President Muhammadu Buhari, has, subject to Senate confirmation, approved the composition of the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) made up of Dr. Pius Odubu as the Chairman and Bernard O. Okumagba as the Managing Director.
Yes, if Chief Bernard Okumagba were born of the sun, he would bathe the world in brilliant spokes of ambition and leave the air vividly signed with his exploits. Okumagba is perfect proof that it is not by spectacular achievements that man can be transformed, but by will. He is a man of great will hence his sterling exploits in the socio-economic and political milieu. His passion for greatness spirals to the sky, bolstered by a will as sturdy as an oak.
A man with a clear-cut vision, boundary-shoving commitment to birthing novel and noble ideas and passionate belief in the Nigerian dream, these are the ideals that have kept him alive and awake to the power and plausibility of his beliefs. For a man who has learned and mastered intricate politics as the genius conductor assimilates Mozart’s aria, you can never ornament the words enough to describe his unparalleled verve and genius.
If Okumagba were a lab scientist, he would have reordered groups in organic chemistry and calculated the anti-derivatives of functions that he will effectively deploy in real life—all with a modest amount of energy. Through trying periods, he deploys unrivalled skill and resilience to ride the storms like a man who understands that to hold on and be brave whatever ordeal life throws at him, will eventually lead to a good turn.
Indeed, he is cut of solid pedigree, he is well connected in the political and business turf. His former stint as a banker establishes him as a man of great depth in business and political economy of the Niger Delta nay Nigeria. Yes, he is certainly not your run of the mill politician; he is astute, modest and ideologically grounded in the kernels of administrative politics and socio-economics. Little wonder he enjoys the confidence of the powers that be.
Interestingly, however, in few months, Okumagba, the Chairman of Regents Consults Limited and a former Delta State Commissioner for Finance, will be seen as a national boon. He will be hailed as a round peg in a round hole. It would be delightful however, to see Bernard, a gentleman, succeed where his predecessors failed but he needs generous doses of forthrightness to do that.
