The life and times of Stephen Borogu Agodo

His gentility was never in doubt. Neither was the fact that he was a stickler for hard work, honesty, integrity and excellence. And, as his eldest son and former captain of the national cricket team, Kome Agodo, would say, he was also a fashion buff. Why not? His spare, spartan build seemed cut for good dressing.


So, it was probably not just a coincidence that he was called “Number One”, a sobriquet borne out of the fact that he was the first name in the register when Government College, Ughelli, started in 1945 at Warri, as "Agodo" begins with A. He also turned out to be the first Head of School (Senior Prefect).


Even at his death on Thursday, January 16, the stature of this bureaucrat who spent 17 meritorious years as permanent secretary in the Federal Civil Service did not diminish. Instead, his awe was so overwhelming that during the service of songs held for him by old boys of Government College, Ughelli, on Tuesday March, 18 2003, the Rev. Obaro Ikime, a professor of History, who conducted the event, confessed he could not call him by name. So he kept referring to him as S.B. Even Agodo's peer and chairman of a number of multinational companies, including Dunlop Nigeria Plc, Mr. Gamaliel Onosode, who is always precise and proper in words as in deeds, also called him S.B. or Number One, or Steppy.


There was certainly good reason for such adulation. For a man who spent 17 untainted years as a permanent secretary in a Nigerian civil service replete with, and reeking of corruption, and still maintained unassailable integrity, a sane world cannot but pay him deserved obeisance.


As Ikime would say, Stephen Borogu Agodo, had quiet dignity, had poise, commanded respect and was the ideal role model. According to him, his style was different: "He was quiet but effective. You could not ignore his presence." Prof. Ikime said he and other old boys of Government College, Ughelli, were proud of his life-style as the most senior old boy. Indeed, aside from his natural bent towards discipline, Agodo's love for knowledge not only saw him going through the then very prestigious Government College, Ughelli, he also attended University College, Ibadan (now University of Ibadan), where he studied combined honours in Mathematics and English.


He joined the Federal Civil Service in 1956, starting at the Federal Training Centre, Broad Street, Lagos, as an administrative officer. He was later posted to the Cabinet Office in Special Services Department (Security) where he rose to the position of Permanent Secretary in 1975. In 1981, he was Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Productivity, while in 1984 he was transferred to the Civil Service Commission in the same capacity.


Agodo was the pioneer Administrative Secretary of the defunct National Republican Convention (NRC), retiring from public service in 1992. Agodo, a native of Uzere, known to his close friends as "Steppy", was born on January 24, 1931, in Asaba-Ase, Ndokwa Local Government Area of Delta State to late Chief John Onuire Agodo of Uzere and Madam Regina Agodo (Nee Ogeh) of Ase, Ndokwa Local Government Area, he was later followed by five younger siblings.


His father was a renowned community leader who had travelled far and wide within the country in his youthful working life, and later returned home and settled down to trade in commodities with the colonial Royal Niger Company and thereafter became active in local party politics as one of the local government councillors in the former Isoko District of the old Urhobo Division. His mother was from the royal family of Asaba-Ase.


He had his early childhood education at the Local Authority Primary School, Uzere, from where, two years to completion, his father sent him to live with a headmaster-friend at Ughelli, in the belief that children who lived with teachers in a disciplined school environment had better chances of excelling in school. He was later proved right. In 1945, he was admitted into the newly created Warri College, where he was the first student on the school register. The school later moved to Ughelli and became Government College, Ughelli. After obtaining his Cambridge School Certificate Grade 1 in 1950, he taught briefly in Warri and gained admission into the prestigious University College Ibadan in 1951 to study Mathematics, thereby becoming the first Uzere indigene to study in a University.


While in the University College, Ibadan, his holidays were mostly spent at Warri where he met his wife, Clemetine Obomegwolo Wilkey, the only child of Mr. Wilkey Morhe of Alaka in Uvwie Local government Area of Delta State and Chief Mrs. Alice Obahor of Olomu in Ughelli North Local Government Area (both of blessed memory). On the 15th of December 1956, they were married at St. Andrew's Cathedral, Warri. Their marriage was blessed with five children, four boys ('Kome, 'Ejiro, Oberhiri and 'Keme) and a girl (Efe).


In a society where you were considered a fool if you were in an exalted public office and did not steal public funds, and where pressure was consequently piled on you to help yourself to the public till, how did Agodo manage to keep from being bedraggled by corruption? According to Kome, the senior Agodo was generally a cool, calm and collected person who was contented with what he had. In fact, he was so removed from materialistic, acquisitive tendencies that he never owned a house of his own until his twilight years. As a matter of fact, this was just about eight years after retiring from the civil service.


Yes, there were pressures from members of the extended family such that could have tempted him to live above his means in a bid to pander to the desires of his relations, Kome admits. But Steppy was usually firm in letting them know he could not stretch himself beyond his legitimate income. "He resisted the pressure", said Kome. "He gave no chance to the extended family members to unduly influence his spending habit. Often, when they came to ask for money, he told them: 'Look at my family. I have a wife and five children and I don't have extra money to take on additional financial burden'. Once you're told that twice, you don't come putting pressure on him again."


To ensure he stayed at his job, he literally carried his work on his head, as Nigerians would say. "He took work too seriously," Kome explains. "And he was very prompt at work. I could set my wrist watch by his movements. In the morning, once I heard his footsteps, I knew it was around 7.15. And when he left for the office, he did not come back until about 7. p.m. It was work, work, work," he adds. But if he worked hard, so did he play hard. He played lawn and table- tennis and did not give up these sports until he had problems with his back.

Seen through the eyes of Kome, the former super permanent Secretary - for he readily fell into that cadre - was reserved, quite like his British forerunners. And just like some Europeans, "Steppy" made no fetish of sitting in the "owner's corner" of the car, but sat with the driver at the front.

Staid, he was not given to wild laughter, and never openly quarrelled, even with his wife, Clementine, and did not shout at his children. However, he managed to let every one of them know that he was the head of the family - a typical African, Kome says. Although he never lost his temper, the children so much feared him that "even when I'm far away and I was doing something wrong, I thought of him, of what he would say if he saw me", Kome recalls.


Ordinarily, you would have thought that such sterling qualities had been imparted to "Steppy" in the church, but you would be wrong. Kome revealed that the senior Agodo was not given to religiosity. But, though he did not go to church frequently, he did not discourage his children, especially in their early years, from doing so. Any wonder then that Prof. Obaro Ikime urges "the rest of us to strive to emulate him"?

June 2003