Date Published: 12/23/09

Abrogation of Land Use Act, others solution to Nigeria's problems -Dafinone

Chief David Dafinone, a consummate chartered accountant, politician and nationalist is a high flyer from the start. Born almost 83 years ago in Sapele, in present day Delta State, the Second Republic senator is a fine example of a child born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He recently spoke of his early life, career, the Niger Delta crisis and other national issues in an interactive session with journalists in Lagos.

HIS LATE FATHER  

“My father was a judicial officer; he was the interpreter. And later became the interpreter for the Benin-Warri District until eventually he ascended to the level of the Supreme Court”.

“In their days,” he continued, “such people wielded much power and influence. You can imagine a man who stands between two people - the white magistrate and an Urhobo man or woman. So my father ensured that justice was done always and at all times. That gave him a lot of respect and you know, in a way, he became very influential. He was well to do. I can say that, and yes, we were okay by all standard”, he explained.

EARLY DAYS AT SCHOOL

Going to school was not quite early for him as he had to wait and meet the physical requirement that prescribed the ability to touch ones other ear with his hand thrown across his head. But as soon as he started, there was no stopping. He was very inquisitive and possessed an analytical mind even at that age. He spent only three years for what could have taken him six years at the Roman Catholic School, which he described as just “a stone’s throw” from their home.

It was at this school that something ‘strange’ happened. At school one day, towards the end of his third year, his Reverend Father teacher of Geography had asked the class how many planets are in the universe.

“I raised my hand and answered it that they are seven and I named them. He was obviously happy that moment and said they should clap for me and called me a good boy. But then I also asked him my own question. I said: Sir, if the earth is number three planet and people live here, do people also live in the other planets and is it possible for us to move from one planet to another as we grow up in life?”

Unfortunately for him, the class teacher took offence. Instead of being commended for his analytical sense and propensity to know more than he currently knew then, he was rebuked sharply, called a pagan and ordered out of the class so that “I won’t corrupt the other children. I went home feeling terribly sad and of course vowed that I won’t be going back to that school again. For goodness sake, it was supposed to be a place of learning and not a place where simple questions are rationalized dogmatically and are seen as an offensive”, he stated with a reasonable measure of disgust in his tone.

He subsequently moved to Government School, Benin, where he completed his primary education. From there he went to Edo College and after a stint there, moved over to Abeokuta Grammar School, then under Rev. Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti as the principal.

“By 1945 when I sat for the Cambridge School Certificate Examination, I passed all my papers with distinctions. And with that, I earned an exemption from the London Matriculation Examination”, he explained with satisfaction.

WORKING CAREER

Senator Dafinone’s working career started on a challenging note. He had decided to join the civil service. But then there were only four secretariats in Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu and Kaduna. Curiously, he made Kaduna his choice.

“I just felt I had not been to that part of the country and I decided to go there. And with the benefit of hindsight today, I can say it was a good development because it was to play a vital part in my life, subsequently. I was just 19 then. May be just out of adventure; I wanted to know how the north looked like then. And there, in 1946, I met people like Kam Salem, Sule Katagum and Aminu Saleh. We joined the service the same day and we were friends”, he explained.

He started as a third class clerk in the Registration and Records Department. Things moved on the fast lane for him. He was only 21 when he was saddled with the task of preparing the Native Treasury estimate for the whole of Northern Nigeria.

“That meant all the paperwork on the revenue and expenditure of all the local authorities in Northern Nigeria. After I had prepared it, then a Special Finance Committee would go through and after necessary input, approve it”. But that will not be the end of the story. It would then be sent to the governor to endorse or sign. The colonial powers actually established the committee, which was made up of five high-class individuals.

He named them to include: the late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto; Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, who later became the Prime Minister; Alhaji Muhammadu Ribadu; Alhaji Aliyu Makama Bida and Yahaya Madawakin,” he recalled.

He then narrated an interesting aspect of it all. “After the approval by this committee, the chairman and one other person, usually Ribadu, would take it to the Sultan in Sokoto for consultation and I was usually asked to go with them”. 

On one such trip, his inquisitive nature made him to ask the Sardauna the rationale behind the yearly ritual. His answer was, for him, a case study in reverence and respect for the status of the Sultan.

According to him,  “He said to me, ‘my boy, there are forces that you just have to defer to in this part of the country. You cannot do otherwise, if you try it, you are sure to regret it. The Sultan is one of them. We must respect and consult him”.

For a reaction, Senator Dafinone silently took note of it, knowing fully that it was pregnant with meaning and did not pursue the issue further.  His attention to details and his conscientious approach to his job gradually endeared him to the powers-that-be. And his reward was not late in coming. They recommended him for the First Devonshire Course in Public Administration at the University of Exeter in August 1951. It turned out to be the beginning of a life-transforming experience for Senator Dafinone. His joy knew no bounds and he did not hesitate to grab the one-in-a-lifetime opportunity with both hands.

“I was very happy and grateful to them. Hard work and honesty after all have their rewards. I was glad that my efforts were recognized and duly rewarded. When I finished the course in 1952, another door opened. The then Governor-General, Sir Arthur Richards, advised me that I should stay and do a degree to properly equip myself for the task ahead in a new Nigeria that was then in the making. I saw the wisdom in it; so I enrolled for a degree in Economics with specialization in Accountancy in 1953 at the University of Hull. But I later transferred to the University of London as an external student in 1956”, he told The Nation.

And so in 1958 he finished and obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and immediately enrolled for his professional examinations with the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. By November 1963, he had qualified and so was admitted to the institute as a member.

While in England his thought though primarily devoted to academics and acquiring the necessary tools for a life that would be above ordinary.

FAMILY LIFE

He also spared some thought for matters of the heart. His experience in this regard was an interesting one; at least going by the way he told it.

“Well, I have been married for 52 years now. I married when I was 30 years old.  And I have enjoyed the support of my wife everyday of those years since August 1957. She is a great woman and a fantastic wife. I am married to the best wife in the world”, he said, eyes fixed on you, perhaps waiting for your comment or the next question.

Dafinone met, then Miss Cynthia Watson from the West Indies while studying at the University of London. She was also a student reading for her degree in Nursing. He had gone to the school’s ballroom one evening when he saw her. “I met her there, she was fair and looking very pretty and I was attracted; really, something told me this is your wife. She was born in Jamaica by parents of Scotish origin”, he said amid broad smiles.

The union has been fantastically blessed with three sons and two girls, all born in the month of April. Interestingly, all of them are qualified and chartered accountants. They all had degrees in Economics. They are all, today working for the same firm, Horwath Dafinone, which was started by Dafinone himself way back then as Dafinone & Co.

This feat earned the Dafinones a place in the Guinness World Records as the family with the most number of chartered accountants. 

Reflecting on the record, Dafinone beamed with smile and, as if scouting for what to say, offered: “It is very good. It is a thing of joy and happiness. Six people in one nuclear family, all accountants out of a total of seven, are a big record. Whether it is by meticulous planning or sheer coincidence, I think it is a very good development. I never had the mind of raising all my five children to be accountants but individually, they found themselves attracted to the profession and they all made it. So, the credit really should go to them. We, the parents, merely provided the enabling environment.”

ESTABLISHING A COMPANY

For Dafinone, establishing a company of his own one-day had always been a thing of fascination for him. But the circumstances surrounding the way he eventually got into it, however, left a sour taste in his mouth. His story was that of a conscientious worker, getting results for the company, but who in turn got little or no credit for his efforts. If anything, he constantly had a dose of discrimination, bordering on racial and colour considerations. When it became apparent that the powers-that-be in the company were not going to change their well scripted policy toward him aimed at keeping him perpetually down, he was forced to take his destiny in his hands.

“When I returned to Nigeria in 1963 with my family, I took up a job with this company, let me not mention the name because all those things really don’t count anymore. It was like the management deliberately wanted to make me subservient to my peers, even junior colleagues on account of my skin and colour. Imagine being employed the same day with a white colleague by a company and we were to work in the same office, while the white man had an official car and an official quarters, I had none. Imagine winning a big contract for the company and doing it in just less than an hour, what they could not do in about a year. There was a deliberate plan to ensure that I never attained the position of being the leader of the company at the appropriate future time. That was why one person could be promoted a day ahead of me even when we joined the company same day, and I had been more productive than him. But what actually made me say I had had enough was the thinking that I am not deserving of having a plot of land in Ikoyi. The company would rather like to have it to itself and give me some token to go to another part of town. It was my landed property but the company’s thinking was ‘how could a man of your type say he owns a property in Ikoyi while the company does not have’. So I simply took my destiny in my hands. So on August 18, 1966, I started my own firm, D. O. Dafinone & Co. at No. 9, Nnamdi Azikiwe Street, Lagos,” he explained, rather reflectively.

He started out, according to him, when the economy of the nation was still largely in the hands of whites notwithstanding the fact that the country was independent. Part of the teething problems he had to contend with included not just discrimination but the fact that many clients wanted those who would do a job that would favour them.

“In those days, rich Nigerians and the hard nose white businessmen all tried to evade taxes. Once they were sure that they couldn’t compromise you, and that you would be honest in your report, they would never give you their work to do. So we had to just make do with the smaller firms. The answer to that was to establish a high reputation for ourselves. We proved better than the European audit firms. It was only then that we started getting jobs from genuine white investors. It was after several months of handwork, struggling and building a strong reputation that we started getting patronage from multinationals. Hard work doesn’t kill, it rewards. If you are hard working you are sure to go far, very far in life. But you must add to your hard work, honesty. All you need to know here is simple. The road to greatness is never smooth. There is a price you must pay to be great. The price is nothing than hard work,” he explained more like an advice than an answer to a question.

NATIONAL ASSIGNMENTS

Before too long, his hard work made way for him. He started getting attention from government for national assignments. And as he notched success after success in all the national assignments given to him by the government, especially during civil war years, then Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon appointed him a non-executive Director of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). At the CBN he held several appointments till July 1976.

PARTY POLITICS

Even though he had had such a close encounter with politicians early in life, and in spite of the national assignments given to him to handle, he never saw politics as a profession or hobby for personal gain. Dafinone ’s foray into politics was not his doing.

“I see politics as an avenue for service to humanity. My going into politics was predicated on my desire to serve the people. I was actually called upon by my own people who had seen and could attest to my level of commitment to the welfare of the people, transparency and incorruptible nature, to go into politics. And at the national level, many highflying politicians respected me, too. They saw me as a man who was simply straight forward”.

In September 1978, when the administration of Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo lifted the ban on partisan politics, he joined the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

What could have informed his choice? “A political party is supposed to be an association of people who share the same view on national issues. They must be agreed on certain things. Unfortunately, today, what we have are political strange bedfellows. If you knew my background it would be easy for you to know who and who I would associate with politically.

“Most of them were from the northern part of the country. This is because I already have good and trusted friends among them even as a young civil servant in those days. We kept our friendship throughout.”

Along with the likes of Alhaji Adamu Ciroma; Dr. Ibrahim Tahir and others, they wrote the manifesto of the new party – NPN – inside his office on Broad Street, Lagos. Even though he was a founding member of the NPN, his major political interest was just to be a power broker within the party.

“Contesting for any elective post then was not within my radar at all. I was so much occupied with various jobs in my office, I never had the mind of going to the Senate,” he recalled.

But then his people back home stormed his Broad Street office to inform him that Urhobo people wanted him to represent them at the Senate. “That was to me strange. I thanked them and let them go back. I promised I would get back to them. Then I travelled to London. My thinking was that by the time I return, they would have been discouraged. When I came back after a week, I was disappointed. These people had recruited so many people and the campaign was heavy on ground. It was like a finished job to represent Bended South Senatorial District. It was a massive support. I emerged as a consensus candidate of the NPN in the senatorial district,” he explained.

And he won the main election and also ensured that the NPN won all other seats in the senatorial district but the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) won the rest part of the state. He soon leveraged on this election and repositioned the Urhobo ethnic group, which had been marred with factional fighting among various interest groups. He started the Urhobo Development Association (UDA) with other prominent sons of Urhobo, which provided purposeful leadership for the people in the 80s.

He recalled with some pride and joy that he started the push for the creation of what is today Delta State. “I am happy that while at the Senate I started the processes that led to the creation of Delta State. In fact, had it not been for the termination of the administration it would have been created by us. But the regime of Gen. Babangida eventually created it. Though I had suggested Warri, but it decided on Asaba as the capital. Well, that is a discussion for another day, as I still believe that Warri should have remained the true and most appropriate capital of Delta State,” he stated.

NATIONALISTIC DRIVE

His nationalistic drive came to the fore as always, again in 1998. Following the announcement of a transition to civilian rule by Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar regime, he prepared his mind to play a prominent role in the emerging dispensation.

“I actually had the intention to play a very prominent role in the dispensation that was to emerge at the end of the transition period. Come to think of it, I had interacted and worked with those in the corridors of power and various leaders at various levels of governance. I was familiar with the intricacies of the nation’s development crisis; I understood the vagaries and dynamics of the political terrain. Above all, I had cultivated and established a broad – based network of political associates in various geo-political zones. And the point to start was to form a political party,” he narrated.

With others, they formed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Inside him, he decided this time to seek the highest office in the land so as to serve the country. His calculation was dead right. He had figured that the annulled June 12 1993 election and its far-reaching socio-political and economic consequences would make a president of the southern extraction imperative.

He soon embarked on wide consultations and got several approvals across the country. That done he mobilized much materials and financial resources to begin the Dafinone for President campaign.

But as the saying goes, man proposes, God disposes. In mid-September of 1998, he suddenly took ill. It was so severe that he could hardly talk or stand on his feet. What was thought to be common malaria simply defied all prescriptions.

He was flown abroad and after four months he recovered fully. By January of 1999 when he returned, political activities had gone too far to be reversed in his favour.

In a sober mood, Senator Dafinone explained in a pensive tone: “Fate stopped me from contesting the 1999 presidential election. I was ready and the people were, too. But as you probably know too well, it is health first. By the time the needed health was restored, the party had picked its candidate and campaign had begun. I have to accept it as an act of fate. It is well, we are all alive today. I have given my service to my fatherland in so many ways in a non-elective and elective capacity. I have done my best for my country”, he stated.

THE PROBLEM WITH NIGERIA

As a major player in the Nigerian project since 1950, Dafinone thinks that the problem with Nigeria is not just leadership. He holds that the nation is yet to define in concrete terms where it wants to be, how and when it wants to be there. He condemns the lack of character in national matters.

“The problem in Nigeria is big. National issues should be dealt with in a manner that requires courage, justice and equity. But that is not the case here. The major characteristics of the political space in Nigeria are hypocrisy and fear. When, for instance, the military is in power, what you see and feel everywhere is fear. On the other hand, if civilians are in power, all you see is hypocrisy. This is not good for the nation and, see where it has landed us now.”

NIGER DELTA

As the interview session hit the home stretch, it was suggested that with his kind of passion for a better deal for the Niger Delta in the last 15 years, were he to be in his early 20s or 30s and were he not to be educated, he probably would have been among those who went into the creeks to seek justice by all means?

His initial reaction was that of surprise, and then amusement. Surprised because the suggestion was way off the mark and he had to frantically hide his displeasure. He then gave a wane smile; after all, the subject is one of those areas in the national polity that has engaged his attention so much in the last two decades. And after a thoughtful moment, he shook his head gently and offered: “No, I don’t subscribe to violence or militancy in any form. I have always been an apostle of jaw-jaw and not war-war. But that said, the issue of the Niger Delta is a complex one which needs real political will to deal with it”.

And with a countenance that seems to speak volumes, Senator Dafinone declared with all emphasis at his disposal that the system has been utterly unfair to the Niger Delta. “let us say it the way it should be said, the system has been grossly unfair to the Niger Delta region. Whatever has been done till now is simply cosmetic. No policy that has the capacity to redress the devastation, re-position the region and set it on the path of growth and development has been put in place. That is why you discover that in spite of the interventionist agencies set up day and night, the core problems of neglect, devastation, underdevelopment, hopelessness and apathy have all combined to make peace elusive in the region until recently.

“But, again, we must seize the moment. This opportunity can never be lost, if we don’t make good use of it, there will be another implosion and it will be terrible. Now that the amnesty is in place, something reasonable must be done in the overall interests of the region and in particular the oil-bearing communities. Such an action must take cognizance of their tomorrow,” he counselled.  

On the way out of the Niger Delta crisis,  Dafinone said, peace will remain elusive as long as the root cause of the crisis- ownership and rights to land and natural resources- is not effectively and holistically dealt with. 

Using history as a guide, Dafinone said with the Protectorate Ordinance of 1894, the people became tenants of the Crown under British rule. ‘We did not have a say in how natural resources and minerals were exploited, nor did we have an idea of how much revenue accrued to the colonial government from the export of agricultural products and minerals’.  

The Federal Government, he advised, must abrogate the Land Use Act of 1978, as the Act has destroyed the use of land as a factor of production. 

He reiterated the need for the establishment of a Niger Delta Bank for Reconstruction and Development that would cater strictly for the finances and development of the area. Such a bank, he said would concentrate in restructuring and development of the region. It would among other things act as a custodian of the funds and prevent misuse of such funds now and in future. 

A Development Board consisting of different agencies and departments, according to the renowned accountant should be set up in the Niger Delta following the principles adopted by Lord Beveridge in his Report Titled The Road To Reconstruction published in Great Britain in 1942. 

The board, he emphasised, should address issues relating to agricultural development, housing, education, health, water supply, power and energy, infrastructure, security, manpower evaluation, assessment and training. 

Gas, which is presently flared, according to him, should be conserved and/ or developed for the benefit of the people especially in the area of electricity, particularly power generation and distribution. ‘Also water from its chemical used in exploration and production should be treated and purified’. 

The development of tourist centres around the beautiful beaches of Niger Delta should be encouraged. This, he explained, would certainly attracts foreign investors and generate employment opportunities in the region as in Florida in the United States of America. 

There is need for a mechanism to protect oil pipelines. Part of such a strategy, is to establish a Pipeline Marshals Commission, to be supervised by the Niger Delta Bank for Reconstruction and Development. 

The president, he added, must be commended for the cease-fire in the region and ensure that the evils of the past are not repeated. However, he rebuked those who participated in the feast of Passover, saying by using militants for electoral purposes, they should not decide the fate of the militants.

ACHIEVEMENTS AND REALITIES

Senator Dafinone OFR, a member of The Patriots and the Owhere 1, of Okpe Kingdom, concluded the interactive session this way: “I am satisfied with everything I have done, from politics, employment and other achievements. But I am saying that it is a pity that Nigeria has not achieved the height we thought of when we were young, I hope we get there soon”.