By Kehinde Olaosebikan
There are sensible males. There are additionally compassionate males. It is uncommon to seek out each in full measure in a single man. In Distinguished Senator Osita Izunaso, at the moment representing Imo West within the Senate, you discover each. That is why at 60, he’s price celebrating.
If you have got adopted the political trajectory of Nigeria within the final three many years, you can not miss the regular, cerebral presence of Osita Izunaso. In a political house typically outlined by noise and drama, he has remained that uncommon politician who doesn’t have to struggle to win respect. His weapon has been his mind.
As the pioneer National Organising Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC, he introduced mind to group at a really crucial time within the lifetime of right this moment’s ruling get together. While others had been enjoying politics of noise and acrimony, Izunaso was enjoying politics of construction, technique and stability. He organized, he strategized, he stabilized. He gave the get together a pondering head. Those who labored with him then will inform you – he was calm, methodical, and sensible. He didn’t simply occupy workplace: he outlined it.
That similar brilliance was evident when he was appointed Chairman of the National Automotive Design and Development Council, NADDC. Many noticed it as a mere board appointment. Osita noticed it as a coverage platform. He introduced recent pondering to Nigeria’s automotive coverage, pushing for native content material, for industrial progress, for a future the place Nigeria doesn’t simply import automobiles however builds them. He left the Council higher than he met it.
And right this moment, within the tenth Senate, because the Distinguished Senator representing Imo West Senatorial District and Chairman, Senate Committee on Capital Market, he has introduced that very same brilliance to lawmaking. In a chamber the place many compete for consideration, Osita competes with concepts.
Currently, the Nigerian Exchange Group is rating because the world’s greatest performing fairness market in U.S. greenback phrases, delivering large year-to-date returns (round 67%) and surpassing main international like Korea, courtesy of Senator Izunaso’s brilliantly and doggedly achieved legislations for the Nigeria Stock Exchange. The success within the inventory market stays one of many best feats of the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. It is unprecedented.
He is ready. He is cerebral. He is revered throughout get together traces — by buddies and even by opponents. He shouldn’t be the loudest voice within the Red Chamber, however he’s actually among the many most listened to. That is the ability of brilliance that’s regular.
But if brilliance gave him a platform, compassion gave him a objective. And that’s the place Osita really stands other than many in public life.
Long earlier than it turned trendy to speak about inclusion, Osita had already made Persons with Disabilities the centre of his public service. Through his Kpakpando Foundation, he constructed what many politicians have didn’t construct – a real bridge between energy and the weak.
Kpakpando shouldn’t be a basis on paper. It is a basis on floor. Over the years, it has offered wheelchairs, scholarships, enterprise grants, medical help and, extra importantly, dignity and voice to over 5,000 weak Nigerians, particularly Persons with Disabilities. He didn’t simply give them charity; he gave them confidence. He didn’t simply bear in mind them throughout elections; he remembered them day by day. They don’t really want to return from his senatorial district or his state. Senator Osita Izunaso’s philanthropy is aware of no tribe or faith. He provides to all with love and hope.
That compassion is at all times on full show on his birthdays because the beginning of Kpakpando Foundation on October 30, 2005. For his sixtieth, he went to the correctional centre and secured freedom for 12 inmates who had been awaiting trial. He organized free medical outreach for 700 constituents — males, girls, younger and previous — who in any other case couldn’t afford healthcare. He celebrated his birthday by giving others a cause to have fun.
That is Osita for you — sensible within the head, large within the coronary heart. He has turned intelligence into service and repair into affect.
Socially, he stays the identical pleasant firm — heat, amiable, witty, nice. Those of us who’ve identified him for lengthy, know him because the humourist in the home. That humour has not left him; it has solely matured with knowledge.
At 50, I wrote a few sensible chap. At 60, I write a few full statesman- smarter, steadier, extra strategic, extra compassionate, and extra humane.
While I want my brother and pal, Distinguished Senator Osita Bonaventure Izunaso, OFR, Ph.D. a cheerful sixtieth birthday anniversary, I pray once more as I did 10 years in the past: May God give us youngsters like Osita.
Omo bi Osita lo wu mi.
Happy sixtieth Birthday, the Great Kpakpando. May God grant you lengthy life, sound well being, higher knowledge and better glory. May your subsequent decade be extra impactful than your final.
Congratulations!
•Olaosebikan is Chief Consultant, Midas Communications Ltd.
