Chris Akiri – a profile in adversity and triumph

We live in a time that disparages the possibility of the intersection of the past and the present. At best, our acceptance of the likelihood of the past positively influencing the present and the future is tenuous. Or why has our nation become so hostile to history to the extent that it was removed from the school curriculum? Why have our leaders denied us the knowledge of our heroes past through whose failures and triumphs we can learn useful lessons as we grapple with our contemporary challenges?
 
But what our leaders strove to deny us  – the knowledge of the past – can still be achieved in another way. And perhaps, in a much more profitable way.  It is in this context that we can locate the intervention of Mr. Chris Akiri through his autobiography.

Through the interplay of the perilous circumstances of his life and those of his family, Akiri’s Reminiscences: Autobiographical Notes illuminates our understanding of the author and the epochs his life has straddled. It is a tribute to the capacity of man to conquer mercurial fate and soar above his socio-economic trammels to attain greatness. Although the author valourises his illustrious paternal and maternal pedigrees, what dramatically shaped who he became in life was his personal navigation of the inauspicious circumstances of his life.  Although he is enamoured of the hardworking and painstaking nature of his father, he was largely influenced by the life of his mother. For, unlike the father whose existence was underpinned by the philosophy of “If you don’t instigate trouble, nobody will pluck off your teeth”, Akiri revels in destabilsing the norm as long as it fails to make the right allowance for his own existence. But he inherited from him his spare frame, humility, gentility and his rich knowledge of the Urhobo tradition. Thus, although at an early age Akiri began his journey from home that took him to the south-west where he had his formal education up to the university level and has since then lived all his life in the same region and can speak the Yoruba language more than some Yoruba indigenes, he remains a proud Urhobo man. 

Akiri’s positively skeptical mind and great intellect are a replication of his mother’s. Although the mother never had formal education, she was endowed with a towering intellect that was partly expressed by her mastery of her own language, Urhobo, Yoruba, Hausa ,Igbo, among others. It was this collaboration of his and her mother’s skepticism that turned Akiri into the man he is today. Without this skepticism, the mother would have succumbed to the plot of his maternal uncles who tried to stop his formal education at primary five. These uncles hired a herbalist to invite his parents to his shrine.  When they got there, the herbalist declared that Akiri would die if his parents allowed him to go beyond primary five in his formal education. The father tried to impress on Akiri the need to avert this cataclysmic prediction by scuttling his education. He asked his son to choose life.  But it was his mother who demonstrated inimitable foresight and courage by stoutly encouraging her son to defy the misguided herbalist. These uncles continued to work to stop his education. When Akiri was in secondary school, he suffered food poisoning. These uncles seized this as an opportunity to hatch another plot to stop his education. They invited another herbalist who told Akiri’s parents that he would die if he remained as the school’s janitor. Akiri’s father advised his son to heed the herbalist’s warning and relinquish his appointment as the school’s janitor. Again, Akiri’s mother stood by him to defy the herbalist. Unrelenting in their evil plots, these uncles sued Akiri’s father for “embezzlement.”  Through this plot, these uncles almost succeeded in stopping Akiri’s education because his mother spent so much money on the case until there was no money for his education any more.  But when Akiri thought that all hope of furthering his education had been shattered by his parents’ financial predicament occasioned by the uncles’ suit, his mother brought relief again. She provided the school fees and Akiri continued his education.
 
At an early age, the author showed promise of greatness. Throughout his primary school days, he was the best in his classes. He scored the highest marks in all subjects apart from Arithmetic. He was a star in Literary and Debating Societies where his stellar performance earned him the title of the “ Young Orator.” Underscoring the fact that that title was well earned is that it was not bestowed on him in a moment of boundless collegial hilarity. It was rather his own teacher in primary five who gave it to him. Akiri matched this intellect with precocious focus and ambition. This was demonstrated when even at the age of 12, he demanded to wear a jacket of his friend that looked like an academic gown and placed a photo album on his head for a mortar board and stood for a photograph.
 
His attempt to secure admission to King’s College was also frustrated. Although the principal then was from his own Urhobo tribe, he refused to give him admission on the grounds that he was too old at the age of 13 to enter King’s College, as other children in the school were under 12. An Urhobo man also refused to come to his aid when he needed a loan to continue his university education.  These experiences made Akiri to conclude that the Urhobo are never useful to themselves as they prefer to help people of other tribes. But here, we must note that what the author denigrates as a plague of the Urhobo could also be a redeeming attribute of their existence. It could point to their sense of individualism, independence and penchant for excellence. And in a society like ours that is riven by nepotism, the Urhobo could then be the right people to occupy leadership positions where they could prise from the polity the demon of cronyism and enthrone meritocracy for all.  Akiri’s bid to continue his education at Western Civil Engineering Technical Training Institute (WCETTI) Maryland, Lagos, to study for a City & Guilds Certificate was also  truncated . After spending just a year in the school, it was declared illegal by the government of Chief Samuel Ladoke Akintola.
   
Akiri was to realise later in life that just like his fellow Urhobo men who would not give him a chance, other people from other tribes would plot to frustrate him in the corporate world. It was his colleagues from the south-western part of the country who instigated his removal as the only African executive director of Western Textile Mills Limited (WESTEX) on the false grounds that “an Ibo man should not preside over a company owned by Western Region.”  The same intrigue sent him away from Universal Trust Bank when his junior colleagues were promoted above him and he resigned.  But as he tells us, all these misfortunes in the course of his education and employment often turned to props for his development in the long run.

Who Akiri has become is a culmination of all these experiences. He loves justice because he has suffered injustice. This sense of justice has guided his corporate life. He cannot endure cant and humbug. Through his legal practice and interventions in public discourse through the media, he has demonstrated that justice is a defining factor for development not only in our society but the entire world.  Six articles he included in this autobiography demonstrate his intellectual eclectism, aside from our encounters with Plutarch, William Wordsworth,  Camara Laye, John Stuart Mill, Diogenes, Ralp Waldo Emerson , Ford Madox Ford , William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, George Bernard  Shaw, among others in the book which show his extensive reading, and thus his profound command of the English language in its written and spoken forms. The article, “ Pastor Chris, Christ Embassy and Critics” is iconic of his robust defence of his Christian faith; “Adieu , Prof. Dora Akunyili” illustrates his sense of gratitude  and heartfelt acknowledgement of the  greatness of others, “‘White’ and Coloured Races’”  is a demonstration of his pride in his black race and “The shame of Ibori’s Trials and Incarceration in London,”  and “The Inconclusive Governorship Election in Kogi State” ratify  his exceptional legal mind that may be in conflict with the general thinking.

It was the quest to see that justice was done that accounts for his short-lived foray into politics. Scandalised by politics being dominated by corruption and people who were neither qualified by formal education nor by a desire for genuine public service, Akiri sought election into the National Assembly on the platform of the Delta State’s Action for Democracy (AD) where Great Ogboru was the governorship candidate. But after spending over N7 million, he was manipulated out of the race and his ticket given to another person.  Thus, ended his flirtation with politics.

And through this quest for justice, he has not only lent credence to his surname, Akiri, which in Urhobo means, an “uncanny capability to do justice,” he has defied the fury of his human and non-human detractors at home and abroad to attain greatness. Those who are of Akiri’s generation would read the book and discover that they encountered similar challenges in their lives while the younger people, especially the youths, would draw inspiration from it to face their challenges. To these categories of readers and others, this book would be a treasure trove.