By Pat Utomi
For thirty years, without break, a major public lecture or talkfest, as I prefer to call it, has marked my birthday.
Thirty years ago the main speaker was a Revered Father called Matthew Hassan Kukah, now Catholic Bishop of Sokoto. He likes to say that was his coming out party as a public intellectual. That debutante of 1996 has appeared several other times on panels of the annual lecture. Each time he showed up he got many thinking.
Twenty years ago the keynote speaker was former Ghanaian minister who also had been Ghana’s Ambassador to the US and later Presidential candidate, cracked the ribs of the audience with his description of African corruption with the story of ministerial recruitment in which the successful one said to the president I chop you chop…you chop you chop.
This year the annual lecture will hold for the first time outside Lagos, in Enugu where another former Ghanaian Minister, Ambassador to the US and presidential candidate, Alan Kyarematen will join a field of panelists, and speakers from seven or eight different countries, in three continents to assess why the promise of economic development has not come to Africa as proposed.
The journey to progress on the continent has been more tortured and slow but the annual lecture/symposium have been sustained by pure grace.
The idea of a talkfest to mark a birthday came from considering an impactful exercise more likely to influence for good than eating and drinking party would. The idea that public enlightenment in the direction of advancing the common good should be how we celebrate, was a response to the leadership-followership challenge and public accountability.
I committed to assiduously, pursuing the political and economic enlightenment through these events in the hope that a more enlightened people will prevent our democracy from sliding into a Kakistocracy.
There is ample evidence that the sustenance of the project has come not out of resource availability, or management competence but pure Grace. Gratitude flows from all of me for the grace to have kept this going for forty years.
A few dramatic stories from the history of the annual talkfest make this point. How did it go from Lecture to Symposium?
It was a single Lead speaker event until a speaker from the US who had just written a book on Africa rising was scheduled. He had received his visa, Business Class ticket and travel guide pack. The day he was to leave Houston I called to be sure he was on the way to the Airport but was told his wife had checked the US State Department website and seen the advisory against visiting Nigeria and insisted he would not be coming. I will spare details of how it affected me. Fortunately, we were able to persuade the Chairman, the Lagos State Governor, to expand his Chairman’s remarks into a keynote.
We decided that a symposium model with several speakers would avoid the crisis we just escaped.
Years later the symposium lead was Prof. Wole Soyinka. His airline connections from Europe got messy and he could not arrive that morning as planned. We were sure we could have a good talkfest but we feared people would complain the big masquerade was not there.
As it turned out the Sultan of Sokoto was the Chairman. Four Governors on their way to Abuja dropped by to say Happy Birthday. The Sultan constituted them into a panel in addition to the sitting panel. They spent nearly 3 hours before a parliament of the people generating some heated conversations. Somehow nobody seemed to realize Kongi had not appeared on stage.
It is no doubt the program has had dedicated following. One year the MUSON Shell hall was full thirty minutes before start and the traffic was so tied up one of my LBS colleagues said she got a call to turn back.
We have speakers and Chairmen like President Obasanjo who has honored us several times, General Yakubu Gowon, Liberian President George Opong Weah, UNIDO DG Dr Kande Yumkella , Afrexim Bank’s Benedict Oramah and many more like Adams Oshiomole who came as Trade Unionist and as Governor.
The projects that have derived from ideas from the lectures have stimulated rural empowerment in Delta and elsewhere.
As I turn 70 and begin to withdraw from the public sphere that another generation may rise and discover its mission, not buried in relative obscurity, because the generation before has refused to leave, I cannot but express gratitude to the fuel source, the creator, but also to the Nigerian people, who have tolerated my passion, for a certain view of our future.
I have never taken having a voice for granted. I appreciate the privilege and will continue trying to enlighten in quieter ways.
*Prof. Pat Utomi is the Founder, CVL
