He continues to punch above his weight at 61. INGRAM OSIGWE takes a look at a man of affairs whose early promise earned him the subsequently justified sobriquet “Prof.” by his schoolmates…
Riding a host of storms, Eze Festus Boniface Oha Odimegwu has vindicated the intuition of his classmates. He has fulfilled that early promise and in the process became a most worthy alumna. It needs not have been necessarily so. This is because history is littered with early precocious promise sadly left unfulfilled. Not in the case of Festus, though. His climb up the slippery pole was aided by meticulous intellectual preparation. Obtaining a first class honours degree at the highly rated University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) was just another feather in the cap. Nevertheless, it has helped.
Before capping it all at Nsukka, Odimegwu, who was born in August 7, 1953 in Aba, now in Abia State, had gone through a host of top notch schools. Primary education was at the hard-to-get-into Christ the King School (CKS) in Aba.
Like so many of his age in the erstwhile Eastern Region, the emergence of the Nigerian civil war upset the apple cart. The interruption lasted for three years when his parents had to relocate to Umuoka Ubirielem village in Orsu Local Government Area of Orlu in Imo State.
The end of the civil war naturally left niggling doubts about the long term stability of the polity. His father, like many, was not too sure that there would not be another civil insurgence, so they stayed back home. The young Festus had to complete his primary education at St. Mary’s Primary School, Umuoka Ubirielem.
An early characteristic show of stoicness revealed itself during this period. The precocious talent was clearly not totally emotionally traumatised by the civil war. The unfazed young lad earned his First School Leaving Certificate (FSLC) in flying colours, making him the only Grade-1 distinction at St. Mary’s at the time.
The “prof” appellation came about later in secondary school as a result of stellar performance in Chemistry, Mathematics and Physics. The contrarian has never looked back. A glittering career spanning 26 years and five months followed his first class honours degree. Armed with a superb degree in Chemistry, the brewing sector was a natural port of call to showcase his skills.
The progression there was steadfast. Progressing from Trainee Brewer in 1980, he went on to become Shift Assistant Brewer, Shift Brewer, Technical Controller and on to Production Manager. The chemist had been turned into seasoned manager of resources – human and material. Further honing of his managerial skills resulted in an MSc at the Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh. From Marketing Director of Lever Brothers in Ghana from 1995 to 1997, he went straight to the top. The buck stopped at his table as Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of Nigerian Breweries Plc for almost a decade, from 1997 to 2006.
How on earth the seasoned managerial campaigner turned into a campaigner for political causes is still not very clear. The controversies entailed in the political atmosphere in 2006 might have induced his being asked to proceed to a new appointment with the Heineken multinational company in Germany. Odimegwu had other inclinations. He elected to stay back in Nigeria instead, to pursue other personal business interests.
The entrepreneurial gait shone through. In came a host of start-up ventures. He set up the Royal Lifestyle Services Group of Companies and other strategic business sub-units of the group, including Quintessentially Nigeria, Recherche Signature Events and Gifts, and Palatially which act as the sole marketers for Angel champagne for which he now acts as a non-executive director.
In his forays from his managerial cocoon, Odimegwu has made his own history in ways in which he would certainly not have asked for or wanted. A defining moment came on Tuesday, the June 26, 2012 when he was appointed Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC) by President Goodluck Jonathan.
The issue of the population census, as virtually everyone is aware, lies at the heart of Nigeria’s tortuous inability to resolve the question of the nationalities otherwise referred to in journalese as the ‘national question’. It was a causatory factor in the build-up to the civil war. The appointment to head the NPC is therefore a key, strategic, even potentially game-changing move within the national firmament. Odimegwu’s appointment was inspired. In appointing a technocrat to head NPC, the president must have gone for the twin goal of diligence and integrity. A man with a proven managerial track record such as Odimegwu clearly fitted the bill.
The president also charged the commission, in addition, to spearhead efforts towards the issuance of a national identity card to every Nigerian by 2015. Odimegwu’s managerial capacity was obviously needed and was brought into play. The contrarian proposed a new biometric data capturing process for the country’s next census. The new policy thrust from Odimegwu’s perspective will save the country billions of naira by unifying similar projects being duplicated by various agencies of government. As we can see, streamlining and cost-cutting is ingrained in the manager. This is a breakthrough which has already received presidential approval. The gain here is that it will help to achieve better economic planning for more rigorously coordinated national development.
This is the sort of mould-breaking that occurs when technocrats are brought in to rejuvenate a stalled process. The process in this case is also flawed. Odimegwu, principled and by his immersion in the managerial process a believer in thoroughness, was soon to be consumed by the in-built contradictions of a political hot potato not of his own making.
Subsequently, his tenure as the NPC boss was perhaps inevitably abbreviated by his insistence on bringing to bear on the 2016 census certain far-reaching re-inventing of the process. Not surprisingly, his principled stand on the issue ruffled political feathers, upsetting geo-political contrived sensibilities, real or imagined, and in the process threatened age-long vested ethno-religious interests. Odimegwu did the honourable thing by resigning; in the process, his dignity intact and head unbowed.
Nevertheless, it is a cautionary tale of the pitfalls that await a technocrat in the murky waters of Nigeria’s prebendal politics. Unless the bugbear is resolved, it will continue to be well-nigh impossible to squeeze the best out of the country’s meagre resource base of managerial talent.
Odimegwu was 61 on Thursday. The boyish good look has not wrinkled. No question of age infirming him. The country is bound to still hear more from him. He has, to abbreviate the words made famous by India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Pandit Nehru, a lot of promise still to fulfil and “many more miles to go…”
