Thread: The Crying Governor - Sam Mbakwe

Does anyone remember this governor !!!
I think he was a great leader too
READ



Sam Mbakwe (1922-2004)

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Chief Sam Onunaka Mbakwe was a man who never ran away from a fight. He confronted every controversy headlong, be it the volatile issue of property said to have been abandoned by his Igbo kith and kin in Port-Harcourt in the 1970s, or attempts by the ruling party to rig him out of the governorship of Imo State in the 1980s.

On January 6, however, Chief Mbakwe was unavailable to partake in a more personal controversy. How old was he on that day? 74 years, quipped the media. No, countered the family; he was around 82 years.

It may no longer be possible to ascertain which is the correct one; and it doesn't really matter anymore. Chief Mbakwe died in the wee hours of that day in his Avutu country home in Imo State after a protracted illness. What is more certain than his age, however, is that for upward of 30 years, he had a fascinating grip on Nigerian politics with his grating candour and biting sense of humour. Though, he took to it naturally like fish to water, he entered politics through the side-lines. Called to the English Bar in 1959, Chief Mbakwe came home that very year to start his law practice in Port-Harcourt. He swiftly became one of the city's more notable lawyers before the civil war broke out in 1967. That war was to shape Mbakwe's politics of advocacy forever.

As a lawyer, he couldn't just come to terms with the idea of abandoned properties which was the official policy in post-war Rivers State. As an Easterner, he could not accept why Lagos State would hand over the properties of the Igbos who fled the zone during the war, and Rivers State would not. He confronted this injustice frontally by taking on the case of the owners of the properties forcefully seized and appropriated in the city at the end of armed hostilities in 1970. Instead of suffering physical reprisals as was the case then, this advocacy brought him more than just fame and recognition -- it gave him a toe-hold in politics.

By 1978 when the military announced the programme of transition to civil rule, Mbakwe's political trajectory was already carved out. He joined the Nigeria Peoples Party (NPP) and was elected the first civilian Governor of Imo State, at the time comprising the present Imo, Abia and parts of Ebonyi States. For him, governance, just like lawyering, was another means of righting the wrongs of the past, this time to be used as a tool for the rehabilitation of the infrastructure destroyed during the civil war. To keep the faith, he established the multi-campus Imo State University and Progress Bank, and invested heavily in palm produce and poultry.

His greatest landmarks were recorded in the development of infrastructure. Before him, roads in the area were in a terrible state of disrepair after the war. By his third year in office, Aba, Umuahia, Okigwe, Orlu and Afikpo could boast of modern roads. Till today, it is difficult to out-match Mbakwe's legacy either in road rehabilitation or rural electrification. Yet, he started off as a governor crying to the federal government to provide amenities to his people. When his supplication availed nothing, he took up the challenge himself. Yet despite his achievements later on, the sobriquet of the weeping governor stuck to Chief Mbakwe.

It was with the same zest that he turned to industrialisation by establishing an aluminum smelter company, a resin and paint factory, a cardboard packaging industry, flour mills, and a glass industry. His plan to prepare Imo State for industrial take off did not regrettably outlive his tenure.

In politics, Chief Mbakwe was a model of consolidation--rising through the humble station of councillor through constituent assembly man and all the way to governor. At every of these political stations, he was imbued with that social conscience which manifested in his relentless crusade for social justice.

Above all, the late elder-statesman was a life-long seeker after knowledge. He had the humility to return to school after being governor to earn a PhD in Political Science from the University of Lagos. Not for him the current fad of barely literate public officers and moneybags conjuring and receiving dubious honorary doctorates.

Even the most charmed life must, at a point, have a question mark. For Chief Mbakwe, that point was the infamous two-million man match in 1998 for the murderous military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha to succeed himself as civilian president. Should he be crucified for speaking up for the 'evil one' at the rally in Abuja? Yes insisted his critics. No, he defended himself with his customary aplomb. He was war weary and therefore merely played along so that the iron-fisted General wouldn't have to detain him for refusing to be part of the self-succession game. Did he speak up for Abacha in self-interest or in self-defence? That controversy is now above the head of Chief Sam Onunaka Mbakwe, Dee Sam.


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