OBITUARY: Akinyele, the PR guru who wanted politicians to swear by deities to stop corruption

“I am not scared of it, I have lived a fulfilled life, I am only worried about those who are wishing me death, worried because it takes God’s grace to get to 80,” Alex Akinyele told Raphael James, his friend who was checking on him just a year ago when a rumour of his death rippled. 

Riding on the words of William Shakespeare, Akinyele told his friend that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come. Indeed, the curtains were finally drawn for him Thursday night when he breathed his last after a battle with an undisclosed ailment. 

Could he have lost the fight? He wanted to live four more years, and he sounded so sure about that.  

“I will live for 85 years. My father was 87, my mother 84. So I’ll live for 85 years. I have that covenant with God, and nothing will change it,” he said in an interview on his 70th in 2008. 

Described by many as a fine public relations expert, Akinyele lived up to 81 years.  

STARTED PUBLIC RELATIONS FROM SCHOOL 

While he was a student at St Andrew’s College in Oyo, the young Akinyele nominated himself to be elected prefect, but he would not get votes from most of the students in the college who saw him as a nuisance. 

Seeing himself more as a non-conformist, the rules and regulations of the college were archaic for him, and he did not find any sense in keeping them.

Until a man he called Bishop Kale took interest in him, Akinyele, perhaps, would not have had his first reckoning shot. 

“So, when Bishop Kale came for the end of year meeting with us, and he discovered that I did not win election to any position, and whereas he felt I was a very good student because he saw me perform on the stage, I marketed myself to him, and he bought me hook, line and sinker,” he said in the interview.

“He then told the students, you have elected your own officers, I am going to appoint my own. He’s not going to be elected. He said he has created a new office, which is that of the receptionist prefect. He told us what a receptionist prefect would do, which is a replica of what a PR person should do. He said the person is not going to be elected but appointed, and I appoint Alexander Opeyemi Akinyele. That was how I went into public relations.” 

With a degree in English from the then University of Ife, and after a career in teaching, Akinyele came to Lagos in 1967, took up appointment as superintendent collector, and would subsequently be appointed the first public relations officer to the department of customs and excise, now known as the Nigeria Customs Service 

Akinyele rose through the ranks and in 1978, he voluntarily retired as an assistant comptroller of customs to start business. 

DID NOT LOBBY TO BECOME A MINISTER 

Akinyele was that professional who could beat his chest that his track record is all he needed to get him jobs. 

On his 50th birthday in 1988, Ibrahim Babangida, the military president, nominated him into the constituent assembly. IBB, Akinyele would described as someone “who brought a big bang and change into my life”.

When he left the assembly, he was reluctant to return to his Cybele Cosmetics business where he was managing director.

“But then, Gen. Babangida came again, another glorious divine intrusion, he appointed me minister,” he continued in the interview. 

“I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t lobby for it, but he saw me as a super PR person. I’d done PR for him at the back stage, and he saw the integrity of my service. The integrity is in the fact that I did not ask for anything, so he respected me for it. 

“On that evening, when Chief Olu Falae called me to his house, and said the president wants to make you information minister, will you accept the job? I said; who born dog? why should I not accept it? Nobody in my family or in Ondo town, had ever reached that height. I said I would accept. The man said okay.

“You can imagine my anxiety. First day, second day, third day, first month, second month. I began to say, why did Chief Falae set my ambition on fire, and now I did not hear anything. I was in my office at Cybele Cosmetics one day, quarrelling with my business colleagues because there was another booty to share, and I said I was not going to plough it back into the business. I told them I had spent all my money at the Constituent Assembly. While the argument was going on, my wife rushed to my office, shouting, my dear, my dear, my dear. She kissed me, and before I asked what’s it, I first enjoyed the kiss. Then she said, I heard on radio, you’ve been appointed information minister. That was how Gen. Babangida came into my life.” 

During IBB’s regime, Akinyele also led the Nigerian Sports Commission.

TO CURB CORRUPTION, HE WANTED POLITICIANS TO SWEAR BY DEITIES  

Although he professed Christianity, Akinyele, in another interview on his 75th birthday in 2013, said Nigeria would be cured of corruption if politicians swore by their native deities. 

“Anybody who is going to do PR successfully for Nigeria will first call out all the ministers to swear before the gods of Ogun so that they will not steal our money,” he said.  

“The first thing they will say is that it is anti-Christ. Jesus Christ does not in anyway support corruption. So, if we are doing anything to curb corruption, it is in line with the ideals which Jesus taught. But you see, most of these flamboyant pastors encourage them. They build their churches on the foundation of native medicine. If you want to cure Nigeria, let them swear to these native deities.

“If you come to our area in Ondo State, there is what we call ‘Aiyelala.’ It is a terrible deity. If you swear there and you steal, you will become dead in no time. Let them all go there and swear. We need terrible things to turn us to the way of God. If you stole and you are taken to Oyo; to the shrine of ‘sango,’ and they perform their rituals on you, you will see the consequence immediately. We have all these powers but we don’t use them. That is the only way I think we can cleanse Nigeria. I say it and I mean it and I don’t care if anybody says I am not a Christian.”

Akinyele was born in Ondo town where he had his primary education at All Saints School. He continued with his secondary education at Gboluji Grammar School in Ile-Oluji, a neighbouring town.

He was the first former secretary general of the Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), and later became the president.