By Hakeem Bello

Indeed, being an unapologetic patriot and firm believer in his country, BRF has consistently been advocating that his fellow compatriots familiarize themselves with Section 24 of the Nigerian Constitution which spells out the duties of citizens.

He took this campaign to the convocation of the Lagos State University on 22 June, while rendering his brief appreciation to the institution, where he was once a Visitor, for conferring on him a honorary doctorate, which he had earlier written to say would be accepted only after completing his tour of duty.

“… The matter for today is just to say that from Professor Olumide to Professor Olatunji-Bello, from Governor Lateef Jakande to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the dream to create and keep LASU alive has been a matter, not only of personal sacrifice but also a lot of service and public duty. And my central message today is that from here, we must rise and cease to be a nation of rights and become a nation of duties because we all seem to know our rights, but how many of us know our duties. For those who have search engines on their phones, please just Google and read Section 24 of the Nigerian constitution.

“It imposes duties on each and every one of us. As a new Government settles in at State and Federal levels, I implore us to familiarize ourselves with our duties and to do our duties. This is particularly with reference to Section 24(b), and I am not quoting law here, but I am just stating that our most important duty at this time is to positively project the good name, the image and the prestige of our country. And that for me is a duty we must all own….”

As the administration of former President Buhari wound down, BRF intensified his focused activities towards fulfilling his ministerial mandates and also making important clarifications.

On the last but one working day of the Administration, BRF was at work in Akure to carry out his duty and push forward the frontiers of public discourse while flagging of the Akure–Ado Ekiti Road’s expansion and reconstruction having finally overcome the “procurement” hurdles of source of funding and redesigning of the vital road to the people of Ondo and Ekiti States. He prefaced his remarks with an apology that he would take some time having been subject of a malicious campaign by those who misunderstood the huge effort going on to get the project to a solid and sustainable course and then dwelt on the paradox of infrastructural development like the road being flagged off, governance and public debt.

He also spoke on the then ongoing debate over whether the then outgoing Administration should have continued “working” or should have drawn the line and waited patiently for May 29, to hand over. Again “breaking it down,” that the projects being commissioned or coming to fruition are the end products of proposals and Council memos which procurement processes started much earlier, he then added the poser on whether vital infrastructure delivery, like the one being flagged off, and governance should cease on account of a mandate that was then yet to extinguish.

As a ringside observer and participant since our first meeting sometime in 2006, I have often wondered about the driving force(s) behind this unrelenting hard worker who is also ever unyielding in his principled stand on law and order, rectitude and uprightness, preparation and planning among other leadership qualities. Some of these I have discovered are the products of parental upbringing, training as a lawyer and, most importantly, an unsparing self-discipline and self-development that activated itself upon finding himself as a “free” undergraduate at the University of Benin after being a “handful” in his childhood and teenage years.

Of course, from loathing public service as a young adult and passing through the tutelage of the one who eventually drafted him into it – Governor Bola Tinubu – he has come to appreciate the importance of public service as he recently told Niyi Babade, a former CNN correspondent and film maker, who sought him out for his views on the annulled June 12, 1993 Presidential Election in relation to the 2023 Elections.

“My best days in government are those days when people walk away from my office with a smile. Those are my best days – a problem solved….” Also having become somewhat of a veteran in the challenging task of Election Planning and Monitoring, he has come to the personal conviction that power is only meaningful when deployed to serve the people. “For me, the purpose of power, the purpose of winning elections is to express the fullness of the superiority of thoughts into a developmental agenda. Power means nothing if it does not improve the quality of human life, of our environment, of our people. And that is why as public servants, we take our work very, very seriously. We do it with everything that we have and we hold nothing back.”

Resisting every attempt to get him to speak on the acclaimed accomplishments of his administration in Lagos and downplaying the feedback to the effect that he is being celebrated among a cross section of the citizenry, BRF insists that the aspiration of every leader should be to improve on what they met and then move on. “We must all ensure that the standard is not lowered,” he told Mr Babade who had quipped about not all his colleague public servants believed in his concept of the essence of power.

Back to the matter of driving force, I found my nearest answer recently in yet another end-of-tenure interview for the programme, “Conversations with History” on NTA. The probing anchor of the personality programme, Thecla Wilkie, had towards the end, and seemingly out of the blues, opted to revisit his 2015 screening by the National Assembly and the famous statement, “May your loyalty not be tested…” thinking that it had to do with bending the rules for some personalities for the sake of “loyalty.” Rather than getting upset, BRF used the opportunity to offer his most profound understanding of “loyalty” and why he has chosen to live “loyally” to any chosen rather than pledge it.

He declared: “I don’t pledge loyalty, because you don’t know how that loyalty will actually be tested. So, I am loyal to you as my sister or my brother, will I take a bullet for you? So don’t even pledge it, do it when it comes because you don’t know how it will come. And that was the context in which I said what I was quoted to have said.”

BRF then exemplifies his stance with a most touching experience he witnessed on his tour of duty as Governor. “I have seen, and this is a very humbling story of life for me. There was a family who had a parent who needed medical help. First, they struggled to get the financial means. Having now got the financial means, it was now who among the children would donate a kidney to save their mother’s life. And they fought to the bitterest end. ‘She’s your mother, No she’s your mother too.’ That was their test of loyalty to their mother, but they loved their mother. I saw that first hand as Governor. I went back and asked myself what’s happening here. That was their loyalty call, they failed to the mother that gave them life. It was something I reflected on and I look back again at all of the stories of loyalty and all I see really is that life is a story of betrayals. But it’s a story for another day.” Concluded Bello, FNGE, is special adviser, communications to the immediate past Minister of Works and Housing.