IN this season of anomies, this period of political mudslinging, intrigues and chicanery that has catapulted politics to the only viable business enterprise in Nigeria, there is the need to have a urgent re-think. The re-think is that Nigeria was not the product of the early statesmen, politicians and nationalists alone, but rather, that of the business sagacity, ingenuity, wizardry, selflessness, innovativeness and resourcefulness of Nigeria’s early entrepreneurs who made the country what it is today, before the descent of commerce.
Tributes must be paid to those who made Nigeria, right from its infancy in 1914. These men of commerce and enterprise, individual sense of industry need to be celebrated- the likes of Alhassan Dantata, Esan Da Rocha, Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Odutola Brothers (Adeola and Jimoh Odutola), Alhaji Salami Agbaje of Ayeye Ibadan, Chief Adebisi Giwa of Idi-Ikan Ibadan, Chief Mathias Ugochukwu, Mr Isaac Ajanaku, Sir Lawrence Omole, Madam Janet Alatede Aboderin, Alhaja Humoani Alaga, Chief (Mrs) HID Awolowo, Madam (Chief) Bisoye Tejuoso (late Iyalode of Egbaland), Chief Theophilus Oni (T.A Oni & sons), and a host of others.
