Alex Neyin, the author of this autobiography, titled it I Dared to Explore.
Evidence of his daring, twice at the point of death, facing off vicious armed robbers at two different occasions, abound in these many vignettes of a living profile in courage.
Here is vintage Alex wrestle with Titans of his work, cultural and political environments, as some gutsy Lilliputian wrestling with mighty Gulliver — but prevailed!
With all-mighty George Kirkland, MD of Chevron Nigeria Ltd (CNL), who craved his managers to chorus “Yes, George” to whatever policy diktats he barked out:
“Why are you not responding? Hey Alex! I’m talking to you.”
“George, I thought we’re on a war front and the General is issuing an order …”
“Okay. If that is the case, what do you have against what I have just said so far?”
“Do you really want to hear?”
The boss wanted his managers to flog CNL wells to produce 500, 000 barrels a day. But Alex disagreed. He wagered that should the wells make 420, 000 barrels a day, he would resign. At the end, the wells made 410, 000 barrels — but with a lot of water!
And this one, with Chief Edwin Clark, at his Kiagbudu lair, when Alex somewhat made nomination to succeed Funso Kupolokun, as NNPC MD:
Clark: “Do you know me?”
Neyin: “I know you. When you came back from the United Kingdom as a lawyer, you stayed in an apartment on Robert Road in Warri. When I was in Urhobo College, you were a lawyer. You used to come to Urhobo College in a Volkswagen car to chase a particular HSC girl.
And more!: “When you were Commissioner for Education, you brought your brother-in-law to be the Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin amid highly qualified Bendelites and that led to confusion. The student body decided to invite you. The plan was to get you embarrassed. I was the one that arranged and passed the information for you not to attend that meeting.”
Clark, whose instinct was to oppose his nomination, switched to his support. But no matter! He lost that bid — just as an alleged Igbo-Yoruba intra-CNL plot blocked his appointment as Escravos Operations Manager — the third highest in CNL.
In both cases, however, the losses were Nigeria’s and Chevron’s — not Alex’s. He would have added unheard-of value.
Then, this big one of youth idealism, that almost scuttled his scholarship to Texas A & M University (TAMU), USA, after his meritorious picking, with eight others, to read Petroleum Engineering, from their freshman engineering student years, at the University of Benin (UNIBEN).
As secretary of the Revolutionary Radicals (RevRads) at UNIBEN, Alex Neyin had, in 1974, signed a document stating “25 reasons” why General Yakubu Gowon could not continue as Head of State beyond 1975.
That proved prophetic, for Gowon was overthrown in 1975.
Gen. Gowon — to whom a copy was posted — probably ignored the document. But the Secret Service did not. They used it to can his passport, while the other scholars flew to America to start their studies.
How Magnus Eweka, then a Commissioner of Police at Moloney Street, Lagos, Police Headquarters, helped him out of that jam is another gripping story. Eweka was an old boy of Urhobo College!
Of course, this mother-and-son dialogue, when Alex received his first salary as a teacher at Urhobo College, after completing his Higher School Certificate, pending admission into university:
Alex: Mama, this is my first salary. Take what you want.
His mother: No. Na your money.
Alex: It’s yours, mum, I would never have gotten to this point if not for your effort.
Alex had seen his father block his elder sister, Ogbe’s bid to enter School of Nursing, after Modern School — a two-year post-primary school back then. His mother wanted Ogbe to train as a nurse, so both — mother and big daughter — could pool resources to train the two younger boys, Alex and Atete.
But their father wanted Ogbe to marry. He promised to pay the boys’ school fees but failed to keep his promise. This failure irked both mother and son. The mother left the husband to live with own mum, at Ikpisan, an island village, off Warri.
“From this point onwards,” an angry Alex wrote, “I never drank or ate from him till he died in 2017.” That was from 1966 to 2017 — 51 years or thereabouts!
Ikpisan! That was, even before Madam Newe Odumu-Neyin — Alex’s mother — and his boys relocated, where grand uncle, Ugbukukon Mero, a master carpenter, would shape the life of his grand nephew.
He first called the boy “Engineer” because of his curiosity in carpentry. He would later groom Alex, nurture him in the ways of Itsekiri elders, tradition and culture, and turn him into a fit and proper home boy.
This autobiography of Alexander Akumeme Neyin, born in Ikpisan in 1949, is a practical handbook to those who dare to differ, particularly in a corrupt setting.
To the compliant and quiescent, he left this quote: “If you keep listening to what people say, to appease them, you’ll do wrong things. With time, the wrong things become the right thing for you. Then, you’ll lose yourself.”
No review can do justice to this book. You just need to read it and luxuriate in its unceasing well of courage and wisdom.
Yet, it suffers grave technical glitches. First, the full title page carries names that seem like co-authors. The project collaborators ought to have limited their credit to just the copyright section.
Then, the printing is rather poor, with many words erroneously linked. That will create problems for young readers, who could get easily confused. Even poorer is the quality of the pictures, with poor colour separation, and the black-and-white pictures seldom sharp .
But even with all that, it is a gold mine in character building; and practical tutorials in model citizenship and patriotism.
Great kudos to Elder Frank Ede for this book landing here. I was even out of town when his call came: he was en route to The Nation, to drop three copies of his friend’s autobiography: one for Ripples, one for Tatalo Alamu, and one for Sam Omatseye.
Thank you sir, Elder Ede, for spreading the word on this beautiful work.
