Navy Captain Caleb Olubolade could not hide the fact that he was inhabited by a spirit of service, and blessed with a temper that stands up for righteousness, a willingness to work on behalf of conscience, and a readiness to work long arduous hours until the goal is attained. His military training came in useful with particular regard to time management.
He had imbibed the promptitude that comes with obeying orders given by a superior officer, the Head of State no less, and he was in Bayelsa State to do just that. His only gaff at that time, one that was widely quoted, was his off-handed reply to a valid question. When asked by a journalist why he was concentrating so many projects within a small radius of the state capital, Olubolade was reported to have said he was ‘not sent by (Sani) Abacha to clear bush’.
It was his first controversial statement. Even the traditional rulers took offence. If he was not sent to clear the bush, how would he build the new state capital? This was the roving question that got Olubolade to rethink his utterance, and make up with visible action. To be fair to him, he was not an arm-chair Administrator.
He was always on the move. He was always to be seen at work sites, personally supervising the progress of work. It was easy for him to do so, especially because many of the artisans and builders were his kinsmen from Yoruba land who had gravitated to Bayelsa State with great expectations. Above every dissenting voice, however, his bark of authority was enough to spell out silence.
Olubolade had simply chosen to work that way when he cast aside the capital city development master-plan. From the first day he arrived, every conversation he had with traditional rulers and Ijaw stakeholders alike revolved around the fact that there was a master plan to follow.
When confronted with the fact that an outstanding debt of N80 million was owing to Harcourt Aduke, the architect who designed the master plan, Olubolade felt it was uncalled for. The monthly allocation to the state from the Federal Government stood at about N120 million Naira at the time. If he paid N80 million out of that sum, what would be left to undertake projects, after paying the salaries of workers?
The sensible thing to do, as far as Olubolade was concerned, was to leave out the master plan, and work within a more reasonable budget. Work was the only way to express gratitude. Olubolade was grateful, to say the least, to have been appointed into a leadership position.
He always wanted to make a difference in life, to be recognised for the effort he could make to improve a given situation. In this case, he was Military Administrator of a virgin state in the southern most part of Nigeria. For all it was worth, he resolved to be remembered for his contributions, as humble as they may be.
By all accounts, Olubolade didn’t hire the services of architects. He simply stepped aside with trusted staff like Dr. Steve Azaiki, his Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources, and drew out the plan for a structure, tracing it out in the sand, the staff of office in his hand. Anyone who could make suggestions were welcome to make them, but his word was final. Okpoitari Diongoli, Government House correspondent for Radio Rivers at the time, confirms this in his memoirs.
As soon as the picture appeared in the imagination of the Administrator, work began the following day. That was how the state secretariat was built, manifesting in a solid rectangle from Olubolade’s raw sketches. The civil servants’ estate, first of its kind, was built in like manner. It sprang from one unit drawn into being by Olubolade, consisting of two bedrooms, a sitting room, toilet and kitchen. Diongoli was beside the Administrator to concur.
Even the cultural centre was conceived in like manner. It came about from a mental picture of a central stage on which actors and actresses would play out their scenes while the audience sat around in a proscenium circle, a gallery overlooking the stage.
Make room for toilets on the side. Remember the back stage where the actors would change into their costumes, and walk through doors from the sides and from behind, just before the back drop. The roof would be high enough to absorb the volume of voices, and there would be enough headroom for banners and buntings to hang down with balloons and fliers in the case of special shows and conferences and festive events.
As for the stadium, drawing it up was not a problem. Acquire that open space where the motor park used to be, map out a perimeter fence to hold a standard football field, with tartan tracks around its circumference. The spectators sit all around on plastic chairs under an open awning.
Make provision for offices by the side. Also consider public conveniences. And who does not know what a swimming pool is? Measure it out to Olympic size. There’s ample land. Get the workers to start building, and the fittings would come later. We don’t have time on our hands. Nobody knows if the Head of State would decide to visit suddenly.
In point of fact, to keep work on the project sites going, the Military Administrator engaged the services of youth corps members deployed to the state. He also recruited cheap daily labour amongst the roving population of youths and sundry artisans, many of whom were his brethren flocking in from Yoruba land to the new pasture overseen by their kindred. Many years after he left Creek Haven, in fact, some of the boys who came with Olubolade stayed back in the state, adopting the young state as home, working hard to earn a living in their new abode, and hoping for the best.
Maruf Afolabi Owolabi, for instance, picked up his baggage, dumped them in the boot of his car, and drove out of Port Harcourt for good. He was headed for Yenagoa, the state capital, when he became sure that Olubolade, a son of Ekiti State, had settled down as the new Military Administrator of the young state.
Owolabi hails from Osogbo, the Osun State capital, but it was enough to know that his Yoruba brother had taken charge of affairs in Bayelsa State. He arrived Yenagoa in October 1997 when the state had just marked one year as a political entity. He was sure he had not missed out on any goodies yet. He went on to do business in the state for many more years, long after Olubolade had left Creek Haven.
‘I was hoping for the best’, says Owolabi. ‘This was a new state. Something good must happen, I told myself’.
Owolabi set up his mechanic workshop along the only road in Yenagoa at the time, just beside Arizona filling station, and began to provide service for his first set of customers. Today, Owolabi describes himself as the landlord of the Mechanic Village, because he was one of the first set of law-abiding mechanics who occupied the facility provided by government, especially because he was the state Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Automobile Technicians Association.
Like Owolabi, Olufemi Akenfe left his home for Bayelsa State with great expectations. He hails from Ejigbo, Osun State. Akenfe doesn’t have a birthday to celebrate all year round because there is no record of his birthday. Besides, the Ejigbo where he was born is different from the suburb of Lagos State where the C130 plane crashed in times past.
Akenfe arrived Yenagoa on a Saturday in April 1997, two months before Olubolade resumed office as Military Administrator. He came in search of work as a spray painter in the one-year old state. He misses his friend, Bashiru, who invited him to come over to Bayelsa and prosper. Bashiru died in an accident while on a short visit to Ife in 2002.
Akenfe claims to know the story of Bayelsa almost from the beginning, from the days of Ayeni and Olubolade. He remembers his first workshop by Arizona filling station when five cars were burnt during a political conflict. He is still comfortable working in Yenagoa, and living as a friend of the state with his wife, Bola, and their children, Abidemi, Tunde and Eniola, who have also come to regard Bayelsa as home from the days of Olubolade.
