How I Maintained Integrity
in a Corrupt World


Senator Melford Okilo


“I have traveled from Africa to America to present an unusual topic: God, Man, and Politics. All I know about this topic is my little experience in touching others as a human being and in being able to identify and solve the problems of humanity; God—I don’t know God, but I know things that have happened that I believe are beyond human comparison so that we allude them to God; and what you call politics, the role I played in politics.

People who know me know that I have prospered in Nigerian and African politics for over forty years. They have been posing some questions to me. They ask me, ‘Has politics had any special meaning for you, other than the dictionary meaning?’ Others ask, ‘Is there any relationship whatsoever between politics and the Russellian science and philosophy?’ Since politics is noted by many people as a polluted profession, some people ask the question, ‘Is there any relationship whatsoever between the politics you are involved in and God?’

. . . People see only the bad side of politics. But the common man can do something to help his fellow human beings, to help the suffering masses, to provide for those who are not provided for, and this can happen through politics. When I became Governor, I was able to build the first University of Science and Technology in Nigeria. The Federal Government was afraid of doing it. Yet, as a mere Governor of a small state, I did it, although it brought me trouble, because, when I was impeached, they claimed that by so building a university, by doing something that the federal government could not do, I had wasted the government’s money. But I knew that we could do it, and we did it, and the university we built is still today one of the best and most successful universities in Nigeria

. . . In politics, what I enjoy is the extended freedom to give to everybody and talk to everybody, love everybody and serve everybody. People look down on me for that. They do not know that therein lies my strength.





Senator Melford Okilo