By Olanrewaju Onigegewura
One of the lessons I learnt from His Excellency Babatunde Raji Fashola, CON, SAN is the art of writing tributes. He had requested me to draft a tribute in honour of a departed colleague. I quickly knocked up something I considered vintage Onigegewura. He skimmed through the draft I gave him and he picked up his ubiquitous red pen with his left hand (he writes with his left hand).
I noticed that he was striking out some words in the paper and was scribbling some things.
When he finished, he turned to me. “This is good but it is too generic. What I have done is to cross out everywhere the name of my late colleague appears and I replaced it with names of Jakande, Awolowo, Sardauna and Azikiwe. What you have written fits all of them. A tribute must be personal, sincere, and must detail, even if briefly, your relationship with the subject. How did the subject influence you? What is peculiar about the subject? What was your relationship with the subject?”
“Learned Silk, what if the subject never impacted you and never influenced you?” I asked.
“Then you simply write ‘may his soul rest in peace’ rather than manufacture an abstract song of praise.”
He then went on to write a moving tribute about the colleague, a copy of which I have kept over the years for my personal education.
That’s BRF for you.
Every meeting with him is an opportunity to learn. It is impossible to leave his presence without learning something new. His encyclopedic knowledge spans history, politics, books, culture, arts, and of course, Law and football. He has a repertoire of soundbites and quotable quotes with which he laces his conversation.
Of course you remember his famous ‘May our loyalty never be tested’ which has continued to trend after more than a decade. A colleague of mine who is now on the Bench of the High Court kept a booklet dedicated to collecting the sayings of BRF during our stint at the Lagos House.
Yet, his towering brilliance notwithstanding, BRF is a great student of knowledge who has elevated active listening into an art. What sets BRF apart is his ability to seize an idea, refine it and return it transformed beyond its original scope. It is akin to giving a chef a tuber of yam and watch as the yam is transformed to pounded yam, porridge, and whatever else could be made from yam.
Mr. Ben Akabueze once made a presentation at the Adeyemi Bero Hall on economic performance of the government. That was the focus of the presentation. BRF then started asking questions about the impact of the economic policies on job creation, revenue generation, housing, transportation. In a matter of minutes, he had changed the direction of the presentation from data and statistics to humanity.
Strangely, what became the lead stories in newspapers the following day were not the numbers and figures but their effect on the good people of Lagos State.
Significantly for me is the fact that BRF never fails to acknowledge the contributions of his team. His intellectual curiosity is matched by an uncommon generosity of giving credit. This must have been the effect of his profession as a commercial lawyer whose practice areas include intellectual properties.
I once watched him at an international forum where he made a presentation. At the end of the presentation, he received a standing ovation. BRF then told the gathering that he was not actually the person who deserved the applause. He asked if Architect Gidado was in the audience. Arc. Gidado jumped up from his seat. BRF pointed at the gentleman and told the gathering that what he presented was what Gidado and his team had spent the past six months working on. The hall erupted in applause for Gidado.
Arc. Gidado who was on the verge of retirement told me that in his almost 35 years of service, he had never felt more honoured or appreciated in his life. Till his last day in service, I noticed Gidado was working sprightly with extra springs in his footsteps.
In the same way, he acknowledges contributions of his colleagues, he also makes it a point of duty to protect the interest of his subordinates. I have seen people in leadership positions throwing their colleagues under the bus without batting an eyelid. BRF would never hang you out dry, at least in the public. He will defend you outside but may take you to the cleaners once you are back in the office.
There was this day a parliamentarian suggested that perhaps civil servants were being less than truthful in giving correct information to BRF about a particular matter. BRF turned to the chairman of the committee and in a measured voice, objected to the uncomplimentary remarks made by the lawmaker about his staff. “Mr. Chairman, may I respectfully request that distinguished parliamentarian kindly withdraw the remark that seeks to impugn the integrity of these hardworking public servants. The petitioner has withdrawn his allegation based on the compelling evidence from the same staff of the Ministry whose integrity is now being questioned.”
Before the chairman could interject, the parliamentarian was gracious enough to withdraw the statement.
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