerations. The late Bero was a disciplined man and a dutiful officer. When he and the military administrator of Lagos state assumed duties, along with three others - Mr. Arthur Edward Houston-Wright (acting Secretary to the Government), Mr. F.C.O. Coker (acting Financial Secretary) and Mr. J.O. Agoro (Legal Secretary), they had only 10, 000 pounds as marching grant; a few tables and chairs and a designated territory. But by 1975 when the Gowon administration was sacked, the four civil servants and the military Governor as he later became had managed to build Lagos state into a functional system and easily a big and thriving establishment. Adeyemi-Bero served the Lagos state government in different capacities including Deputy Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Sports and Social Development but he is more fondly remembered for having helped to set up the Lagos state civil service. He was the state's civil servant No 1, the reason he became known in his lifetime as "Mr Lagos". In conversations, he had great memories of working with the military administrator/Governor, Mobolaji Johnson, a man he respected deeply, and whom he still referred to as "oga", many years after they had both left the service. In December 2006, the Tinubu administration had honoured Baba by naming the main auditorium at the state secretariat in Alausa after him. The Adeyemi-Bero auditorium is a befitting monument in honour of a man who helped to lay the foundation for Lagos state. I met Baba as we called him through his bosom friend, Professor J. P. Clark. Baba Bero was in a class of his own. He could trace the history of the civil service from the colonial era to contemporary times. He often regaled me with stories of the great discipline that obtained in the civil service of yore. He could not understand how and why a civil servant would live above his means, having twenty houses or boasting of billions. Whenever anyone drew attention to the fact that civil servants these days work at their own pace, sometimes not going to work for weeks or going there to moonlight, he would lament how the collapse of the Nigerian system has robbed ordinary people of a sense of values. And he would defend the civil service and the Nigeria he knew, and recall the beauty of old Lagos with its well-lined streets and well-maintained social infrastructure. In his time, civil servants were so distinguished that they were admitted by the colonial authorities into some of the exclusive clubs. "�ou had to be a respectable civil servant for you as a civil servant to be admitted into a club in this city", he once said. Till the end, he was an active member of many of these clubs, including the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, the Lagos Boat Club, the Island Club and so on. He was particularly fond of the Lagos Boat Club, where the Adeyemi-Beros and the Akinreles are perhaps the two most influential families. I met him on many occasions at the Boat Club for lunch or drinks. And he used to say: "Let's meet at the Boat Club; the boat club". His emphasis on "the" was his way of reminding me that the Boat club on Awolowo road, Ikoyi is the original boat club in Nigeria. At the club everyone stopped at his table, either by the waterfront, or upstairs, to pay obeisance. He knew everyone, young and old. It was here at the Boat Club, looking across the water, that he once told the story of how Ikoyi and Victoria Island were developed. He said he still had the files containing the records of all the original plot allocations in Ikoyi and Victoria Island because he was the duty officer. He had pointed out that many of the people who worked with him or under him in the Lagos state Government had no land in this choice part of Lagos. They processed the applications for others who applied, but rarely thought of grabbing the plots for themselves. "These days, I hear, the first thing civil servants do is to share out everything among themselves and their proxies. In my time, nobody would have dared do that. And if you did and you got caught by the white boys or later by my oga, you were finished." He told this particular story after he had asked me to visit him at home in Makoko, and I wondered what part of Lagos Island that is. He laughed raucously, noting that he is used to people making that mistake all the time. "When I give people my address, they start thinking of Ikoyi and Victoria Island, but when I tell them the location on the map, they are amazed, they wonder why and how someone like me who was involved in the allocation of plots in Victoria Island, and who helped other people to get plots could not grab as many plots as possible for myself." Makoko is in Ebute Meta, the designated civil servants quarters of Lagos, and somewhere there, in the midst of ordinary people, is the home of Baba Bero. Material possessions did not impress him. Even as an old man of 80, he ran his life like a dutiful civil servant. He had a driver. He had a secretary. Every morning, he dressed up, and he was quite elegant in his neat agbada attire; tall, well-spoken, good looking and punctilious, he must have been a ladies' man in his younger days.. He knew how to handle people. He was a jolly old man, with a good heart. He used to come to The Guardian either to submit an article for publication or to discuss current affairs. My staff soon became very fond of him; on the day we learnt of his death, Grace, my secretary, who used to take his calls and attend to him whenever he came around (and I was still in the traffic or trapped somewhere else!) felt a sense of loss. Baba was always punctual. If he said he was coming around at a particular hour, you could be sure he would be there. He was a man of his word. I was the one always running late and he used to tease me about how I am so busy. "�verybody wants you because you are so enthusiastic and willing, but you must focus on priorities", he used to say. He was ever-considerate. He had these two old Mercedes Benz cars; the longer one looked like something bought in the 70s, but they were good machines. If the old man wanted, he could afford a fleet of exotic cars, but I don't remember seeing him in a flashy car. Education meant a lot to him; he was an enlightened man. He could tell a story, he could write, he enjoyed culture and he had taste. I used to tell him that since he could write, he should do a memoir to document his life and what he had seen; I am not too sure he ever got round to it. But he was proud of his children. He used to talk about one of them who is with Shell in Europe, and another one who served as Commodore of the Boat club, and a daughter with whom I once spoke on the phone. That he was able to give his children a legacy of education and a good name gave him a lot of fulfilment. He was old, but he looked fit and smart. He was not one of those old men moaning about being in the departure lounge. Nor did he wear his age as a cloak. You needed to watch him, Professor J. P. Clark and Chief Akin Disu, the Chairman of Eagle Paints debate a subject, you would think you were watching a group of young men still trying to transform the world. Baba Bero always spoke about the younger generation and the possibilities that await my generation. He believed in Nigeria, and in the posssibilities of change and progress. At his age, Baba still enjoyed his drink: wine or beer, he could hold it. Baba Bero was a generous man. He cared for others. And he was always willing to open doors of opportunity for younger men. Only one issue made him sad whenever he mentioned it. And he talked about it all the time. Sometime in the 70s, his friend, the late Henry Stephens Fajemirokun, discovering that he only lived in an official residence and had no house of his own encouraged him to buy a property. With a loan from Barclays Bank (DCO) and insurance cover from Royal Exchange Assurance, he bought No 25 Cooper Road, Ikoyi, which had been put up for sale by Shell. But in 1976, the Murtala government seized the property, and in the mass purge of the civil service that year, Baba Bero's distinguished career for country and state, was truncated. The property in question was later returned to him under Decree 54 of August 23, 1993; 57 other properties were returned to 14 others. But the Lagos state government at the time under Col Olagunsoye Oyinlola disregarded the decree and chose to sell Adeyemi-Bero's property to a foreign firm which knocked down the original building and erected four bungalows on the site. Curiously, other persons covered by Decree 54 got back their own properties but not Baba. The injustice of it frustrated the old man, he wrote petitions to successive governments, he even took his case to the court of public opinion, see his article titled "Oyinlola's confession" (The Guardian, September 21, 2006, p .65);. The arbitrary disembowelling of the civil service by the Murtala Muhammed adminstration has been cited correctly as the root of the collapse of the Nigerian civil service. Civil servants became disillusioned and unlike the Bero generation, they began to watch their backs in the literal sense. Both former Governor Bola Tinubu of Lagos state and incumbent Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola have paid fulsome tributes to the late civil servant. The best tribute that Governor Fashola can pay to this faithful citizen is to begin to look into the matter of his stolen property and do justice...Everyone who knew J. O. Adeyemi-Bero in service, in the club and in the community will surely miss him. Eternal rest grant him o Lord; may Light perpetual shine upon this worthy brother and soul. Adieu.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Updated ( Friday, 22 August 2008 ) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Services : E-mail news | 
RSS Feeds | Podcasts
Links: About the NVS | Contact Us | Terms of Use | Privacy & Cookies | Advertise With Us
All Rights Reserved. NigeriaVillageSquare.com
Posted by Robot| 22.08.2008 07:48