He attended Federal Government College, Warri (1968–1974), and the University of Benin from1975–1980, graduating with a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (MBBS) degree. By these two academic accomplishments alone, you don’t need to be told that Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, the governor of Delta State is a very brilliant man. In those days, admission into a Federal Government College was strictly by merit and it was for brilliant students only. In those days too, at least by 1975 when he gained admission into the university, it was only the hot heads that were admitted to study medicine in Nigerian universities. It meant you must have scored a minimum of 270 marks out of a maximum 400 marks. It was highly competitive among science students.

Today, however, anybody who can pay the fees or who knows someone in the university can buy admission to study any course in Nigeria’s many universities, private and public. The import of this was that young Emmanuel Uduaghan was very precocious. He applied himself to knowledge, little wonder he made a success of his medical profession. But it is in leadership that he has made more marks, more enduring imprints and more impact on humanity and country. Uduaghan, who turned 60 October 22, has morphed from the brilliant student of yesteryears to a statesman whose name resonates with the cadence of integrity, honour, vision and hard work.

Marks of a Statesman

A statesman is someone who espouses and lives the virtue of integrity, impartiality, forthrightness and ability to be counted on for the public good. A statesman is someone who is development-minded, visionary, bold to dare, unflinching on moral grounds even to his or her hurt. Such a person must not be given to parochial partisan posturing, a true national icon and symbol of peace. The hallmark of all statesmen is that they see ahead of the crowd, they begin the journey where others stopped; they are resilient, they don’t just win the battle, they also win the war.

This is where Uduaghan fits perfectly into the mould. Since assuming power as governor of Delta State in 2007, he has demonstrated most profoundly that he is a man who wants to be remembered more for his positive impact on humanity than being tagged among the crowd of once-upon-a-time leaders. We examine hereunder some of the sterling qualities that stands him out as a veritable statesman.

Dignified Calmness in the Face of Provocation

Without any doubt, Uduaghan has had the longest-drawn legal battle with the opposition in his state. It is difficult to imagine any political office holder in Nigeria who has had to dash in and out of courtrooms and tribunals at the same dizzying frequency as Uduaghan did since May 29, 2007 when he took oath of office. Yet, while the legal tussle lasted, he maintained an enviable dignified calmness, a lesson for Nigerian politicians who would have seized the opportunity of incumbency to invoke fire on their traducers. Rather than hound those who haunted him, a gentleman Uduaghan kept his cool, abided by all decisions of the court and tribunal at every stage. Ordinarily, such judicial intrusions and interjections would have slowed any leader down or even frustrated the person out of the path of development, but not Uduaghan. The litigations seemed to have added more spring to his heels. He kept his head down and focused on accomplishing his three-point agenda for the good of the people.

His associates describe him as a gentleman, soft yet firm. He is not garrulous and not one to make a remark before thinking. Unlike notable Nigerian politicians who dine and sup with the devil, spit fire and brimstone and manifest adroitness in the art of deceit and dissimulation, Uduaghan maintains an Olympian aloofness to vocal flippancy, chicanery and political tomfoolery. He is genteel, and would rather keep silence even to his own hurt. These are some of the character traits that qualify him as apolitical politician. A statesman does not lose his head even when others have all lost theirs. Uduaghan did exactly that: kept calm when the opposition in his state went wild with frivolous litigations, character assassination and raw brigandage.

Maximising the Strength of Others: Turning Men from Bad to Good

All great statesmen all over the world were people who turned the weakness of their followers and admirers to strength, men who gave hope to the hopeless. Uduaghan became governor of Delta State at a time the issue of youth restiveness was at its peak. Militancy in the creeks of Niger Delta had snowballed from angry youths kidnapping a few expatriates in exchange for cash to youths blowing up oil pipelines, with hundreds dying from the ensuing inferno. Governors in the oil-rich region threw up their hands in frightening surrender, but a newly sworn in Uduaghan bucked the trend. Rather than join in the away-with-the-militants bandwagon, Uduaghan reached out to them and gainfully engaged them. It worked like magic. The same youths who had been restive and destructive became guardians of the nation’s economy. Today, the same youths are actively engaged in the security of the nation’s waterways, collaborating with relevant agencies of government to ensure the security of oil installations in the region as well as the security of lives and property. Since the Uduaghan intervention in the militancy issue in Niger Delta, Nigeria stopped losing billions of Naira through shortfalls in crude oil production and export.

Uduaghan truly deserves commendation for his role in evolving a culture of peace in the region. Long before the Federal Government of the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua conceived the amnesty deal for the restive youths of the Niger Delta who had been wrongly tagged militants, Uduaghan had achieved relative peace in the creeks of Delta State. It took the persuasion of Uduaghan and other notable leaders of the area to get these youths to participate in the Federal Government amnesty. Particularly for Tompolo, it was the effort of Uduaghan that got him to participate in the peace deal. Many of the youths and their leaders had on several occasions publicly acknowledged Uduaghan’s role in the success of the amnesty deal.

Ndudi Elumelu, a member of the House of Representatives in a media interview ascribed the success of the federal government amnesty programme to the role played by Uduaghan especially in winning the likes of Tompolo over. “And who is behind that success story? It is our amiable Dr Uduaghan that has done it… and having achieved peace with the Tompolo issue, may God bless him”, he said.

At a time some governors of the various states of the region were busy shuttling between their states and Abuja to discredit the youths and curry favour with the powers that be in Aso Rock, Uduaghan waded through the slimy and perilous terrains of the creeks to seek out the youths and engage them in constructive discourses. This is the stuff of good leadership. A leader must always see himself or herself as an agent of service. He must not confer on himself the ruinous ego of superiority. A good leader must never cease to connect with the people. It is from connecting with them that you can empathise with them. Uduaghan deployed this time-tested leadership skill to reach out to the youths and it is from his interaction that he got to the very core of their grievances. This is the stuff of statesmen: ability to give hope to the hopeless.

Strategic Thinking as an Act of Statesmanship

Great statesmen are strategic thinkers; they are visionary and possess a rare ability to see the future. Uduaghan manifested this in his concept of Delta Beyond Oil; an idea that has fully transformed to reality and has provided a compass for the socio-economic engineering of the state. The philosophy of Delta Beyond Oil is the engine driving development in Delta State, development spanning the entire gamut of agriculture, entrepreneurship, healthcare delivery, human capital development with emphasis of qualitative education, sports development among other aspects of human endeavour. Following his vision of Delta Beyond Oil, the Nigerian government has again, just like it did in the case of amnesty for Niger Delta youths, borrowed from the Uduaghan leadership book to kick-start the process of Nigeria Beyond Oil.

No Peace, No Development

Every statesman knows that without peace, there would be no development. And true statesmen never shy away from any opportunity to make peace if only to mock war. Uduaghan, a medical doctor with specialization in anesthesia, has made several interventions to bring together warring parties in the nation’s socio-political space. One outstanding national intervention was his mediatory role this year in persuading resident medical doctors to call off their strike and return to hospitals to continue with their noble duty of saving lives. It was not doctors in Delta State that were on strike but doctors all over the country. Whereas some politicians had latched on to the strike which stretched into the importation of Ebola virus into the country to slur the leadership reputation of the President Goodluck Jonathan, Uduaghan elected not to tread this ignoble path; rather he opted to play the role of a statesman by appealing to the doctors not to trade away the sacredness of the Hippocratic oath which they swore to: to strive to preserve life at all times. It was not for nothing that doctors suspended the strike afterwards. Uduaghan saw the big picture of patients dying across the nation, not just in his Delta State on account of the strike and he stepped in to stave off danger.

Big Dreams, Great Ideas

Today, the world celebrates Lee Kuan Yew as the architect of modern Singapore. And of course he is. But many forget that what is today one of the fastest growing economies of the world was built from the ruins of war and the rubble of destruction. Yew saw the big picture of a prosperous Singapore and set out to birth a new nation from the ravages of underdevelopment. He set out big visions and big dreams for which he was even mocked by those who saw today what Yew saw decades ago. Uduaghan is a big dreamer, a man of vision. When he set out to build an airport of international standard in Asaba, he was mocked; he was chided and derided but he was unfazed. He stuck to his dream and in no time planted an airport in Asaba which both his yesterday mockers and admirers now use. The significance of that airport to the state’s economy can only be better appreciated when you compare the traffic of individuals, corporate bodies, associations et al to Delta State before the airport was built and after.

Uduaghan had long foreseen the environmental harm which unchecked activities of oil companies in his state would have on the people. This prompted his clarion call for a green economy. He is a member of a global coalition that is championing this cause for the betterment of humanity. Through his trenchant effort, oil companies in Delta State have imbibed the concept of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) as the dominant and major concept for environmental protection.

Big dreams, they say, start small. In his big dream of a prosperous Delta State, Uduaghan has concentrically built the agriculture value chain in his state and revolutionised micro, small and medium scale enterprises (MSMSE) in Delta, making the state the ideal template in the country.

A True Nationalist, Not a Regional Hero

The virtue associated with most statesmen is that they are usually rallying point for unity, for nationalism and not agents for division. In a country where politicians mount the soapbox to slur each other, engaging in name-calling and abusive diatribes, Uduaghan sings a different tune. He never preaches dismemberment of the country; he preaches unity; he never fans the ember of hate, he bears the message of love, the message that the national aspiration to remain one indivisible and prosperous nation must swamp our individual aspirations at all times. True statesmen are not abusive; they measure their words and weigh their actions. Uduaghan fits into this mould even when he talks partisan politics.

Conclusion

No man was born a statesman. All great statesmen grew into it usually against odds. Such men and women fought and won life’s many battles including the battle of the circumstance of birth. Uduaghan did. President Goodluck Jonathan in his 60^th birthday message to Uduaghan acknowledged this when he wrote: “I join your family, friends, well-wishers and the entire people of Delta State in celebrating a life that vividly epitomizes triumph against all odds emanating from the circumstance of birth, while also symbolizing the assured reward for single-minded commitment to the ideals of diligence, humility, perseverance, focus and dedicated service”.

His dedication to service is exemplified by his humility and willingness to forego pleasure and bear the pain just to win freedom and dignity for mortal man. Recently, Delta State made history by becoming the first state in Nigeria to achieve kidney transplant. But that is not the end of that episode. On the medical team that successfully carried out the kidney transplant was Governor Uduaghan: the zeal to serve compelled the medical doctor-turned politician to grab his stethoscope. At 60, Uduaghan stands out as one of the most decorated political office holders in the nation’s annals, winning awards from notable institutions both in Nigeria and offshore. This is not for nothing: It is for the simple reason that he has refused to descend into the gutter of leadership infamy but chose to play the role of a true statesman in a nation replete with felons and delinquents in power.