OBITUARY: Onosode, the man who rejected an award because his name was misspelt

This is an obituary that could have been written 36 years ago. Sometime in June 1979, Gamaliel Offoritsenere Onosode could have died. In fact, he thought he was going to. But then, he could also have survived. And he did.

He had just quit his position as chairman and chief executive of the company now known as Sterling Bank. While he did not recall what he ate or drank on the day, he did remember that he was suddenly bleeding internally and ended up passing out. To the rescue was an air ambulance from London, which arrived Nigeria to fly him straight to a German hospital.

Onosode, son of a very dedicated Baptist pastor-father and strictly Yoruba-literate mother, would survive that mysterious poisoning attempt to live for more than three decades. In his 82 years, his close shaves with death averaged one per decade. On Tuesday September 29, 2015, though, a life that had refused to be snuffed out by the enemy willingly, peacefully gave itself up. A sterling life, that is.

Of this experience, Onosode once told journalists from Sun Newspaper: “Well, someone did say to me many years ago: ‘You mean you didn’t know that they tried to kill you?’

“You would recall that in 1979, an (air) ambulance came from London to pick me up from the teaching hospital and flew me to West Germany, precisely to the University of Hamburg Hospital. I passed out several times at the hospital. The illness was so serious I thought I was about to die. But, again, to the glory of God, I didn’t die.

“What really happened? I suddenly took ill. I was bleeding internally. This was in June of 1979… Years after, someone came to tell me, saying: ‘You mean you did not know they tried to kill you?’ To tell you my attitude, I didn’t even ask who they [the attempted killers] were. I couldn’t be bothered, because if you try to kill me, you are only wasting your time. You can only kill the body, you cannot kill the soul.”

A STERLING CAREER

Much against how wordsmiths would have liked to have it, Onosode’s career was not only “sterling” because he once led Sterling Bank. His was one that crisscrossed the leading institutions of both the private and public sector.

He was chairman of Dunlop Nigeria Plc between 1984 and 2007), of Cadbury Nigeria Plc between 1977 and 1993, of the presidential commission on parastatals (1981), of the Nigeria LNG working committee and Nigeria LNG Limited from 1985 to 1990, the Niger Delta environmental survey from 1995 till his death, and Airtel Nigeria.

In 1983, he was presidential adviser on budget affairs and director of budget, immediate past and inaugural president of the Chartered Institute of Stockbrokers, immediate past pro-chancellor and chairman of the governing council of the University of Uyo, and immediate past and inaugural president and chairman of council of the Association of Pension Funds of Nigeria.

An honorary fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Letters, he holds honorary D.Sc. degrees of Obafemi Awolowo University (1990), University of Benin (1995), Rivers State University of Science and Technology (2003). He also holds honorary D.D. degree of the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomoso (2002).

He is a fellow of the economic development institute of the World Bank, and was president of the Nigerian Institute of Management between 1979 and 1982. He is also a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria, having been elected to membership of its board of fellows in 1998.

AN UNREPENTANT PERFECTIONIST

It is far too easy to predict why anyone would want Onosode dead. He publicly opposed any action he deemed inappropriate, and this he did stubbornly. As he himself acknowledged, he was “a very stubborn man”. If he spoke out against you, and depending on your personality – if you could handle criticism or not – you either loved him or loathed him. Two examples.

In 2007, shortly after Onosode clocked 74, some students of Mellanby hall of residence at the University of Ibadan, his alma mater, paid him a visit at his campus residence for a brief ceremony that climaxed with the cutting of a birthday cake.

“S-e-v-e-n-t-y-f-o-u-r!!!” the event’s emcee blurted out in delirium to signal the cutting of the cake. But Onosode interjected as the emcee sought to move on to other matters, saying: “I think the compere missed out the hyphen in his spelling, didn’t he?”

It was a joke – but it also wasn’t. Such was his attention to detail, and such was his inability to hide any slip. A few years later, he exhibited a sterner version of that trait.

Despite the perfection of character and etiquette you had to put up around him, UI students and organisations adored him, and never got tired of chasing him. So successful and respected was he that getting Onosode to attend a two-hour event was a well-celebrated feat. So, in 2007, another student group chased Onosode from Ibadan to Lagos, to present him an an award plaque in recognition of his dedication to excellence.

He thanked the president of the group for the award; he also said he was “very honoured” to be so recognised. But he turned down the award. The plaque indicated that the recipient’s name was ‘Gemaliel’ – not ‘Gamaliel’. He wanted the error corrected before he could collect the plaque.

IMAGINARY EPITAPH FOR ONOSODE

Onosode always said he wanted to live his life for God and no one else – no man, particularly. Expectedly, his forthrightness (and stubbornness) got him into trouble a few times.

Asked if he ever engaged in a vice as a child, he said: “Well, I was a bit stubborn. As a child, I had to fight. But my mother, at one time, described me as a coward. The event was when one boy was always attacking me unjustly and I was always crying to my mum. My mother got angry one day and drove me to go and fight it out. In effect, she was accusing me of cowardice. Recently, when I was reflecting on it with my wife, I concluded that if my action (running away from the boy) was cowardice, I better remain a coward.

“The situation I was actually discussing with wife when I reflected on my childhood experience was when to throw in the towel in a job. When I cease to enjoy a job I throw in the towel or I allow myself to be fired; it depends on who is smarter. Each time I throw in the towel, I thank God for giving me the strength and courage to do so. And whenever I was fired, I also was grateful to God for my being counted worthy to be sacked because I always know it was not of my misdeeds or malfeasance but because people were not comfortable with me.”

The one time he was sacked, it was from his position as chairman of LNG. And he asked questions.

“Well, the minister (in charge of petroleum), Professor Jubril Aminu, told the president (President Ibrahim Babangida) that he wanted to re-organise NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation). I wouldn’t know what transpired between the two of them but I had information, which enabled me to speculate, based on which I publicly challenged Professor Jubril Aminu to please tell the world why he sacked me,” he recalled.

“This was done in a newspaper and the following week, he appeared in the same column I used, saying that I was fired because the government had the right to do so. I was his friend, and we remain friends. So, you can see that he didn’t really throw any light.”

But Onosode’s own people never sacked him. At Mellanby Hall and all over University of Ibadan, he was a cult hero. In death, he remains so among the people who interpret the beauty of his stubbornness as a compulsion for excellence that benefited the people around him.

Surely, if one of these people had the honour to write Onosode’s epitaph, it would read something along this line: Here lies the remains of a man who enjoyed the fullness of life by unashamedly and stubbornly committing his days and words to everything he believed in.

Goodbye Onosode, the finest, classiest alumnus of UI’s Department of Classics!