USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fw: Response to the piece on Mabogunje by Falola

Sent from my BlackBerry 10 smartphone.

From: Obadiah Mailafia <obmailafia@gmail.com> Sent: Saturday, 21 October 2017 04:19 To: Prof Ayo OLUKOTUN Subject: Response to the piece on Mabogunje by Falola

Bro Ayo, morning sir. I sent this piece to the group after reading what prof Falola wrote on Mabogunje. It bounced back. 

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Egbon Professor Toyin,

Thank you immensely for this touching as well as, expectedly, erudite piece on the intellectual giant Akin Mabogunje. Only the deep can call unto the deep.  You have summed up the achievements of a man of supernal intellect in memorable words. I came to know Mabogunje only during the last decade. I represented my then boss Prof. Soludo in a ministerial cabinet meeting in which then President Obasanjo bullied me to allow him confiscate some bank funds that were meant for SMEs (under the defunct SMEIS Scheme). I was a novice then. And when Obasanjo badgered me relentlessly, I literally caved in. I didn't realise I was supposed to shout back -- which was what the likes of El-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu were wont to do. Obasanjo misinterpreted my shyness as stupidity or lack of ideas. After the cabinet meeting ended, Akin Mabogunje held me by the hand and we walked away together. 

I am not a member of the National Merit Award. But strangely enough I was invited by them to give the Keynote Address of their Council meeting in 2016.  Mabogunje, one of the leading lights of that band of immortals, was all over me like an attentive father. The organisation were recognising me as a sort of honorary member, given that I pursued my career in banking and finance with little or no time to write any books.

I have found him to be a man who wears his learning with a lightness of being, to echo the novelist Milan Kundera. A humanist, a compassionate scholar and technocrat of great accomplishment. He is one of the builders of Abuja.

I read his autobiography with interest. I discussed it with him in person. Some of the significant events was the fact that he and the indefatigable Ojetunji Aboyade chose to leave the university system as relatively young professors after the Gowon administration disgraced them by asking them to quit their university quarters after an academic strike. I would mark that decision as signalling the beginning of the decline and fall of the university system. Thee fact that they moved to Bodija or somewhere in the suburbs made people to think they were still staff of UI. They no longer were. For the rest of their careers they were working as consultants of international stature.

We continue to celebrate and emulate an icon and model of those who are truly great.

By the way, I was rather surprised that you are not yet a recipient of the National Order of Merit. This must be a profound oversight. Somebody within the organisation has to start the process of your induction into that hall of fame. It would be one more merited feather on your already resplendent hat.

I salute!