Tunji Bello: 64 Gbosa! For The FCCPC CEO, by Kola Johnson

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams”

This epic quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, could well be apt in vivifying the trajectory of Mr. Tunji Bello,an accomplished visioner,dreamer and doer,who today,clocks an eventful sixty-fourth years on earth.

A veteran journalist,prolific writer, political scientist, lawyer,consumate manager,and intellectual;his earliest emergence into the public glare came about during his fiery years of activism in the exciting hemisphere of students unionism,the high point that was to see him as Vice-President at the prestigious University of Ibadan.

Armed with a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science,this man,as if playing truly to a script already rehearsed ever before earthly birth,waded into the turbulent world of journalism, choosing rather to differ in his interventionist brand of a visionary crusader.
It was therefore not surprising that at the grim moment of tragedy, when democracy was entrapped in the labyrinthine contraption of martial autocrats;passing through the convoluted valley of the shadow of death, following the sacrilegious cannibalism of the June 12 annulment,Tunji Bello stood out for the valorific exploits, courage and soldiery with which he teamed up in collaborative synergy with ideological fraters on the progressive front to confront the dire-conundrum not only by dint of his combatively acerbic pen,but also as a sweat merchant “hobnobbing” hither-thither in his usual quiet,but restively untiring hysteria,and agitated resignation in solidarity with progressive democratic forces to give whatever it takes to subdue the savage beasts of totalitarian facsism.
To be sure,within the media circuit,Dele Alake and Tunji Bello,ranked prosiliently foremost amongst Abiola’s closest media dependants and strategists in the onerous struggles for the validation of the collosal monstrosity of
the June 12 annulment.It was therefore no wonder that throughout the turbulent twists and turns,defining the episodic trajectory of those memorable dark days,Tunji Bello and Dele Alake indispensably stood out as intimate fraternal companions rapturously glued to the billionaire populist politician – and reciprocally vice-versa of course – in the graphic vivification of inseparable siamese twins.

No words could have been more apt in corroboration of the strategically pivotal role of this highly esteemed
Lawyer-journalist, political scientist, consumate administrator and remarkably esteemed environmental Czar than those of Dele Alake,whose references to the FCCPC Chief Executive in a recent T.V. interview with Arise News,during the commemoration of the memorably historic electoral victory offered quite an illuminating fenestra to Bello’s place in the eternal pantheon of heroes of democracy.

Of course,those privileged to have watched the interview would recall Alake’s remarkably illuminating narrative of the indispensably paramount role Tunji Bello played along with three others in the articulation, of Chief Abiola’s victory speech coming on the heels of his emergence as the SDP presidential candidate,for the historic electoral landmark in the chequered journey to democratic destiny, dramatically short-circuited in the subterranean mountebankism of Abacha/IBB treachery, to consign the popular sacred mandate of the people to the dungs.

More-over, as the same Alake
recalled in the very same
interview that on June 16, when the ill-fated democratic election was to be annulled,as hitherto little suspected as would happen later in the day,it was none else,but Tunji Bello,and he (Alake) who earlier on the same day,were in an exclusive parley with Abiola,reviewing the election,and the way forward, little knowing if at all,that the memorable epoch-making milestone in electoral democracy,was ultimately fated
for the rock at exactly later the same day,via the authoritarian terror-machine of Babangida’s cabal of military Kakistocrats.

It was on the wing of his exceptional exploit which had earned him quite a contagious plume of honor, fame and enviable repute that irresistibly struck an appeal which inspired the incumbent national leader, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to co-opt him into his administration in those memorable pioneering days as governor of Lagos State.

For a fellow who literally had been immersed all his life, in the turbulent world of journalism;who supposedly knew or did nothing other than journalism all his life, tongues may unlikely not have wagged in ratiocination of the logic which might have impelled the “wild fancy” appointment to a supposedly alien habitat as the ministry of Environment, as diametrically ill-at-par with the accustomed sphere of journalism as the primordial professional calling of the new appointee .

But the enigmatic visioner,missioner,dreamer and workaholic,must have confounded such hosts of doubting thomases by dint of the creative-imagination with which he was able to redefine the geo-political landscape of Lagos State,from the notoriously reproachful description inherited as an uncheering legacy in the wake of the Tinubu administration,to a remarkably impressive ambience in line with the megacity vision of the then incumbent governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

Like a recurring decimal in the immutable constant of meritorious winning runs, one recalls that this dynamic
environmental czar, assumed office as Vice-Chairman and CEO,FCCPC,an acronym for Federal Consumers and Competition Protection Agency,and just within a brief span, he had stamped
the identifying mark of excellence, which had earned him popular public acclaim to bear in sending strong signals to corporate concerns across the national space that its no longer business as usual;that the present government is sternly poised towards an aggressively uncompromising customer driven crusade for quality assurance and standard, which compulsorily must be met by manufacturers and service providers in conformity with the ethics of corporate best practices;in contrastingly poignant departure from the sordid past in which the interest of the consumer s are not only taken for granted but mortgaged on the alter of corporate impunity.

Corroborating the fore-going was the justifiable audacity by which the commission imposed a proportionately draconian fine of two hundred and twenty million dollars on Meta/Wattsap for violating consumer rights.

Also readily deserving of mention,was the legal litigation filed against Multi-Choice and its CEO for violating regulatory directives and engaging in conducts diametrically detrimental to consumer’s interest.
If there is one selling
point, for which the Tinubu administration
deserves credit, it is in the wisdom that
informed the FCCPC.Particularly equally important in this regards, if not more,was the managerial helmsman ship of the pivotal agency saddled on no other than Tunji Bello, the peculiar creative and imaginative visionary icon and indefatigable human-machine,whose managerial pragmatism and reputation for integrity and excellence have continued to rise like a meteor in affectionate public billings.

As a stern disciplinarian and incorruptible stickler for the rules, the FCCPC under his managerial helmsmanship has sent clear signal that the equitable ethics of accountability and fair play in which service providers are called to question over their quality of services has eventually come to take their rightful place.

In an era in which the preponderant lots of the masses are restively grieved and agitated by the soaring debacle of existential survival, the FCCPC under its incumbent boss is fast availing as a redeeming feature,hoisting the regal sovereignty of the customer, from the backwaters of ignoble unreckoning into which it had hitherto languished,by insisting that henceforth,service providers cannot just proceed with continual crass impunity to compound the woes of the people especially the under-privileged down-trodden,by insistently harping on a new deal,that compulsorily assures them of reciprocally commensurate value for whatever they are investing their hard earned money.

These in other words,are to express that this pivotal agency, through its messianic regime of equity, accountability
and justice offers a veritable mirror for a truly poignant perception of the Tinubu-led administration of APC and its populist utilitarian confession of the greatest good of the greatest numbers.

Today corporate giants in the Telecom, banks, electricity providers, Airlines and DSTV among several others, which hitherto for too long were deceitfully over-fed in the egoistic conceit of their sacred cow toga are for the first time startled, spoiling to shape up;beefing up their customers protection apparatchik in response to the reformational momentum of the new leadership,knowing with prophetic certitude that the new FCCPC does not only bark but bite

Thus not just a few are being gradually awakened to a new lease of customer-friendly disposition as expressed more than ever before,in a heightened spate of customer tolerance, matured sense of accomodation, transparently permissive open door policy, empathy and the propensity to accord customers the latitude to express themselves with unfettered restraint,as evidenced by the remarkably innovative introduction of hitech consumer protection portals as a symbol of corporate commitment to safeguard the rights and interests of consumers.

As Obasanjo once chided the Babangida-led administration during the military era that SAP – an acronym for its new-fangled,draconian Structural Adjustment Policy should have a human face, it is in this wise that the the FCCPC should be seen as the human(e)face of the Tinubu administration, its attenuating balm, its deeper democratic impulse and it’s egalitarian, populist bent for the greatest good of the greatest number.”

Consumer Protection is unarguably a most pivotal element among the regulatory ethos governing the commercial/business environment in any civilised modern setting.It’s the livewire,soul, spirit and pillar, sustaining the space and stirring its locomotive progression.Of course the consumers are not only the epicentre but the end-point,the ultimate,so to say and of course the reason for the business.To cap it all,the consumer is the king.The entire populace are consumers of one thing or the other.

It is against this background,that we perceive in illuminating clear relief,the veritable allusion to this strategic democratic ombudsman,in unequivocal apt exactitude,as the very face of democracy of the incumbent Tinubu administration.

Other sectors out there, would sure make do with the Tunji Bello-led model in visionary pragmatism for the prevailing socio-political decadence to turn around for good.

As a politician,this multivalent man of many parts carves a special niche of impressively sublime expression for his unbridled humanitarian propensity for the needy,as dispensed with unceasing consistency via the aegis of Mainland Independent Group (MIG) – a socio-political pressure group based in Lagos Mainland Local Government.
At a special prayer session organised for him on Friday,
torrent of prayers were spontaneously rendered for the kind-hearted philanthropist and his family for his unceasing consistency in identifying with the plight of the needy through his regular empowerment program which has gone a long way, in alleviating their plight.

Alhaji Ibrahim Alao Megida, Special Assistant on Political Matters to Tunji Bello,and Co-ordinator of the M.I.G. described the ex Commissioner For Environment as a truly God-fearing man whom it has pleased God to bestow on the people of Mainland/Yaba area and indeed the entire Lagos State as a whole.
“Of all the politicians in Lagos State, particularly Mainland,Hon Tunji Bello is remarkably distinguished for his untiring consistency in addressing the welfare of the needy from time to time through his regular empowerment programmes.

He stated further that apart from his regular empowerment drives,for a massive number of the needy,Hon Tunji Bello, our pillar and benefactor is often besieged on a daily basis with one request or the other, which he often finds difficult to turn down.”

” Day in day out, people approach him for employment, admission to higher institutions, payment of hospital bills,school fees, JAMB forms,NECO forms and capital to start or sustain businesses and so on and so forth,yet he tries everything possible to address their needs.He is never tired and will never shun or avoid any needy who approach him either directly or through his WhatsApp number,or through me as his Special Assistant .There is no way you could shield the people away from him, because he is always willing to attend to them. On behalf of the entire Mainlanders and the MIG,I say a happy birthday to our great leader and benefactor” Megida prayed.

*KOLA JOHNSON IS A WRITER AND JOURNALIST.