Chief Bode Akindele: A Titan Overflowing with Humaneness, by Prof Ropo Sekoni

Baba, Chief, CBA, or Parakoyi, as many of his younger admirers referred to him in his life, lived in grand style with disarming humility, rather unrealistic in a post-colonial cultural space, where any form of advantage over the other person often turned out to be a source of alienation from such person.

Parakoyi’s sense of humour made his humility palpable and pleasant to experience by those around him, for them to feel loved in his company. The first time I visited him in his Alomaja home in Ibadan over 20 years ago (and ever since within and outside Nigeria), I was thrilled by his readiness to find out with visible empathy from his workers if they had been served their breakfasts at 7:30 a.m. Such attention to details in a man who was not only a major businessman in Nigeria but in over 65 countries brought to the fore CBA’s humaneness and sensitivity to the needs of those around him—high or low on the socioeconomic ladder. There was no employee too junior for him to joke with.

Again, when Parakoyi turned 70, the manager of his Match company in Zimbabwe came to Ibadan. Chief joked with the young man freely as if they were fellow club members, even though the manager enthusiastically ended each to the chief with emphatic sir. But the spirit of camaraderie with the lowly and the famous that was demonstrated that day endured till the end of his life, despite recurrent evidence that he was a no-nonsense man whenever the need arose to enforce discipline.

Despite Parakoyi’s sense of humour and humility, he was firm, indefatigable at work, and very demanding of his staff from the messenger to the manager. I was privileged to serve on many of Modandola’s Interview Panels, where he grilled the interviewee hard and reeled out job requirements too numerous for me to jot down for every post, about which I sometimes chuckled. During my last visit to him in his Apapa home 75 days before his passing, I saw many files on the coffee table where I usually put my wine glass whenever I visited him in Apapa and asked Baba, “Sir, isn’t your take-home assignment too much for an 87-year old? He raised his glass and said, “Baba, ojo iku ni ojo isinmi” and added, “It is not over until it is over.” He did business with the same zest that he had fun.

Parakoyi was a man of high culture here in Nigeria and elsewhere abroad. He was also a man with a high multicultural competence, always mixing freely and joyfully with people from diverse cultural backgrounds—African, Asian, and Western. His taste is consistently high and so is his understanding of cultural nuances of his native Yoruba culture and his several received cultures. Whether it is in his choice of wine, his notion of interior decoration, his sartorial elegance, and his social etiquette, Parakoyi always acted with majesty. Chief’s understanding of food and wine compares favorably with that of gourmet-only Chefs and of connoisseurs and professional sommeliers combined.

Parakoyi’s generosity took many forms. At the inter-personal level, he was enthusiastic to share some of his blessings with friends and associates with the best provisions whenever he played host to them. He was equally enthusiastic to do so with people who are less fortunate. The many projects that survived him; Bode Akindele Foundation and Bode Akindele Yield Initiative (BAYI), huge endowments to many universities—University of Ibadan, Federal University of Technology, Akure, Redeemer University, Sagamu/Ede, and Wesley University Ondo; houses for Motherless children, Alhaja Rabiatu Adedigba Medical Center (ARAMED) on Ibadan-Lagos Road built to provide primary and secondary medical care to underserved communities (envisioned to have an heliport to bring patients from across Nigeria) are graphic illustrations of what he himself described as his “Ethic of Care” in his autobiography, I DID IT GOD’S WAY.

In the chapter on Business, Integrity and Discipline in the book, Parakoyi defined his vision of life—business, political governance in relation to the citizenry, and the responsibility of a successful citizen to the community, unequivocally: “Integrating the ethic of care into the business dynamic is best illustrated as putting something back to the community from where the business owner gains something….Such gestures on the part of business owners are capable of creating or enhancing a conducive atmosphere for growth….Resources that are given back to the community are in most cases an additional investment that is capable of increasing the social capital of the community as well as the profit margin of the caring investor….A caring businessman, like a caring government leader, is more likely to generate trust and love from people than a business person or ruler that sees nothing beyond the bottom line in monetary or power terms.

And Chief Akindele put his money where his mouth was since he became a businessman in his twenties until he closed his eyes forever at 87.

CBA, you shared the proceeds of the sweat from your brow (which you preferred to call blessings from your creator and outcome of self-discipline) with family, friends, associates, the larger community of under-served people, and patriotic groups that made efforts to improve the Nigerian polity and economy most of your days. REST IN PEACE.

*Sekoni is a retired Professor of Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

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