Gambari: I was very rascally in secondary school… Cornelius Adebayo told me to pipe down

Ibrahim Gambari, ex-chief of staff (CoS) to the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, says the late Cornelius Adebayo played a key role in shaping his calm and balanced disposition.

Adebayo, a former senator and ex-governor of Kwara, died on June 25 in Abuja at 84.

At a night of tribute and a service of songs organised for Adebayo in Abuja on Tuesday, Gambari reflected on his memories with the late former governor of Kwara.

Gambari traced their first meeting back to 1957, when he was in Form 1 at Ilorin Provincial Secondary School, which they both attended.

“Very difficult for me to talk about C.O. Adebayo in the past tense but then nothing is permanent. 
Life itself is not permanent. But what we leave after is the memories after,” he said.

“There are three instances in my life that I will never forget. 
As I mentioned, C.O. Adebayo was my senior by two years, but in Ilorin Provincial Secondary School at that time, a senior was a senior.

“And believe it or not, even though there are about three years’ difference in age between us, he was my mentor because he became the head student of our school, while I was still in the then-Ilorin Provincial Secondary School.

“One thing he taught me as a mentor was this — believe it or not, I used to be very rascally in secondary school. Believe it or not. Not the Gambari that you are seeing talking to you.”

His disclosure drew laughter from the audience.

“But he called me once, and he said, ‘Look, you have to pipe down. Because when you misbehave in Ilorin Provincial Secondary School, nobody will say this is just a rascally boy; they say it’s because you are a member of the royal family of Ilorin. So, humility, humility, humility’.”

Gambari said Adebayo led by example, describing the late governor as a very humble man with a lot of achievements.

Sharing another memory, Gambari said Adebayo fought against a planned rigging that would have extended his predecessor’s stay in office as governor.

“In 1983, power was about to change in Kwara state because the sitting governor was about to be defeated. That was Adamu Attah, who belonged to the then-NPN, and Cornelius was in the UPN. 
And things were tense,” he said.

“He then called me and Baba Kasumu, who was a close associate of Adamu Atta, and said, ‘look, I don’t want this election to be rigged because if it is not rigged, I will be the next governor of Kwara state. Remember where you came from. No cheating. No rigging.

“So, he stood by the change of government, not by the guns, not by rigging, but by the democratic process. This is the lesson that we must all learn from him.”

THE JOKE ABOUT EMIRSHIP 

Gambari also recalled that the late former governor once joked he would have made him the Emir of Ilorin if he were still in office.

Ibrahim Sulu-Gambari, his cousin, was appointed Emir of Ilorin after the family’s patriarch died in 1992.

“This is another part of Cornelius’ tremendous sense of humour. He said, ‘Agboola, you’re very lucky I was not governor when Sulu-Gambari died because the next day you would hear on the radio that you had been made Emir of Ilorin,’ Gambari said.

“That was the kind of jovial but very loyal person that he was. Loyal to a fault.

“We must all pass; it’s a question of time. It is what we do, what we are remembered for, and what memory people have of us, and I believe that just as his family, his political association, and myself are saying, we have tremendous fond memories of this decent, principled, honest, humble man.”

He condoled with the family, praying that God would strengthen them.