Maduekwe: Once upon a Minister of Transport

By Oladele Osunbote

ONCE upon a time, there was one gentleman by name Ojo Maduekwe. His first name may present him as an Ekiti man. But his surname, Maduekwe, would bury such an idea. Therefore, the first name, Ojo may not lead the inquisitive generation to knowing his real identity. Under the shield of this garb, one may inadvertently call him a Yoruba or an Igbo man. On the other side, one may mistakenly call him one rugged nationalist who has become absolutely detribalised.

Every Nigerian has the village culture or attitude, the one which I have defined as culture localism in my investigations on cultures of the societies and nationalities. When one begins to take certain actions, the careful observer may be led into knowing where the one hails from or the group of people the one belongs to within the socio-cultural and economic segmentation of the society. In this wise, I have defined culture as the totality of intellectual expressions and power of a society and not the not object of identity like dress, tribal marks, dialects, etc.

In order to rejuvenate the memory of any readers there was one almighty minister of transport from 1999 to 2003, in the first term of the historic Obasanjo political megalomania. His job in that ministry was to provide better transport service for Nigerians, whereby all travelling Nigerians would notice the change, by way of comfortable, pleasurable, safe, cheap, and accessible transport system, by land, rail, water and air. Maduekwe forgot at that time to present the magic wand which would wake the railway from the grave. He did not know that Nigerians were travelling in discomfort and tears. Instead of him to work hard so that he would leave the scene better than he met it, there are incontrovertible testimonies that he left that ministry and the transport system worse than he met it. Today Nigerians are still travelling in vehicles which are used for conveying animals and goods in the countries where they are manufactured. Since the time of the British Railway Act 1801, railway has changed the destiny of the world. It has become a great blessing and part of the powers of nations but in Nigeria, the railway remains a source of sorrow and failure and for Maduekwe, the status quo should remain.

It is sad and unfortunate that Nigeria would continue to recycle those who have nothing again to offer, who have become great liabilities to the nation. Maduekwe made history and his name may enter the Guinness Book of World Records for being the first minister in the world who was riding a bicycle to the office during a part of his tenure as minister of transport. It was a ludicrous aberration and much time and energy were consumed. Till today, no one ha been able to tell Nigerians what precisely Maduekwe was driving at. His boss at that time crossed or folded his arms and watched the tactless scenario. He attracted unnecessary attention and publicity to himself and, unfortunately, he did not know that he was not all right. He had great delight in his own plight. There was a day when he was hit by a motorist and he was fortunate that the motorist was not under any mandate to crush him. He would have died for nothing.

He was the minister who surreptitiously presided over the ethnic cleansing of all the top operators of the railway who were Yoruba. Altogether, 50 Yoruba top officials were either dismissed or sacked to pave the way for the Igbos to fully take over the railway. Maduekwe, thereafter, set up one committee that was known as Transport Monitoring Unit and faceless entities were put in the committee to do the dirty job. Maduekwe completed the Igbo agenda which Ikejiani as chairman of the railway and Egbuna as General Manager of the railway in 1964 did not complete.

There were protests but Obasanjo did not listen to those affected during their hour of predicament. Yoruba have known so well now why Obasanjo was useless to them when he was president of Nigeria. After the evil exercise, the railway went deeper into the abyss. There was no single Yoruba man who was either a director or deputy director. The Igbos in the railway gratuitously took over all the vacant positions without any reference to federal character. One “Yoruba man” was at that time the president of Nigeria! When the same Ojo Maduekwe was again appointed the minister of foreign affairs, I said to myself that a well-known enemy of the Yoruba has been appointed and by the time his administration ends in that ministry no single Yoruba will be there. The Nigerian Railway Corporation is a case study.

Osunbote sent this article from Ibadan.