By Valentine Obienyem

Today, the 19th of July, 2018, Mr. Peter Obi, the former Governor of Anambra State turns fifty-seven. Besides Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, whom I did serials on his birthdays, he is the only other person I have rashly laid upon myself the task of writing on in commemoration of his birthdays. He is one of the few in Nigeria whose lives a keen observer can look at and proclaim how good they are.

From Ojukwu to Obi is justified because the two great Igbo sons are coins of the same mould and mint, however different in dates. This is especially evident in their understanding of service to the people as revolving around two foci: selflessness and integrity. Both are geniuses in their own rights and by Nigerian standards. It is notorious that geniuses accord with one another as harmoniously as dynamite with fire, even when some little tigers being fed with milk tried to put a wedge between them. Ojukwu in his wisdom recognized those little tigers and often advised Obi to watch them to know when they grow teeth.

The prisms of hard work, governance, integrity, astuteness…

If people like Obi are subpoenaed before the judgement-seat of reason for follies of life we shall sue for the return of our money. If, on the contrary, we consult them for the lessons of life, they shall offer us more than we shall bargain for. In the past, I tried to look at Obi from the prisms of hard work, governance, integrity, astuteness, single-mindedness and stubborn adherence to principles. Today, I include his odd quirks. We shall see some of those things he did while growing up. O yes, we can say of him having in mind the famous Terence paragraph in Self Tormentor: “Homo Sum, humani nihil a me aliennumputo” (I am human, and nothing human is alien to me). Obi is human and nothing human is alien to him.

He was born in the commercial city of Onitsha, where he obtained his primary and secondary education; except for an interlude at Father Joseph Secondary School, Aguleri, where his uncle served as Principal. His precocity manifested in the area of business. Looking at the trajectory of his life, one can submit that he was born naturally with the business vigour of the Obis running in his veins. He was first and foremost a businessman, before other features –diplomacy, parsimony, conciliation and governance – took turns dominating his busy life.

He often tells us how his teacher at Kellogg influenced his entry into politics. Anyone who has not heard the tale will most probably think that from his Uncle, Hon. Nwabo-Alor, he derived by a kind of avuncular heredity an inclination towards radical politics. Radical not in terms of hot volcano erupting now and then, but in being driven by an independent spirit that has seen him in trouble a lot of times by insisting that the right thing must be done in spite all odds.

Obi is a thoroughbred Igbo son. Early in his life, he showed signs of what the future has in stock for his life. Barely out of diapers as a pupil of Santa Maria Primary School, Onitsha, he engaged in varied trading. First, was wholesale purchase of kerosene and retailing same in bottles. His loving mother saw the unusual business inclination and early experience with money as likely to have undue negative influence on his growth and development. Like all fond parents, his mother – known during her time as a matron of dignity and wisdom who sedulously trained her children after the husband bowed early to the supreme arbitrament of death – was not comfortable with his early exposure to the science of making money. She tried to stop him, but gifted in native intelligence and all known principles of persuasion, Peter Obi convinced his mother to allow him. But one of the ironies of his life is that despite early exposure, money does not have any charm for him.

From marketing of kerosene in primary school, Peter Obi moved on to the sale of eggs from Olikeze and Onwuka Farms in Agbor and Awka respectively, while he was a student of Christ the King College (CKC), Onitsha. Thenceforth he ventured into fashion. Apart from academics, his past-time, as with successful entrepreneurs, was watching and gauging people’s reactions to trending fashion as copied from the attires of famous singers and sportsmen. This was how as a secondary school boy, he designed foreign shoes like the one his excitable friend, Mr. Benji Uba called “three layers”, and “flanner” and went to Enugu for the mass production. Students and young traders fell over one another buying the products. He did the same for “bongo” trousers that was in vague at that time. When you hear that he had taxis running for him as a secondary school boy, do not be surprised. His is a living story as opposed to fairy tales of those who claimed they started making money from their mothers’ wombs. As a student in CKC, he was already travelling to London with older friends and importing goods in containers.

As an undergraduate at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Peter Obi was a big-time importer of five and more containers of various wares in one order. Among his several customers, the well-known Awusaku of Onitsha at the time marketed tiles from him. He also ventured into property. It was during that period that he built the houses rented by the then Savannah Bank in Omor and Nsukka. Indeed, the present Sultan of Sokoto was his tenant as a young military officer serving in Nsukka area.

Best club and party dancer

As a young man, Peter Obi was fully human and enjoyed his life to the fullest. Seeing him today, you would not even know that he was the best club and party dancer among his many friends and contemporaries. He also indulged in tangents to the curve of love. From what we hear from those close to him, we may presume that where there is still so much smoke there was once a flame. Take a sampler: Once he was driving his friends, including a girlfriend, in his newly-acquired Peugeot 505 car. They got to a place and met some people who passed from admiring the vehicle to pricing it. Because Peter Obi had a business he wanted to explore, but did not have enough money to do so, he offered to sell the vehicle to the people and there and then. His scandalized friends, including the young lady, had to continue their trip in public transport. Two days later, Peter Obi was off to London and as soon as he concluded the new venture, he bought a brand new BMW!

There are many interesting stories about him and each is parked with lessons of life. At the wedding of one of his cousins in Enugu, many people saw him waiting for public transport to the reception. Most of them stopped to give him a lift, which he declined. In fact, a girlfriend to one of his friends remarked that they should leave the man (Obi) who appeared to be enjoying his poverty. When they later talked about the event and it was revealed that the three most-graded vehicles used for the wedding were owned by Peter Obi, the young woman sought Obi’s hotel room ostensibly to apologize to him but actually to woo his friendship.

Peter Obi lived a normal life that characterizes all stages of human development. One of the interesting things about him is that he did not remain becalmed in any of the stages. That is not say his life is devoid of follies; after all, as Cicero said: “There is nothing so absurd, but that it may be found in the book of philosophies”. He once angrily retrieved what he bought for his girlfriend on discovering her liaisons with other men.

Obi’s transition to one of Nigeria’s most successful politicians in terms of performance was not by accident. He is a perfectionist who puts in 100% efforts in whatever he chooses to do, even if it does not yield the maximum result. His friend, Benji Uba tells a story of sometime in the 1980s, when he and Obi stayed in the house of Ike Nwabunike: “Each time we travelled to London, Ike would always give us money to run errands for him and ask us to keep the change. In 1987, Peter bought his own house. When Ike heard it, he was so amazed that he dropped the plate of food from his hands. Ike was rightly perplexed that the young man he accommodated was able to buy a house in London without a mortgage! Ike was very happy and thereafter used Peter as an example for others. In the same year, Peter started investing in London and Nigerian stock markets unaffected by the bedlam of politics”.

Source: https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/07/peter-obi-a-lesson-in-perseverance/amp/


NB: This is just an extract of the man's life. Mr LegendHero, hope you can see the link on there about the Sultan of Sokoto and how he stayed at a house Peter Obi built back then at Nsukka. FYI this article was written in 2018

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