His last session as an undergraduate was my first, and the first time I saw him strumming away at the guitar was the last time I witnessed that kind of spectacle.
Even as a ‘jambite,’ I had become reasonably acquainted with Brother Akin Adesina’s unassailable academic pedigree long before I set eyes on him. The “brother” bit was the titular token of being part of the Christian Community and the Evangelical Christian Union in what was then unarguably the most beautiful university campus in all of Africa. Back then, being addressed as “brother” was the highest form of identification.
So when I did get to finally see Bro Akin Adesina, as I had expected, he cut every bit of the image of a geeky wonk: tall, lanky and bespectacled.
He was then on course to earn a First Class degree in Agricultural Economics. That fact made very many of us who were remotely associated with him really glad. In those days at the University of Ife, you got exactly what you merited. In all my time there, I never met any First Class graduate who wasn’t deserving of it.
So, yes. Bro Akin was as smart as they come. If a test was ever conducted in the Federal Executive Council to place members on the basis of IQ, there’ll be little competition about who comes tops. I wager the cut-throat competition will actually manifest at the other end: who brings up the rear. Let me quickly navigate away from this cantankerous issue before I stumble into trouble!
So if the Honourable Minister for Agriculture has consistently exuded brilliance and sagacity, it shouldn’t be surprising. It is well within his firmly established reputation.
But there was yet another side to him that I was later to be let in on.
It was at a meeting of the ECU at the Agric Foyer. Bro Akin was exhorting on the necessity of love if we intended as a people, to successfully execute our evangelical mandate. His delivery was as crisp as it was eloquent. If Dr Adesina ever considered making, as his vocation, the planting of the seeds of God’s Word in men’s hearts, he’ll be one of the most successful ‘farmers’ around!
Not done with his preachment, he proceeded to do something completely novel as if to reinforce the utter urgency of his message. He grabbed an acoustic guitar and started ‘playing’ in accompaniment to a song he had just taught us.
“Let us love, let us love one another,” he belted out in undisguised charismatic fashion and fervor.
I didn’t have to be a guitar virtuoso to discern the discordant tones emanating from the guitar. And from the quizzical looks I also noticed on the faces of others, I knew something was definitely amiss.
But no matter, we all swooned along to Bro Akin’s ecstatic rendition for as long as he pleased. “Let us love, let us love one another. Let us love, let us love…..”
Soon after that meeting, I was to learn Bro was no guitar player whatsoever! I have since acquired some guitar proficiency, so with the privilege of hindsight, two things could have prompted the stunt he pulled off that fateful day: lunacy or audacity.
To underscore the resounding success of that effort, not only can I still vividly remember his message of over thirty years, but I have since been militantly implementing his admonition to love: a fact that my friends and my missus of over two decades should easily attest to.
And speaking of love and loving, that was a subject matter Bro was eminently qualified to ‘sing’ about. With so much going for him, there were quite a few lasses (read sisters) who were imagining and projecting (a veritable aspect of the subject matter of faith) themselves into his obviously bright future. So by the time he left in a blaze of glory in 1981, there were not a few hearts that required urgent, expert mending!
So thirty years down the line, Bro Akin Adesina, fittingly transmogrified to Dr Akinwumi Adesina, reappears on the national dais. He is older and certainly more experienced but the characteristic élan and profuse panache are still very evident.
If I haven’t been surprised by how he has carried on so far, it is only an endorsement of his refreshing consistency.
The media has been awash with the federal government’s latest initiative of procuring a staggering 10 million cell-phones for farmers at a whooping cost of N60 billion! Let me confess that I’m as flabbergasted as anyone could possibly be. I do not have a clear grasp of the issues involved: the convoluted matter of procurement being akin to rocket science to me. Many have resorted to mathematics to prove the absurdity, and by extension, the fact that the scheme is unworkable. But I have since learned that in Nigeria, projects that make mathematical sense do not necessarily make economic and political sense.
Dr Adesina has painstakingly tried explaining the huge benefits of the scheme and its well-articulated modalities: attempting gallantly to disabuse the minds of those who – and rightly so – are already insinuating corruption. Believe me, there are many more questions than answers.
So I recall the discordant guitar tones and I think 10 million cell-phones. And I’m minded to think the future belongs to the audacious.
So no matter, I choose to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perusing his records since 1981, I discovered they are strewn with all manner of achievements resembling magic and miracles.
I have a hunch the current scheme will not depart from the trend. I hope so. No, I actually desperately pray so. That’s the very least I owe him.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
nnanta2012@gmail.com