THE GUARDIAN, Saturday, August 10, 2013
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PEOPLE By Steve Azaiki RISTOTLE, the Greek philosopher, was A right when he said “the perfect friendship is that between good men, alike in their virtue.” Gesiye Asamaowei, simply Gesi, is an example of what friendship should be. Gesi believes that without friendship, no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods. Many years ago, I was invited to a function and on arrival, a man looking much like Isaac Adaka Boro, but in jeans, and I should think an expensive shirt, came slapping and hugging me. This is a man I was meeting for the first time in my life. He said, ‘you guys don’t look us up. How have you been? Do you know you are my brother, etc, all in one breath. I was taken in; the friendship began. A brother may not be a friend, but friend will always be a brother. Gesi has been a friend and brother to thousands of us. He has proven that a faithful friend is a strong defense and he that found such a one hath found a treasure. A faithfully friend is the medicine of life. Gesiye will always tell us that we should wish to behave to our friends, as we would wish our friends to behave to us. This is Gesi’s guiding principle on sincere friendship. Francis Bacon once said, “the worst solitude is to destitute of sincere friends.” The French poet, Abbe Jackques Delille, captured the essence of friendship profoundly when he said “fate chooses our relatives; we choose our friends.” I and many others like me, including Blessing Apuloma; Henry Micah; former Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Austin Opara; Minister of Police Affairs, Navy Capt Caleb Olubolade (rtd); former managing director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Timi Alaibe; Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson; President Goodluck Jonathan; and many others across Nigeria and beyond have chosen Gesi as our friend, for he is a jolly good fellow, so say all of us. The American writer, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, “a friend is a person with whom, I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I agree that friendship is essential to intellectuals. You can date the evolving life of a mind, like that of tree, by the rings of friendship termed by the expanding central trunk.” Williams Poem, the English founder of Pennsylvania, wrote: “A true friend embosoms freely, advises justly, assist readily, adventures boldly, takes all patiently, defends courageously, and continues a friend unchangeably.” Today, we celebrate a man who has distinguished himself in the academia and though in business, a man of distinction and character. Thorough bred and a complete gentleman, cosmopolitan and very sociable with integrity and friendship. Today, as we celebrate his 60th birthday in May, this year, we salute his generosity of spirit, his friendship and love. Swiss writer, Henry Frederic Amiel, wrote: “To know how to grow old is the masterwork of wisdom and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. “Age is that period of life in which we compound for the vices that we still cherish by reviling those that we have no longer the enterprise to commit.” I have known Gesi for many years since that first meeting, which was instantaneous. Our relationship has grown and we have become brothers; we have aged from that youthful partying into more complex personalities in the academia, politics, business, and, of course, services to our fatherland. Sir Richard Steele, the Anglo-lrish essayist, wrote in the Spectator 1771: “Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority, which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of the youth.” My good friend has prospered in business; he has done well, believing only in hardwork. Unlike many Nigerians who outsource everything to God, even what they can do and need to do, like me, Gesi believes that it is much more fun than fun. You must work hard to play hard. That is the rule.
As the English political writer, Thomas Paine, puts it: “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Gesi is an all-rounder, well educated, detribalised and politically grounded, though he has deliberately refused to play active politics and prefers the thankless job of a kingmaker. Gesi has contributed to producing senators, governors, and, of course, the Niger Delta road to Aso Rock. It is in recognition of his effort at making peace and his contribution to economic growth of our country that the President appointed Odi-born Gesiye Asamaowei, a true son of the Niger Delta, as Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of the University of Port Harcourt (Uniport), which is significantly going to see greater and better things in the years ahead. Fortunately, with Prof. Joseph Ajienka, former Director of the Institute of Petroleum Studies, who is now the Vice Chancellor of the university, they would bring peace and development in the university and the student would be greatly impressed, because Gesi believes that it is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin barefoot irreverence to their studies. He holds that they (students) are not in the university to worship what is known, but to question it. Like the France-born American scholar, Jacques Barzun, said: “A young man who is not a radical about something is a pretty poor risk for education.” The teacher must know that education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave. That is true, and let us reminds our universities of a question from a speech delivered in the House of Commons in 1873 by British statesman, Benjamin Disraeli, who said: “A university should be a place of light, of liberty and of learning.” In my mind’s eye, I can see Gesi addressing the lecturers and the university saying, ‘now, what I want is facts.’ Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else and root out everything else; cultism, alcoholism, indiscipline, rape and kidnapping and stick to facts. Gesi Asamaowei was born on May 4, 1953 to the family of Chief Augustine Afa Asamaowei of Odi in Kolokuma/Opokuma Council and Mrs. Cecilia Asamaowei (nee Ndiomu) of Odoni in Sagbama Council of Bayelsa State. He started his primary school education at St Stephen’s Primary School, Odi but comGesi pleted it at the Big Qua Presbyterian Primary School in Cross River State. He started his secondary education at the Military School, Zaria and moved on to Government College Umuahia; Edo College and later Immaculate Conception College, both in Benin City. The Nigerian civil war forced young Gesi to go through five secondary schools. Even at that, he made Grade One in the West African School Certificate examination. Gesi holds B.Sc degree in Industrial Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in the Commonwealth of dom.” What has endeared Gesi to me more than Massachusetts, United States (US) in 1976, an My dear Gesiye, as in Second Chronicles anything else is his choice of friends. He is not afraid of competition and out-shinning; 15:7, so shall it be. “Be ye strong, therefore, a Masters degree in Management Science and Construction Engineering in 1979 from and let not your hands be weak, for your he has a mix of friends high and low, rich work shall be rewarded. Perfect freedom is the same Institution. and poor, educated and not so educated, He was Head, Planning and Engineering politicians, the foolish and the wise, all of us. reserved for the man who lives by his own His friends are from all parts of Nigeria- the work and in that work does what he wants Service in the Estate and Works Department, Rivers State University of Science and to do.” North, West, South and East, unlike the Technology (RSUST), Port Harcourt and also The Russian writer, Maxim Gorky, said: Nigerian politician, who prefers fools and sycophants around them, listening and hear- “When work is a pleasure, life is a joy. When lectured part-time in the same university for seven years before leaving to start his own work is a duty, sun is absent.” Tempora ing fools’ tales. Samuel Goldioyn, the Polish-born American mutantur, et nos mutamur in illis (meaning, business, Pelfaco Limited, in October 1988. Today Pelfaco is known name in dredging, the times are changing and we are changfilm producer, said: “I don’t want any Yes canalisation, swamp construction, shore –men around me; I want everybody to tell me ing in them). protection and a recognisable name in the In retrospect, Gesiye Asamaowei has the truth, even if it cost them their jobs. oil and gas sector, not only in Nigeria, but That is our Gesi, who would say, “men, talk impacted on his people- the Niger Deltapositively through his insistence on peace- also the entire Gulf of Guinea. to me. What’s up? Are you okay or are you Gesi is married to Brenda (nee Waritimi) ful resolution of the crisis, support for dead broke?” and the union is blessed with four children. peaceful non-violent struggle, capacity to Let me quickly add that achievement and We salute Gesi for his friendship and love, help, constant call for the education of the accomplishment have not gotten into my and for his service to the people of the Niger youths and support for the Jonathan friend’s head. I marvel at his expression of Delta, Nigeria and in deed humanity. humility, dignified, sacrificial, unassuming, Presidency. Gesi, a jolly good fellow, who works hard He understands the dynamics of time, loving and very friendly. and plays hard. The English philosopher, Bertrand Rusell, in knowing that time waits for no man and God bless you my brother, and happy birththat only change is constant. The Conquest of Happiness, said: “Unless a day. Tempora labuntur or tempus fugit (time man has been taught what to do with sucflies) or better put, tempus edax rerun (time, -Prof Azaiki, Coordinator of the National cess, after getting it, the achievement of it Think Tank, Nigeria, sent in this piece from the devourer of all things.) must inevitable leave him a prey to boreJohannesburg, South Africa
Gesiye Asamaowei, A Jolly Good Fellow