Kayode Akinmade
13 November 2009
analysis
Dimeji Bankole, Speaker House of Representatives who clocks 40 tomorrow is at that stage that people call mid-life. But unlike your typical rump- scratching, lazy one that we know as "a fool at 40", Bankole, at this age, is still firing from all cylinders and chalking history each and every day.
Man's life is like a graph. The curve starts from infancy, ascends to adolescence and picks at forty something. It is at this point that the curve on this graph of life begins to nosedive. This period, according to social scientists, is a watershed. In other words, a man or woman who had, before then, been hardworking and upwardly mobile, reaches the peak of his achievement or performance. Then in whatever field or calling he finds himself, he blasts away at full throttle and at this point, he becomes a celebrity, influencing millions positively. Conversely, an individual who had frittered his life away from the outset starts to deteriorate, beginning the descent into the scrap heap of life, a footnote to history. In the end, this sluggard becomes a butt of snide comments.
Bankole is not alone in making history below or at or above the age of 40. There are men in history that, at such age shook their societies, leaving them better than they met them. They, like Bankole, conformed to what the novelist Victor Hugo said: "Forty is the old age of youth, fifty, the youth of old age". Arthur Schopenhauer, a German philosopher, also said something about age forty: "The first period of forty years of life gives the text; the next thirty, the commentary." Also, Oliver Wendell Holmes, an American jurist, said something about this age bracket: "From forty to fifty, a man must move upward, or the natural falling off in the vigour of life will carry him rapidly downward". Bankole and the following individuals fit the billing of these theses.
Alexander the Great, son of Philip II of Macedon, was born in 356 BC. He became king after his father was assassinated. By the time Alexander died at the age of 32, he had conquered the then known world. Let us fast forward history and examine John F Kennedy. Born in 1917, Kennedy, at the age 30, became a member of the House of Representatives; at 36, he was elected into the United States Senate. He reached the pinnacle of his political career when, in 1960, he was elected President at the age of 43.
If we cruise nearer home, Herbert Macaulay, father of Nigerian nationalism, was another example. Macaulay, maternal grandson of Ajayi Crowther, the first black bishop, studied civil engineering at Plymouth England. When he returned home, he worked as a land inspector for the Crown. But at the age of 34, his radicalism started when, in 1898, he resigned in protest against British colonialism. Between that time and when he was 59, when he established the Nigerian National Democratic Party, NNDP, he had become a pain in the ass of the British imperialists. His associate, Nnamdi Azikiwe who studied in the United States edited the African Morning Post in Ghana at the age of 30 and, at the age of 40, he co-founded the NNDP (the first political party in Nigeria) with Macaulay.
Chief Obafemi Awolowo was born in 1909 and became Premier of western Region at the age of 43. Bode Thomas; a brilliant lawyer was before his death in 1953 at the age of 35, Awolowo's deputy in the Action Group. Ahmadu Bello, who was born in 1910, became the first Premier of Northern Region at the age of 44. While General Yakubu Gowon was Nigeria's Head of State at 32, Olusegun Obasanjo, occupied the same position at the age 42 in 1976.
Therefore, anyone who looks at Bankole as "small boy", or a politician that is still wet behind the ears, could be suffering from acute amnesia, or may be deaf to history.
Born in Abeokuta in what is now Ogun State on 14 November 1969 to Alani Bankole, a businessman and former National Vice Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, Seriki Jagunmolu of Egbaland and his wife Atinuke Bankole, Ekerin Iyalode of Egbaland. Bankole attended Baptist Boys High School , Abeokuta ; Albany College , London , England ; University of Reading , Reading , England 1989; University of Oxford's Officer Training College , Oxford , England in 1991. He proceeded to Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US in 2005. The Speaker holds a professional certificate in Public Finance from Harvard. Bankole took courses for military officers at Oxford University where he was in the Artillery Corps.
In 2003, he was elected to the House of Representatives on the platform of the People's Democratic Party, PDP ticket to represent the Abeokuta South Federal Constituency of Ogun State. While Aminu Bello Masari was Speaker, Bankole was Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Finance, which was chaired by Farouk Lawan. Bankole also served on the panels on Defence, Internal Affairs and Banking, and Currency.
In April 2007 Bankole was re-elected to the House. When, in September 2007, a committee questioned Speaker Patricia Etteh allegation of financial impropriety, she lost her on 30 October after which Terngu Tsegba became interim speaker. And when Samson Osagie of Edo State nominated Bankole for the post of Speaker, Lynda Ikpeazu of Anambra State seconded the proposal. When he was challenged by Osun State Representative George Jolaoye, Bankole defeated him by 304 votes to 20 (and 4 abstentions). Thus, on 1 November 2007, Bankole was elected to succeed Etteh and his deputy was Usman Bayero Nafada.
Clocking 40, Bankole's admirers advice him on the reward of hard work is more work. To borrow the lines of Alexander Pope:
"Is that a birthday?"
It's alas too clear;
It's but the funeral
of the former year".
Just 40, Bankole has more years to serve his country.
Akinmade, until recently, served as a Special Adviser to Bankole.
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Dear Aburo and namesake, Rt Hon. Dimeji Bankole, The Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is cheering to rejoice with you as you turn 40 years.
More importantly, I pray for God's divine gift of good health and longevity for you, in order to be of greater service to your fatherland. Together we shall salvage that nation from the invasion by the 'parasites', who parade themselves around as politicians.
God bless.
Dear Aburo and namesake, Rt Hon. Dimeji Bankole, The Speaker of the House of Representatives of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, it is cheering to rejoice with you as you turn 40 years.
More importantly, I pray for God's divine gift of good health and longevity for you, in order to be of greater service to your fatherland. Together we shall salvage that nation from the invasion by the 'parasites', who parade themselves around as politicians.
God bless.