Adeyemi-Bero: Tribute to 'Mr Lagos' by Reuben Abati

[funmilayo]

Adeyemi-Bero: Tribute to 'Mr Lagos'
By Reuben Abati

PAPA Joseph Omotoso Adeyemi-Bero, one of the original four civil
servants who joined Lt. Col. Mobolaji Johnson (as he then was) to set
up the government of Lagos state when it was created in 1967 died on
Saturday, August 16 aged 83. He was seconded from the Federal Civil
Service in 1967 to assume duties as acting Administrative Secretary in
the newly created state. He had once told me the story of how he was
summoned by his boss and informed that he was going to be sent on a
new assignment. In those days the civil service was so disciplined
junior officers were not in a position to query or disobey their
bosses. He had attained a level of respectability in the Federal Civil
service, the posting to the new state seemed like an adventure into
the unknown. But in those days a sense of duty was more important than
personal considerations. The late Bero was a disciplined man and a
dutiful officer.

When he and the military administrator of Lagos state assumed duties,
along with three others - Mr. Arthur Edward Houston-Wright (acting
Secretary to the Government), Mr. F.C.O. Coker (acting Financial
Secretary) and Mr. J.O. Agoro (Legal Secretary), they had only 10, 000
pounds as marching grant; a few tables and chairs and a designated
territory. But by 1975 when the Gowon administration was sacked, the
four civil servants and the military Governor as he later became had
managed to build Lagos state into a functional system and easily a big
and thriving establishment. Adeyemi-Bero served the Lagos state
government in different capacities including Deputy Permanent
Secretary, Ministry of Finance and Permanent Secretary, Ministry of
Sports and Social Development but he is more fondly remembered for
having helped to set up the Lagos state civil service.

He was the state's civil servant No 1, the reason he became known in
his lifetime as "Mr Lagos". In conversations, he had great memories of
working with the military administrator/Governor, Mobolaji Johnson, a
man he respected deeply, and whom he still referred to as "oga", many
years after they had both left the service. In December 2006, the
Tinubu administration had honoured Baba by naming the main auditorium
at the state secretariat in Alausa after him. The Adeyemi-Bero
auditorium is a befitting monument in honour of a man who helped to
lay the foundation for Lagos state.

I met Baba as we called him through his bosom friend, Professor J. P.
Clark. Baba Bero was in a class of his own. He could trace the history
of the civil service from the colonial era to contemporary times. He
often regaled me with stories of the great discipline that obtained in
the civil service of yore. He could not understand how and why a civil
servant would live above his means, having twenty houses or boasting
of billions. Whenever anyone drew attention to the fact that civil
servants these days work at their own pace, sometimes not going to
work for weeks or going there to moonlight, he would lament how the
collapse of the Nigerian system has robbed ordinary people of a sense
of values.

And he would defend the civil service and the Nigeria he knew, and
recall the beauty of old Lagos with its well-lined streets and well-
maintained social infrastructure. In his time, civil servants were so
distinguished that they were admitted by the colonial authorities into
some of the exclusive clubs. "Ùou had to be a respectable civil
servant for you as a civil servant to be admitted into a club in this
city", he once said. Till the end, he was an active member of many of
these clubs, including the Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, the Lagos Boat
Club, the Island Club and so on. He was particularly fond of the Lagos
Boat Club, where the Adeyemi-Beros and the Akinreles are perhaps the
two most influential families. I met him on many occasions at the Boat
Club for lunch or drinks. And he used to say: "Let's meet at the Boat
Club; the boat club". His emphasis on "the" was his way of reminding
me that the Boat club on Awolowo road, Ikoyi is the original boat club
in Nigeria. At the club everyone stopped at his table, either by the
waterfront, or upstairs, to pay obeisance. He knew everyone, young and
old.

It was here at the Boat Club, looking across the water, that he once
told the story of how Ikoyi and Victoria Island were developed. He
said he still had the files containing the records of all the original
plot allocations in Ikoyi and Victoria Island because he was the duty
officer. He had pointed out that many of the people who worked with
him or under him in the Lagos state Government had no land in this
choice part of Lagos. They processed the applications for others who
applied, but rarely thought of grabbing the plots for themselves.
"These days, I hear, the first thing civil servants do is to share out
everything among themselves and their proxies. In my time, nobody
would have dared do that. And if you did and you got caught by the
white boys or later by my oga, you were finished."

He told this particular story after he had asked me to visit him at
home in Makoko, and I wondered what part of Lagos Island that is. He
laughed raucously, noting that he is used to people making that
mistake all the time. "When I give people my address, they start
thinking of Ikoyi and Victoria Island, but when I tell them the
location on the map, they are amazed, they wonder why and how someone
like me who was involved in the allocation of plots in Victoria
Island, and who helped other people to get plots could not grab as
many plots as possible for myself." Makoko is in Ebute Meta, the
designated civil servants quarters of Lagos, and somewhere there, in
the midst of ordinary people, is the home of Baba Bero. Material
possessions did not impress him. Even as an old man of 80, he ran his
life like a dutiful civil servant. He had a driver. He had a
secretary. Every morning, he dressed up, and he was quite elegant in
his neat agbada attire; tall, well-spoken, good looking and
punctilious, he must have been a ladies' man in his younger days.. He
knew how to handle people. He was a jolly old man, with a good heart.

He used to come to The Guardian either to submit an article for
publication or to discuss current affairs. My staff soon became very
fond of him; on the day we learnt of his death, Grace, my secretary,
who used to take his calls and attend to him whenever he came around
(and I was still in the traffic or trapped somewhere else!) felt a
sense of loss. Baba was always punctual. If he said he was coming
around at a particular hour, you could be sure he would be there. He
was a man of his word. I was the one always running late and he used
to tease me about how I am so busy. "èverybody wants you because you
are so enthusiastic and willing, but you must focus on priorities", he
used to say. He was ever-considerate.

He had these two old Mercedes Benz cars; the longer one looked like
something bought in the 70s, but they were good machines. If the old
man wanted, he could afford a fleet of exotic cars, but I don't
remember seeing him in a flashy car. Education meant a lot to him; he
was an enlightened man. He could tell a story, he could write, he
enjoyed culture and he had taste. I used to tell him that since he
could write, he should do a memoir to document his life and what he
had seen; I am not too sure he ever got round to it. But he was proud
of his children. He used to talk about one of them who is with Shell
in Europe, and another one who served as Commodore of the Boat club,
and a daughter with whom I once spoke on the phone. That he was able
to give his children a legacy of education and a good name gave him a
lot of fulfilment.

He was old, but he looked fit and smart. He was not one of those old
men moaning about being in the departure lounge. Nor did he wear his
age as a cloak. You needed to watch him, Professor J. P. Clark and
Chief Akin Disu, the Chairman of Eagle Paints debate a subject, you
would think you were watching a group of young men still trying to
transform the world. Baba Bero always spoke about the younger
generation and the possibilities that await my generation. He believed
in Nigeria, and in the posssibilities of change and progress. At his
age, Baba still enjoyed his drink: wine or beer, he could hold it.
Baba Bero was a generous man. He cared for others. And he was always
willing to open doors of opportunity for younger men.

Only one issue made him sad whenever he mentioned it. And he talked
about it all the time. Sometime in the 70s, his friend, the late Henry
Stephens Fajemirokun, discovering that he only lived in an official
residence and had no house of his own encouraged him to buy a
property. With a loan from Barclays Bank (DCO) and insurance cover
from Royal Exchange Assurance, he bought No 25 Cooper Road, Ikoyi,
which had been put up for sale by Shell. But in 1976, the Murtala
government seized the property, and in the mass purge of the civil
service that year, Baba Bero's distinguished career for country and
state, was truncated.

The property in question was later returned to him under Decree 54 of
August 23, 1993; 57 other properties were returned to 14 others. But
the Lagos state government at the time under Col Olagunsoye Oyinlola
disregarded the decree and chose to sell Adeyemi-Bero's property to a
foreign firm which knocked down the original building and erected four
bungalows on the site. Curiously, other persons covered by Decree 54
got back their own properties but not Baba. The injustice of it
frustrated the old man, he wrote petitions to successive governments,
he even took his case to the court of public opinion, see his article
titled "Oyinlola's confession" (The Guardian, September 21, 2006, p .
65);.

The arbitrary disembowelling of the civil service by the Murtala
Muhammed adminstration has been cited correctly as the root of the
collapse of the Nigerian civil service. Civil servants became
disillusioned and unlike the Bero generation, they began to watch
their backs in the literal sense. Both former Governor Bola Tinubu of
Lagos state and incumbent Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola have paid
fulsome tributes to the late civil servant. The best tribute that
Governor Fashola can pay to this faithful citizen is to begin to look
into the matter of his stolen property and do justice...Everyone who
knew J. O. Adeyemi-Bero in service, in the club and in the community
will surely miss him. Eternal rest grant him o Lord; may Light
perpetual shine upon this worthy brother and soul. Adieu.


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