BENIN CITY – Edo State Governor Comrade Adams Oshiomhole has once again paid glowing tributes to the two time governor of the defunct Midwest Region and Bendel States, Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia as he becomes a patron to the University of Benin Alumni Association, saying that he cherishes the invaluable support of Dr. Ogbemudia for his government.
Speaking at an award ceremony organized by the first set of students of the University of Benin under the aegis of the University of Benin Alumni Association in honour Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia as patron, in Benin City, yesterday, Governor Adams Oshiomhole said, “I want to commend the initiative of ‘UNIBEST’ even though you call it UNIBEN. I appreciate your initiative for organizing this programme in honour of the founder of our university. Oftentimes, people wait until people have departed before they start saying, immortalize him. I believe people immortalize themselves by their actions, but even more by what they do. Whether anybody admits it or not, by whatever name University of Benin is called, it was the baby of the brain of a man who was given to Bendel, to Nigeria at a most critical period in our national life.”
The Governor continued, “The future of our country does not depend on the quantity or quality of our liquid gold. We need to create an institution that will provide the platform for the development of our human capital. The wealth of a nation is not so much in the quantity of those natural endowments. The most important natural endowment is the human passion. As we do in Nigeria, we celebrate the quantity of our abundant human resources. What is missing is the quality of our human capital, and it is through the instrument of education – primary, secondary and university, that that quantity is developed, skilled and equipped to enable it make sense out of the other natural endowment. There is no doubt in my mind that there is no other greater elder than Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia with the institution he has set up across the length and breadth of the old Bendel State, now Edo and Delta.”
He said, “I want to salute your patriotism, your vision and your commitment. People can say, politicians work because they want to win the next election. In your own case, you didn’t need to win any election. He only needed to please one man, the commander-in-chief at the Dodan Barracks. Once he was pleased, his tenure was secure. But out of his own conviction and passion for his own people, he did what he did, and I believe the people of Edo and Delta are eternally grateful for your vision, for your patriotism and for all you did to lay a foundation for these two states. I want to thank you. I want to appreciate you. I am grateful for all the advice, the counseling. You stood by us. I just want to tell you how much I appreciate you, to tell you how much indebted I am to you. I draw from your wisdom, all those notes you sent to me, all your advice and guidance. Even professors of political science can’t deliver a fraction of the wisdom that resides in this man. So, once again, I thank you.”
Appreciating the University of Benin Alumni Association for the honour accorded to Dr. Samuel Ogbemudia, Governor Oshiomhole said, “I want to thank the Uniben Alumni Association for saying, this is the time – let no one share crocodile tears. I think it’s good for people, while they are alive, to realize that people remember that but for their passion, some of us here will not be professors, will not be doctors, will not be mathematicians. Thank you so much, the Alumni Association. May God continue to use you as an example of how students can remain eternally grateful for being beneficiaries of a dream by a man called ‘Ogbemudia’ who saw tomorrow.”
