“Honourable Minister, where is the next port of call for you after the ministership?” I asked my principal in January 2007, as we commenced the final phase of his tenure at Radio House. “Niyi, I am going back to school.”, he responded with full metacommunication and paralinguistics, with a tincture of jocular appurtenances. Indeed, it came to pass. As soon as his tenure ended on May 29, 2007, he was off to the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in the United States.
Before Harvard, he attended good schools and was properly educated in Nigeria, a persistent reader, humanist, statesman, decidedly dedicated patriot, impeccable dresser, an organically organised thought leader, with rare personal effectiveness that finds the first expression in the fact that he was never late to a meeting. Okeifufe Frank Nnaemeka Nweke II, traditional leader of Ishi Ozalla, in Nkanu West Local Government Council of Enugu State, more popularly known as Frank Nweke Jr., (or still, FNJ as we call him in close circles), is a forthright, inimitable and phenomenal leader who continues to demonstrate that he is first and foremost human before becoming Igbo and Nigerian. But the Igbo republicanism, egalitarianism, enterprise, and industry run in his blood to the last mile, including the distinctive devotion, painstakingness and resolute nature of Ishi Ozalla people, a community noted for extraordinary commitment to trading (distinctively in animal protein) and particularly agriculture. Ozalla’s soil is largely ‘stony and granitic’. So, farmers in Ozalla would count among the most painstaking, devotional species. That is the spirit FNJ brought to bear on national assignments as Minister.
Scion of the Nweke family, FNJ is pedigreed. His archetype was his father, the family’s patriarch, Igwe Frank Nweke I, Okeifufe Napkparu Ujo Nku I, of Ishi Ozalla Born in Kano, raised across Nigeria, FNJ speaks Nigeria’s three major languages fluently, but his humanity extends to embrace people of languages he does not speak fluently. A princely prince through and through, FNJ is not just lovely. He is kind, convivial, empathetic, and communicative. Though sometimes reticent, he could take no prisoners and can be as fiery as Sango. Let me instantiate, FNJ’s fury. One day in 2006, he came into my office, a space on the other side of his, which I shared with all my assistants in a conference room style.
That day of rage and fury, FNJ came into the office, and everyone rose to greet him as usual. He responded so economically. We all sensed trouble. After taking a bird’s view of the room to be sure we were in order, his eyes were still full of fury, almost ready to spit fire like Sango. Then, he muttered: “Niyi, come with me.” The first time he had said so in almost a year. So, I followed him like a disciple. He did not tell me where we were headed, but when the tour was over, I knew why he was furious. He had complained a number of times about how some people deliberately held on to official files and delayed the turn around time of works and routine activities, and he had issued a directive that turnaround time was 48 hours except there were objective grounds for delays. He was emphatic that such delays must be reported to the Permanent Secretary or the Minister’s Office. So, we visited some offices that were notorious for keeping files. One after another, he barged in and asked: “Oga (Madam), tell me why files are delayed in your office unnecessarily.” You can imagine the panic and the speed with which affected officers rose from their seats. And before they could mutter a word, FNJ would end his mission with a warning: “Please, don’t let me come back here for the wrong reason.”
Let me quickly return to the arrangement of the media team I led. Because of what I wanted to achieve, I decided I would operate differently as a special media advisor to FNJ. So, I had no personal office but an expanded space for essentially some 10 people I supervised (there’s a spillover to the adjacent room where we had two secretaries). Seven of my supervisees were recruited directly by me (with FNJ’s permission) from the NYSC camp in the last week of their Orientational exercise. We also had a workstation for journalists who were attached to FNJ’s office as Minister of Information and National Orientation (later Information and Communication).
Those NYSC interns were my strikers. I resumed 7.00 am daily, and they were always in the office before me. So, by 8.00am, the press review was ready and emailed to FNJ. It was deliberate. I wanted FNJ to have an idea of key issues in the news media before he stepped out of his house. One day, Louis Odion came and saw how we operated and functioned. He was impressed. So, he told FNJ, “Honourable Minister, the operation of this space is novel. This is novel and should be news.” I thanked Mr. Odion so sincerely for his perceptiveness and compliment. A very brilliant journalist, Odion was the first person in newspapering to respond to the uniqueness of our idea.
But I had another temporary office at the State House as soon as the Avian Influenza broke out, and I issued at least one bulletin daily with FNJ’s imprimatur on the bird flu. At the risk of sounding immodest, we were at every theatre of public communication contexts. The population census, the creative economy, the Eclipse of the Sun, the seemingly intractable crisis in the Niger Delta, etc. in that pre-social media era.
A cherished friend, brother, and mentor, my fortuitous meeting with FNJ at the National Youth Summit in May 2004, shortly after I defended my MA Dissertation at the University of Ibadan, was a turning point in my life. He provided the nudge I required to partake in the upturn unfolding in Nigeria at that time. He was Minister for Intergovernmental Affairs, Special Duties, and Youth Development. He took special interest in my contribution at the summit, looked out for me at the syndicate sessions, and later requested my mobile number. He rang my line two days after I arrived back in Ibadan and requested that I return to Abuja to be part of the 7-man committee emplaced to draft a youth policy for Nigeria. By the time the committee work was completed, I was enlisted among the 5-man team that represented Nigeria at the International Youth Festival organised by the Arab Republic of Egypt in El-Arish.
For those who are very discerning and able to recall, youth administration politics since the beginning of Nigeria’s Fourth Republic took a decisive and intriguing turn. I was a member of one of the radical tendencies of the Nigerian student movement represented by the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS). So, I was patently way off the curve of the emergent agency of the politically mainstreamed, supposedly liberal but sometimes sycophantic student/youth movements. So, while I do not know how other members of the team to Egypt made the list, I knew I was FNJ’s nominee. But I recalled a fami liar face in the Nigerian team, Dr. Umar Tanko Yakasai, a hitherto tenacious Northern star in NANS, who was studying medicine at the University of Maiduguri in the truculent days of Abacha. Umar had become the national secretary of the National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN).
We quickly bonded and formed a coded ‘minority group’ on the road to Egypt, an alliance that impacted the report of the conference we submitted to the Ministry after the Egypt journey. FNJ did not only accept our report, but he implemented it with speed. A central element of that report was the imperative of inclusiveness and expanding the geography of the democratic space for youth participation in governance through conscious self-activity; making entrepreneurship a component of education curricula, immersion of young people in the didactic experience of the emerging digital culture; and finally, the centrality of cultural intelligence in leadership.
As we left Egypt and headed to the ‘promised land’, I continued to relate with FNJ and I contacted him later that year when the organisers of the International Student Festival in Norway accepted my proposal to speak at the forum. He was not only excited about the information; he personally sponsored my trip. My relational exchanges with FNJ grew in leaps and bounds, and we discussed ideas frequently. Perhaps I was an aide incognito until December 2005 when I visited him at Radio House after an evening lecture. I was an instructor at the International Institute of Journalism, and he had become the Minister of Information and National Orientation (later Information and Communication). I visited him in the company of my brother and comrade, High Chief Ezenwa Nwagwu, whose office was in the same facility where I was teaching. During my next visit to FNJ, we had series and fragments of conversations and then lunched in his inner office.
Thereafter, we relocated to the main office and continued the conversation. His spiffy jacket hung appropriately on the coat tree hanger made of polished steel and leather; his tie readjusted to business style, and his sleeves rolled up the Obama way. As he took his seat, he asked me to sit too. Then, in a voice that took oxygen from both spiritual and temporal realms unequivocally immersed in serious tenor, he uttered: “Niyi, you are coming here as my Special Assistant on Media.” He did not wait for a response. Then, he called one of his secretaries: “Tony!” The man heard him, came into his office with his pen and paper to join us. “Niyi is going to join us here as my SA on Media. Do a letter to the President through the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and request special approval.” Chief Ufot Ekaette was the SGF at that time. I requested time to consult, and he refused. He then recalled my contribution at the Women Development Centre, venue of the summit in 2004, where he first met me, and said his offer had provided a platform for me to make my views to reflect in government policies.
So, I stepped out of his office with his permission and quickly rang three people to seek their opinions. The first was Dapo Olorunyomi Olorunyomi (a principal mentor who particularly shaped my intellection in relation to my identity and role in social actions). The second was the late Prof. Alfred Opubor (Nigeria’s, possibly West Africa’s first professor of Mass Communication, who was my intellectual grandfather and mentor in the Nigeria Community Radio Coalition). The third was Dr. Olajide Ibietan (now a professor), my first consanguineous brother. I then returned to FNJ’s office and accepted the offer. Then, I mustered courage from residual strength and asked him when I should resume as his new SA Media. ‘Yesterday!’, he said magisterially.
That evening, I received a provisional letter of appointment from him. I then rang the Registrar of IIJ to discuss what had happened and proceeded to the office to write my resignation letter. I indicated the forfeiture of the monthly salary scheduled to be paid the day after, since I had served an emergency notice and was ready to leave the Institute immediately, although I continued to teach pro bono as my circumstances permitted.
The following day, I resumed at Radio House. The security personnel who had put me under ‘inquisition’ before granting me access to the Minister’s Office the evening before was the same man I met that morning. I greeted him, and before I could say I had come to resume duties, he said no one was around to attend to me. I told him I was appointed SA to the minister yesterday, and I already knew my office, so I did not need anyone to guide me. I then showed him the letter of provisional offer of appointment. God willing, I will capture in detail what transpired at Radio House in my memoirs.
For this moment, I would like to place on record, so history may bear witness that as Minister, FNJ demonstrated unconditional love for Nigeria. He discharged his duties with the most scrupulous conscientiousness of honour. He was offered citizenship of Atlanta, right in my presence in the United States, but he declined and invited his hosts to come to Nigeria first to receive Nigerian citizenship. He was so emphatic and unequivocal that Nigeria was the best place to be, and it was the reason we had visited the United States to market the Nigerian brand. On another occasion, I sat by him as he sat next to Dr. Christopher Kolade (Nigerian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom). We were at the Gallery of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom in 2007 during a public hearing on Nigeria. I could practically hear his heartbeat. He told me he believed Nigeria would not be blemished at that sitting, and it came to pass. Okeifufe’s faith in Nigeria has been as strong as it was. He never gave up on our country, and he continuously rekindled that faith in me. He resents bigotry. He has intolerance for atavism. He is nauseated by clannishness and nepotism. You won’t find him in the ranks of uneducated people who judge people first by their social status, ideological orientation, circumstances of birth, religion, and regional origin. He loves Igbos unashamedly, but he loves Nigeria in the true definition of the term. He stood (and still stands) out as a great exemplar of agile leadership, cultural intelligence, and our ebullient national spirit.
FNJ and I have no blood relationship. The last time I checked, I was still Yoruba from North Central Nigeria, whereas FNJ is Igbo from South East Nigeria. But he had three special assistants while he was Minister of Information and Communication, and none of us is Igbo. Of course, there were Igbos in our team, but I was clearly more visible. There were times people walked into my office and spoke Igbo. I would respond with the little proficiency I had acquired but would politely inform my visitors I do not speak Igbo beyond basic greetings and sociolects, although I understand the language much more than I speak it. Often, I noticed whiffs of shock in people’s countenances whenever they found that none of my parents is Igbo and I see people asked non-verbally: “How could an Igbo man appoint a non-Igbo to such a strategic desk?”
FNJ was not just a Minister of the Republic. He also acted in a manner that left imprints of Nigeria’s culture and pride, and thus, helped to repudiate negative perceptions about Nigeria. In one of our many visits to the United Kingdom, an Egyptian man who used to chauffeur us around London asked me on two occasions if FNJ was truly a minister in Nigeria. Of course, I responded in the affirmative. Then, the man retorted, “But Nigerian Ministers and government officials do not act like this in London”. “How do they behave?” I asked. And our man went on and on to characterise how our people often behaved and described FNJ as a rare Nigerian official. Frank Nweke Jnr was an exemplary national reputation manager, and the national brand management programme, “Nigeria: The Heart of Africa” project, provided the swivel to showcase Nigeria in a manner it was never done. From Washington to Toronto, London to Johannesburg and beyond, FNJ told the Nigerian story in impeccable narratives.
One day in Washington, we visited quite a number of places, including Voice of America (VOA) to speak about Nigeria. Hon. Sunday Dare was then Head of VOA Hausa Service. Then we arrived at a community radio station in the District. FNJ was so tired. When our consultant called on him to take his seat in the studio, he ordered me to takeover from him. The consultant was shocked, but FNJ ignored her. What happened at the station will be sweeter when gleaned from my memoirs.
Today, we have community radio stations in Nigeria because FNJ instituted the policy drafting processes when he was Minister of Information and Communication. We would have retained our status as the only West African (possibly African) country without community radio culture, against the spirit of the African Charter on Broadcasting. Fortuitously, the draft policy became our weapon of advocacy in the Nigeria Community Radio Coalition (NCRC) until President Jonathan approved 17 community radio licenses in 2015.
The foregoing suffices to say that FNJ pushed me beyond what I thought was my boundary. At the public presentation of my book, CYBER POLITICS: SOCIAL MEDIA, SOCIAL DEMOGRAPHY, AND VOTING BEHAVIOUR IN NIGERIA, in July 2023, FNJ noted, “Dr. Ibietan was my special assistant on media when I was Nigeria’s minister of Information and National Orientation (later Information and Communication), His patriotism, creativity, intellection and devotion to continuous improvement in the Nigerian condition are rare. A scholar-activist with an uncommon spirit of innovativeness, especially in utilising new technology to address a social challenge. It was he who essentially popularised the use of new media in public communication in Nigeria while working with me. I remember how, using email, he disseminated government communication to far-flung places, both locally and internationally. That was before the advent of social media as we have them today.” I read and heard these words with teary eyes, but they spoke to FNJ’s generosity because it was he who drove me so crazily to go beyond the limits.
In 2014, my friend, Andy Green, autographed a copy of his book, THE UPTURN: YOUR PART IN ITS RISE (2009), and gave it to me. It was in Banjul, The Gambia, at the annual International Public Relations Congress, organised by Mazi Mike Okereke’s Business Education and Examination Council (BEEC). In the introductory part of Green’s book, ‘How nature creates green shoots’, the most philosophical public relations book I have read, he stated, “Even in nature it is mystery. No one knows exactly what is the spark. The starting signal is for a seed to start germinating and create a new seedling for becoming a green shoot.” As Green noted, to germinate, a seed will require water, ‘oxygen for energy’ and a modicum of temperature. Indeed, Green reasoned that seeds require particular conditions to germinate, including a possible transportation through an animal’s digestion system to weaken the seed’s coat and enable germination. My maker provided many conditions before me to germinate afresh, FNJ is principal among them.
Okeifufe Frank Nweke II, Happy Birthday, sir. May your days be longer and blissful.
Dear friends, join me to celebrate the 60th birth anniversary of one of Nigeria’s most culturally intelligent personalities and objectively one of her most vibrant ministers of information.