By Amos Oweifighe
The supreme quality of leadership is unquestionably integrity. Without it, no real success is possible, no matter whether it is in a classroom, a football field, in an army, or in an office. With integrity, you have nothing to fear, since you have nothing to hide. Having nothing to hide is an expression lacking in the arsenal of most personalities in the corridors of power. Having been part of an extensive investigation on the past and present personal/professional life of Mr David Edevbie, a former Commissioner of finance in Delta state, I can bodly say I have seen different.
It was a calm and usual day for me at work, live on-air doing what I do best when the flashing lights of my phone tried to cause a distraction. It was my good friend Mr Allison Abanum calling. An excellent journalist who is a Senior Special Assistant on Strategic Communication and Documentation to the Governor in Bayelsa State.
After duties I quickly returned his call and retrospectively, I am glad I did. Like researchers for new knowledge, we had a formidable team which included Mr Roland Ogbonnaya whom, although I hadn’t met in person before, turned out to be a well experienced and grounded journalist with service impacts in a couple of top national dailies.
The excellent narratives of our findings on Edevbie given by my colleagues Allison Abanum and Roland Ogbonaya didn’t extensively touch on a very integral aspect of the life and conduct of the man. This part is very important to me as it is one of the personal principles I hold dear. Our investigations had taken us to the office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC in Abuja where we met with senior officials of the commission to find out their position about Edevbie.
This move wasn’t because we were actively looking for negatives but because we had to satisfy our already rattled curiosity. How better to do so than to stir the waters of financial investigations, the one aspect that a vast majority of leaders are found wanting.
We asked if they had any info to give us because, like it is the norm of most politicians, a show of philanthropy in public isn’t a true reflection of the loot they had acquired behind closed doors. To our absolute amazement, the EFCC officials were the ones asking us if we had info for them about the man. They had intensively Investigated Mr Edevbie for years and found nothing substantial.
Having held such a sensitive post as a Commissioner of finance in such an oil rich state, surely this man should give in to the lure of financial crimes like most politicians do? This question boiled on the inside of me. Our findings at the EFCC office more than aswered my question and made it clear that Mr David Edevbie held close to his heart a mantra of integrity and responsibility even with finance. A very rare quality everyone would agree. Just when I thought things had gotten unreal with this man, his life pulls up more surprises and very pleasant ones at that.
The EFCC had good information about Mr. Edevbie’s dealings whirlst in the United Kingdom, having been born there. They indicated that they went as far as exploiting thier links to INTERPOL to get facts about his activities abroad but all they got was a clean bill. Having joined Barclays Bank Plc, UK as a trainee through the bank’s Management Development Programme. Mr David Edevbie between 1988 and 1992 rose to the position of Manager’s Assistant, Corporate Lending. In late 1992, he joined Hill Samuel, a U.K. Merchant Bank, as an Investment Banking Executive. In 1995, he joined the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), UK (CDC Group) as an Investment Officer responsible for Asia & Pacific Regions.
His impact definitely noticed, saw him get promoted in 1996 to Deputy Country Head, and was responsible for establishing the CDC Philippines Office. In March 1998, he returned to the London Office and was promoted to Investment Manager. This carefully scouted profile shows Mr David Edevbie as an astute financial manager, one who has successfully dealt with standard international procedures and high profile financial cases and in all this standing firm by his principle of integrity, honesty and financial competence.
No wonder governments kept on trusting him. He served as financial custodian multiple times and on all occasions delivered excellently with a stainless record home and abroad as impressively confirmed by the EFCC. More so, as one of the officials who had worked with Nuhu Ribadu said they had visited Delta State to investigate David Edevbie and some other politicians and went back impressed as they could not get any thing about Edevbie, anything negative that is.
“Integrity is choosing courage over comfort; choosing what is right over what is fun, fast, or easy; and choosing to practice our values rather than simply professing them.” Brene Brown declares. Clearly the testimonies we gathered in our investigative journey shows that Mr Edevbie does more than just profess things. The Newspaper Reporter which Mr Roland Ogbonaya spoke about in his article equally told us clearly that David Edevbie has a penchant for quality work. In terms of infrastructure and development, every thing he does has an imprint of quality, taste and style. “The man does not take weak job or second grade job. It is first class or nothing” the Newspaper reporter concluded.
The above conclusions were not added in this article just to make up lines, they are true testament to the fact that in Edevbie, Delta State has a man with the right perception, skill set and personal principles to cause lasting positive change on scales unimaginable. The 2023 elections is less than a year a away and as usual the people will clamour even louder for a betterment of their plight.
For Delta state as far I am concerned, the right person is not far fetched at all. Only an enemy of good, growth, development and indeed the state would counter this pitch of Edevbie as the best personality to shoulder the responsibility of taking Delta forward. Having significant project finance expertise through direct participation in several high profile project-financing transactions in varied sectors such as Power, Oil & Gas, Mining, Health, Telecommunication, Financial Markets, Hotels etc. Delta, you have you man.
Edevbie seems assuredly well equiped mentally and skillfully to manage and utilise the resources of Delta state excellently for the better and all his traits are anchored upon strong personal principles. These are peculiar times, asuch it is never a good time to be in charge of anything. Therefore anyone who seeks leadership should do so for saintly desire to effect positive change and impact lives. Clearly Mr David Edevbie seeks such. Excellence is a result of habitual integrity, a high tatste for quality and tremendous levels of competence. All of which our investigations shows clearly in the life of Edevbie. Delta, you have your crown jewel.
*Oweifighe, a Bayelsan, is News Editor of Radio Nigeria, Creek Fm 106.5 FM