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By David Ajuwon
It was a sober birthday for the immediate past Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige who clocked 71 last Tuesday, August 8, 2023. Perhaps, this might be in line with the mood of the nation, in solidarity with the masses of Nigeria who are passing through an earthly hell, type that Dante Alighieri pictured in his Divine Comedy . The time does not call for revelry. Those close to him said he instructed no newspaper adverts, thus bringing to mind, the dictum of the Great Philo of Alexandra, a stoic Jewish philosopher and contemporary of our Lord Jesus Christ that there is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in the time of misery. It is hand wriggling and teeth gnashing all over the nation. Otherwise, it would have been a loud celebration for Ngige who equalizes success by all material matrix.
It was therefore a somber moment for him as he brought his family and few friends to an evening mass at the Church of Assumption, Asokoro, Abuja in thanksgiving to God. The Catholic Gospel reading of that August 8, 2023, taken from Matthew 14:22-36 looked pre-arranged as it spoke to the character of the celebrant. But it was just fortuitous, accidental. The apostolic tradition of Catholicism does not bow to the unorthodox! The kernel was on the virtue of faith and courage. Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee to meet his disciples who became afraid and thought it was a ghost but he charged them to be courageous. And “Peter said to him, Lord if it is you, command me to come to you on the water and he said, come.” As Peter began to walk towards Jesus, a strong wind came and he became afraid and began to sink. But he cried out, “Lord save me. Jesus stretched out his hands and saved him, saying, O you of little faith, why do you doubt?” While the officiating priest, a young man in his 30s expounded the lesson, I mused on the coincidence. Senator Ngige is an epitome of faith and courage, a virtue that runs in the blood. His father, Akunnia Pius Okonkwo Ngige, a great man of his generation had rejected the advice of his father, O’diwe to take to tilling the earth in a newly acquired farmland in 1926, after passing his standard six. Convinced his fate lied elsewhere, the young Pius persuaded his father and sojourned with his uncle to Onitsha and later Enugu, where he joined the Colonial Public Works Department, rising to become a foreman. Then something happened. He would not bear the oppressive policies of the white on fellow black workers whom he led and he protested. The whites would not condone any dissent and issued him a query. Rather than answer the query and live with the oppression, he tendered his resignation to the chagrin of the oppressors in 1954 .
Nwabueze as his father cherished calling him, is a chip of the old block and has courageously lived on prized principles all his life. At the University where student unionism is thought academically unhealthy for medical students, Nwabueze unionized and still came tops in his MB;BS. At the Federal Ministry of Health where strike became a tool of unionism for fellow doctors, Dr. Ngige dissented. As Anambra Governor at a time there was no option than to dine with the godfathers, Ngige demurred, fought the enemies of the people at the risk of his life to liberate the state and lay the foundation of Anambra we know today. At the seventh Senate, where he was the only opposition member from the entire old Eastern Region, he defied the disadvantages imposed by the opposition and made revolutionary contributions. For Ngige to even emerge a senator, was like King Pyrrhus of Epirus fighting the numerically superior army of the Roman Republic and defeating them in many pitched battles. It was the combined forces of Governor Peter Obi, Victor Umeh who was the National Chairman of APGA, Uche Ekwunife, member of the House of Representatives and Prof. Dora Akunyili, the candidate that Ngige defeated twice to represent Anambra Central. At the Ministry of labour where he superintended for eight years, Ngige became the palladium of labour standards, bringing the parapet of labour laws to the fore and initiating the institutionalization of labour processes, as a fulcrum whose absence had detracted labour administration. He fought many battles along but through unalloyed faith in God Almighty, principled stand in rightness and justice, he emerged unscathed.
I stumbled onto an interview with the Thisday of January 11, 2020, anchored by Onyebuchi Ezigbo where in a rhetor, Ngige discussed his fears in life . “Do I have any fear about things in life? The answer is yes! Fear of fights; no! Whether it is political or otherwise, I don’t fear. I have no fear but like my father who was a courageous man, I have an innate fear, that which whenever I remember, I say God let it not happen. That fear is me changing from who I am and what I am now to becoming another being, who is not Chris Ngige. That is the fear I always have, which comes like a flash and I pray God, let it not happen. I don’t want to be a sycophant. The fear of being a weakling, the fear of me ever being a liar, I don’t want to be a liar. The fear of me being a lazy man, I don’t want to be a lazy man. I like hard work. I believe in the principle of reward for hard work and I also don’t want my children to imbibe these other traits I said I don’t like.”
The epic eulogy his children wrote of him on his birthday revealed much more. The three children, known in media circle as “ Ngige’s made in Nigeria children doctors” wrote. “ Everyday, we see in you, the eternal truth by the Holy Father, Pope Francis that ‘ fathers are not born but made. That a man does not become a father simply by bringing a child into the world but by taking up the responsibility to care for that child.’ To life and realty, you introduced us, raising us to be capable to decide for ourselves with a lot of spartan discipline and advising rightly at the appropriate time, including insisting that we do our first degree education in Nigeria.”
That Ngige’s children were all educated in Nigerian public schools at a time of craze among his class of Nigerians for foreign education for children and wards says a lot. Ngige is a classic rostrum for nation building in an age of exemplarily scarcity. It may not be exactly a case of class suicide but he showed the light to the majority of the members of this lost class to which he belongs. But will they learn? Writing in Thisday of May 6, 2022, George Okonfua also said of Ngige. “ He knew the value of the Executive Order 3 & 5 on backward integration of human resources long before the federal government he serves ever muted it. It is this same patriotism, imbued with courage that saw him defeat the moral foes of democracy as governor. The same patriotism made Ngige rise beyond the corrosive politics of ethnicity to ensure that the headship of the five parastatals in his ministry is evenly shared among geographical zones, contrary to what obtains in most ministries. Like Zik, whose discipleship he confesses, he is a firm believer in one Nigeria, hence did not disguise strong disapproval for the violent trend of agitation in his South East zone. As Governor many years ago, he effectively dialogued and doused the resurgent MASSOB, even reforming part of its ranks into the formidable Anambra Vigilante Group, through a law enacted by the State Assembly. The same act of courage and honest leadership would save the nation, thousands of jobs when he stopped the unilateral
