I call myself a dove. That is why I choose my friends carefully. Yet, for reasons I have never understood, many of those I deliberately choose turn out to be delightful rascals. One of them is an Edo man named Louis Odion. We met in Kano in 2002 and have remained family ever since.
One day, I asked Louis, “Tell me about OPEC.”
“That is KGB-classified information,” he replied with a laugh. Then, like every good conspirator, he broke the code of silence.
“OPEC,” he said, “was the Organisation of Petroleum (Lifting) Correspondents. The crude we traded was Stout beer. It was our opium against the tyranny of Sani Abacha.”
He explained that in those Concord years, confronting a murderous military dictatorship without regular salaries required more than courage; it required fellowship. Tunji Bello, whom everyone simply called TB, was OPEC President. Kayode Komolafe was Vice-President. Louis served as Secretary-General. Their “summits”, he said, were dictated by “operational necessity.”
Whenever the Abacha regime committed an outrage, an “extraordinary summit” was promptly convened. Membership cut across the Concord stable, with visiting comrades from The Guardian, Vanguard and Punch. Consumption was measured in barrels—bottles of Stout. Fines for late stories or sloppy copy were also paid in barrels, while Secretary-General Louis enforced compliance by collecting the “dead-cold crude” from Concord’s famous “bush canteen.”
“TB gave a good account of himself as OPEC President,” Louis concluded. “He still does.”
Louis is a gifted storyteller. One day he told me he was trained as a secretary. I immediately corrected him: “You mean a typist.” He laughed.
That secretary-turned-journalist trajectory, incidentally, he shares with another mutual friend, Festus Adedayo.
But Louis’s story is more than a career change; it is the story of a destiny transformed by a destiny helper.
He tells it best:
“In late 1992, my internship at Concord was ending. I was only 18 and uncertain about my future. Part of me wanted to japa. Another part wanted to return to Federal Polytechnic for Higher National Diploma in Secretarial Administration. Tunji Bello, already an editor, had taken interest in my writing. He urged me to go to university instead and study for a degree. But where would I get the funds for a degree? Tunji Bello then persuaded Concord management to bend its rules and employ me as Political Correspondent because, as he argued, I had exceptional writing talent. At the time, a university degree was the minimum qualification for the editorial cadre.
“Tunji Bello made it possible for a 19-year-old to become Political Correspondent. Even after Concord ran into hard times following Chief MKO Abiola’s incarceration in June 1994, he continued to support my education at UNILAG, morally and financially.” The rest is history.
Whenever I think of Louis Odion, I think of Tunji Bello. Louis is one of his many creations. Across the newsroom and every public institution where Bello has served, there are countless stories of men and women who carry similar testimonies. Destiny helpers are among God’s quietest angels; they leave their fingerprints on lives rather than on monuments.
That young intern, Louis, eventually became Deputy editor of Saturday, Sunday and Daily Thisday, editor of the Sunday Sun, Managing Director of National Life, Commissioner in Edo State and today serves as Executive Commissioner (Operations) of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
And when Louis says simply, “Oga,” everyone knows who he means.
When Tunji Bello turned 60, President Bola Tinubu described him as “an exceptional human being.” It was an accurate description. Tinubu also called him “friend, comrade and partner” and “the most accomplished and durable public servant in Lagos State of his generation.” Time has not diminished that verdict. Bello has been an editor, commissioner, Secretary to the State Government and now Executive Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission. Through each role, one quality has remained constant: he builds institutions by first building people.
I knew him only in journalism. We never worked in the same newsroom. Yet, like countless others, I call him Oga Bello. Not just because in rank he is the boss, but because he embodies what every good oga should be: generous with opportunities, respectful of colleagues and quietly invested in the success of others.
Shakespeare once lamented that “Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.” Tunji Bello’s life offers a happy subversion of that verse. His virtues were not written in water. They were written in people. And people remember.
This week Wednesday, July 1st, he climbs the sixty-fifth rung of life with the measured grace of an ọmọlúàbí. On behalf of all who have benefited from his friendship and friendliness, his discipline and his leadership, I wish him many happy returns.
Five years from now, when he reaches the seventieth rung, we shall summon the Eyo masquerade in celebration of a man whose greatest achievements are not merely the offices held, but the lives lifted.
Congratulations, Oga Bello.
