This has been the toughest birthday tribute I have attempted to scribble. A lot of wonderful things have been penned about Bart Nnaji whose birthday both Nigerians from all walks of life and foreigners are celebrating this weekend in Enugu, and they are true. He is absolutely a wonderful person, near superhuman. World-class achievers are like that, except that many are not as caring and humane and generous and egalitarian as he is.
It is difficult to discuss him without one being seen as carrying out an exercise in hagiography, even though his attainments in global engineering research and and lately in extinguishing darkness in nine local government areas in Abia State that make up the Aba Ring-fenced Area, upon almost two decades of obstacles by people in government, make him a prime candidate for historical canonization . I am, therefore, intentionally showing here that he is one of us, just another human.
Unknown to his children and many others, Nnaji did many things young men do, despite high attainment in his profession at an early age that may be regarded as even callow. Anytime in the early 1990s he flew in from the United States where he was holding a senior academic position as a distinguished engineering professor in a top research university, we would dance hard at Night Shift in Lagos at night just to unwind. Still, he would be the first person to get to the airport the next day to catch the first flight to Abuja or any other city and work ceaselessly throughout the day.
On one particular occasion in 1993, I stiffly stood against his decision to catch the first flight to Abuja because I felt he needed to rest. He had returned the previous day from the United States through Europe. Despite not trusting my sense of time since the previous year, he reluctantly accepted my counsel that we travel by the second flight from Lagos, an Okada flight. It turned out I had become a prophet without most people realizing it. The first plane to depart Lagos for Abuja, which we would have flown, was a Nigeria Airways flight. It was hijacked by a group of young and confused terrorists who diverted it to Niamey in the Niger Republic. The most senior government official on the flight was Brigadier Hafiz Brahim Momoh of the Nigerian Army Education Corps, who was then the NYSC Director General.
Nnaji had begun to distrust me over my sense of time following an incident he would never, never forget. On Saturday, July 5, 1992, Ali Mazrui, the Kenyan global scholar of the African condition, had delivered the pervious day the annual Guardian Lecture at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos, and we were having lunch with him by the poolside at Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Ikeja. He had been my intellectual idol right from my high school when I read his The Trial of Christopher Okigbo, and I was excited to meet him in flesh and blood finally. Mazrui himself was excited that he met a young Nigerian who knew his life story very well and had read most of his numerous publications, including the path-breaking “On the Concept ‘We are all Africans’ which he published while a doctoral candidate at Oxford in 1963 in American Political Science Review, the most competitive political science journal in the world.
Despite three of us being deeply involved in the animated discussion over all kinds of subjects under the firmament, Nnaji insisted he and I leave early for the airport to travel to Enugu. I declined, arguing that Nigeria Airways would never depart on time. When we eventually got to the airport, all the seats were already fully booked and the flight was set to take off punctually!
A ground staff member recognized him, and out of pity gave Nnaji a crew seat next to the lavatory which was exceedingly inconveniencing not just because of the unpleasant smell anytime the door was opened but also because passengers and crew were using it regularly, forcing him to stand up and move frequently in a place with no space. Nevertheless, he was delighted he got a seat at all and that I had been dumped at the tarmac as punishment for not being time conscious. When we got to Enugu, however, he saw me alight from the cockpit with an aristocratic composure, having talked my way through. He felt very bad! Of course, he paid my ticket and his.
Bart Nnaji is ever calm, even if the roof is falling on him. However, on October 1, 2024, he displayed child-like hysteria. At about 5 pm, as I was in a bedroom rereading a journal article by a top American economic researcher on why it was bad for the United States to raise import taxes drastically, he invited me to the sit-out upstairs in his GRA Enugu residence. As we were discussing, he kept on showing more interest in vehicles passing on the road which was unusual.
After an hour or so, he screamed with tremendous excitement when one of his vehicles was driving in. he shouted “That’s my wife! That’s my wife! That’s OsoDi!” He was, for once, unable to contain his emotion. He stood up as though to catch her, even though she was still inside her SUV, some distance from where we were sitting upstairs. I was pretty surprised. So, I asked, “Where has she been?” He explained, “She went to the village this afternoon to resolve a number of issues. She went without security. She takes unnecessary risks. The other day, she came back in a tricycle because she didn’t want to waste time waiting for her driver. And funny enough, she enjoyed the ride. Let nothing happen to her, for we won’t survive it”. That says a lot about him and his family, starting with his wife.
He actually wants to be seen as one of us, and not necessarily the Black guy who set new academic and athletic records at John’s University in New York, or the kid who obtained bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees within just five years and became a full professor in cutting-edge technology in record time, or the person who won at a very early age all major prizes in industrial engineering, or even the person who led the team that now provides regular electricity in Aba and the environs. he wants to be seen as just Bart Nnaji, the regular guy who grew up in the village and is still comfortable in the midst of rural farmers, village palm wine tappers, and petty traders. when he was being sworn in as the Minister of Science and Technology in 1993, he was the only minister who refused to be addressed as Prof, Chief, Alhaji, Engineer, Dr, etc. He was sworn in as simply Bart Nnaji. The Prof prefix was imposed on him by Nigerian officialdom.
As Nnaji marks 70th glorious years defined by boundary breaking, all Nigerians and many foreigners wish him a most memorable birthday. He is worth his weight in gold.
*Adinuba was the Anambra State Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment.
