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A TRIBUTE TO THE LATE CHIEF ARTHUR MBANEFO
By Kingsley Moghalu
Join our WhatsApp ChannelI mourn the passing of Chief Arthur Mbanefo CON, Odu Mbanefo III of Onitsha, at the ripe old age of 95, and celebrate his life. Odu Mbanefo was truly a giant. I am grateful to have had the privilege of being very close to him and having had him as a friend and mentor over the past 25 years beginning during the period he served as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations (1999-2003) and I was a senior official of the Secretariat of the Organization.
Mbanefo is one of the very last of the true professional titans in Nigeria, men and women of breeding, honor, and integrity who were genuine role models. A scion of the famous Mbanefo family in Onitsha and nephew to the great Nigerian jurist Sir Louis Mbanefo, Arthur qualified as a chartered accountant in England in the mid-fifties, and returned to Nigeria in 1961 to join the first indigenous Nigerian accounting form of Akintola Williams & Co. From his role as Minister of Commerce (and Special Envoy) of the short-lived Republic of Biafra in the late 1960s to becoming a titan of the accounting profession as a senior partner in Akintola Williams & Co in the 1970s to serving as a stalwart on corporate boards of directors of blue chip corporations such as the United Africa Company (UAC) Nigeria Ltd and numerous others, to serving as Pro-Chancellor of the University of Lagos , Ahmadu Bello University and Obafemi Awolowo University in the 1980s and 90s when those roles were far more substantive and less politicized than they are today, to his serving as Chairman of the States and Local Government Creation Committee appointed by the military Head of State Gen. Sani Abacha in the mid-1990s and which recommended the creation of several states and local governments we have in Nigeria today, and on to his pivot to Nigerian diplomacy with the return of democracy in 1999, Arthur Mbanefo was a man in full, with a prime role in the arena of the Nigerian public and private sector.
He was present, along with former Head of State Gen. Yakubu Gowon, late Vice-President Dr. Alex Ekwueme, former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth Chief Emeka Anyaoku GCON, and Igwe K.O.N. Orizu of Nnewi at the inauguration of the Isaac Moghalu Foundation in memory of my late father at our family compound in Nnewi on December 30,2005. I can’t forget the surprise – and the lesson therefrom – when Mbanefo, Anyaoku and Gen. Gowon all arrived, separately but very promptly, at 9 am, the exact time on the invitation card for the event to start, but we were expecting the “Big Men” to show up much later in tune with the prevailing Nigerian ethos!
Nor will I forget an earlier encounter with discipline that marked my first meeting with him sometime in 2000. I was in New York from Arusha, Tanzania, my UN duty station at the time, to defend my duty station’s annual budget proposal before the UN General Assembly’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ). On the day before I left New York, l walked across the street over to the Permanent Mission of Nigeria to call on then-newish Ambassador Mbanefo and introduce myself. To my rude shock, he would not receive me, his secretary informed me politely. Why? I asked. “He says you did not make a prior appointment and he cannot break his schedule to see you”. Discipline!
Needless to say, I was certain to make an appointment to see him well ahead of my next visit to New York! And we hit it off immediately we met. I was even more surprised when he warmly asked after my late father, who had passed on barely a year earlier, and offered his condolences. Apparently, they were well acquainted — a fact that was not apparent to me when he had me “bounced” at his office!!
I became only closer and closer to Odu Mbanefo as the years went by. A visit home to Nigeria from my subsequent UN duty station in Geneva, Switzerland, was always incomplete without visiting and spending time with him at his home in Ikoyi, Lagos. He was thrilled when I returned home, appointed as a Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria. In this context, I returned the favor of “discipline” when I was approached by his friends -doubtless with his knowledge – to sign a newspaper advertisement congratulating Odu on his 80th birthday. I informed him that as his “regulator” (he was on the Board of Directors of Standard Chartered Bank at the time), I did not think it would be appropriate for me to do so! He was not offended. Of course, I attended Odu’s 80th birthday at Eko Hotel, and, given the generational divide and his antecedents , I had no qualms paying tribute to him over a toast at the event.
Although we spoke on the telephone a few weeks before his passing as we did periodically (and I was looking forward to spending time with him this festive season), we were last together physically when I delivered the 5th Arthur Mbanefo Lecture, at his request, to mark his 94th birthday at the Arthur Mbanefo Digital Research Center at the University of Lagos in June 2024. This is a philanthropic gift he made to Unilag, at a value of about $2million about 20 yeas ago.
I spoke on the subject of “Education and National Development: Meeting Nigeria’s Challenge in the 21st Century”. It was a profound event around a special person and a uniquely important national challenge. Famously difficult to impress, Odu Mbanefo’s assessment and gratitude for my lecture as having “delivered the goods” was high praise indeed!
Arthur Christopher Izuegbunam Mbanefo, Odu Mbanefo III of Onitsha Ado n’Idu, many at home in Nigeria and around the world will miss your departure. I am one of them. But this also is a a celebration of your high-impact life on earth, your fidelity to friends and family, your kindness and “tough love”. Fare thee well, great man. May your soul rest in perfect peace.
Professor Kingsley Moghalu is the Founder of IGET Academy, a public policy think tank and executive education institute for Africa’s leaders, policy makers and business leaders.
