By Kolawole Ojebisi
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has counseled political leaders to be selfless and serve their people with humility.
Senator Omo-Agege gave this piece of advice in Abuja at the public presentation of the book, ‘How I Became a Senator in 30 Days’ written by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Rules and Business, Senator Sadiq Suleiman Umah.
Omo-Agege said to put the nation on the path of progress, leaders must combine humility with service to the people they serve. He cited the exemplary case of former President Obasanjo who rose from being underrated to limelight by the virtue of his humility.
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While driving home his point, the Deputy Senate President recalled a supposedly apocryphal story from which former President Obasanjo used to distill joke steeped in humility, as well as levelheadedness, as a virtue.
He said: “The biggest attribute that we need to serve, and our upcoming politicians should imbibe, is that of humility. We have been told of a joke in the past by a former Head-of-State and President. He told us that people said he was ‘mumu’. ‘Mumu’ is a euphemism for humility. He may not necessarily be the poster child for humility in Nigeria today but he succeeded. He said they said he was ‘Mumu’, he became Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters which was the de facto Number Two position in the country at that time. They said he was ‘Mumu’, he became Head-of-State. They said he was ‘Mumu’ and he became an elected President and was reelected. That is what our colleague, Chairman Rules and Business, Senator Sadiq Umah represents”.
He commended the author for finding time to embark on the arduous task of writing a book despite his busy schedule of superintending over the affairs of the Rules and Business Committee.
Speaking on the 214-page book, Omo-Agege said: “The impression I had coming here was to get to know how our brother emerged a senator in 30 days. But I think that has all now been cleared up. The 30 days is symbolic of his journey: from birth, his upbringing until he made it to the Senate. The first thing that came to my mind initially was ‘how lucky could he be, to be a senator in 30 days. I also thought about myself where we had to battle for almost 13 to 15 years to be able to set foot into the hallowed chambers of the Senate.”
Doing a short review of the book, the leader of the APC South-South caucus said Sadiq Umar listed many attributes worthy of being imbibed by readers, stressing that humility, however, occupied a pride of place.
Omo-Agege said his colleague is not just a preacher of humility, adding that Senator Sadiq is the epitome of humility as a virtue.
He noted that the virtue made him an obvious candidate to head business and rule committee in the Senate.
“Going through the book, there are some attributes he wanted us to imbibe. He listed so many but the most important one I picked from there is his humility. When we first met him in the run up to the National Assembly leadership election, he was very quiet and humble. He wasn’t your typical politician but those were the same attributes that led the Selection Committee headed by the Senate President, to decide that he is the one that will head the Rules and Business Committee. And that office is a very thankless one. It is one office where you work almost 24 hours a day and seven days a week,” Omo-Agege said.
