On Friday January 23, 2015 was investiture of Samuel
Oghale Oboh as the 76th President of the prestigious Royal Architectural
Institute of Canada, which effectively placed a Nigerian at the
pinnacle of the profession of architecture in Canada. It was a
history-making event on many fronts for Nigeria. And for Africa.
Sometime in October 2014, an email popped up in my inbox from the
Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC). Once I saw RAIC in the
heading, I moved on to the next email. I didn’t think there was any
reason for RAIC to write me. I am not an architect and have not had
anything to do professionally with any member of that professional body
in all my years in Canada. Besides, I am used to receiving emails from
NASA, the Pentagon, the US Treasury, and the British Prime Minister
notifying me that I have won millions of dollars in research grants.
Will I please submit my account details? I concluded that somebody in
the 419 community was probably using RAIC to announce to me that I had
won millions.
The story changed when a colleague and close brother of mine, Tope
Oriola, a Professor at the University of Alberta, sent word that he was
coming to Ottawa. My brother, Nduka Otiono, a Carleton colleague who is a
Professor at our Institute of African Studies, quickly suggested that
we put Tope Oriola’s Ottawa visit to productive use by organizing a
panel on Boko Haram with all three of us, Nigerian academics in Canada,
as speakers. Excellent idea! We started working on the panel which
Carleton’s Institute of African Studies agreed to host at very short
notice. But why was Tope Oriola coming to Ottawa in the first place?
Tope announced that he was coming to attend the investiture of an
Edmonton-based Nigerian architect who was going to become the 76th
President of the Royal Architectural Society of Canada. RAIC? That’s
when I remembered vaguely the email I had received from them back in
October. I hurried to my inbox, praying and hoping that I had not
deleted the said email!
Phew! It was still there. What I had thought was the usual 419 email
turned out to be a formal email from the Executive Director of RAIC
inviting me to attend the event as one of the Nigerians Mr. Oboh had
instructed them to invite. Wait a minute – a Nigerian was going to
become the President of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada?
Now, my head is swelling with national pride. I was particularly pleased
because I did not know Mr. Oboh and had never met him yet he submitted
my name and requested that I be invited.
Notice that I am deliberately
not calling him a Nigerian-Canadian. Apologies to my Canadian
compatriots but we have to claim this one 100% for Mr. Oboh’s Nigerian
roots because this sort of extraordinarily good news is not easy to come
by in one’s desperate efforts to punctuate the increasingly stable
international image of Nigeria as Boko Haram and corruption. Besides,
whenever immigrants with hyphenated identities don’t turn out well, the
media in the West always places the emphasis on the third world side of
that hyphenated identity. That side should therefore be able to claim
the victories. Fair is fair.
However, I hesitate to celebrate Mr. Oboh’s success as an exclusive
Nigerian narrative. It is also a biggie for Africa. Accession to
membership of Professional bodies for immigrants in Euro-America is the
equivalent of two elephants trying to squeeze through the eye of a
single needle at the same time.
Every year, they arrive from Nigeria,
Ghana, Sierra Leone, Kenya, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and
other ex-colonial, neocolonized backwaters of the global south. They are
medical doctors, pharmacists, engineers, lawyers, architects,
accountants, dentists, etc. They are the best brains in their countries
of origin.
They graduated on top of their classes and cleared all the
professional examinations and requirements of the appropriate
professional bodies regulating practice and standards in their
countries. Then they arrive in Canada, the United States, Britain,
Australia, Germany, and the professional bodies of their professions in
these Western countries take one look at their third world
qualifications and dismiss them contemptuously.
The lucky ones among
them get to start their new immigrant lives in the West by driving
taxis. Be careful how you talk to that Nigerian, Indian, or Kenyan taxi
driver who drives you to your hotel from the airport in Toronto or
Chicago.
Chances are he is a medical doctor, pharmacist, lawyer, or
architect who can’t get through the door of the professional body
regulating his profession in Canada or the United States.
This is the context in which to situate and engage Mr. Samuel Oghale
Oboh’s phenomenal rise in the circuitries of the architecture profession
in Canada. To have passed his Canadian exams, practiced, and risen
steadily all the way to the Presidency of the body in charge of the
profession of architecture in Canada is a feat for which we must
congratulate and celebrate this great Nigerian. His biography is an
essay in brilliance, dedication, and towering achievements. Before
coming to conquer his profession in Canada, he had had brilliant and
exceptional professional spells in Botswana and South Africa. Oh, did I
forget that the 2015 President of the Royal Architectural Society of
Canada was born in 1971? This is a truly inspirational story that we
must spread to our youths in schools of architecture throughout Nigeria.
And if you are in the Nigerian government reading this, you know what
to do. You guys are often totally clueless about how to use our
country’s best assets. Mr. Oboh has many building designs to his credit
in the Western world. This is the time for the government of his
Fatherland to think of creative ways in which to get him to invest his
talent, genius, and expertise in the service of the built space in
Nigeria. Use this shon of the shoil.
The investiture ceremony was everything you would imagine. The crème
de la crème of the architectural profession in Canada was there. Members
of Canada’s parliament were present. The American Ambassador to Canada
was present. Distinguished Nigerians came from all over Canada and the
United States to celebrate this worthy son of ours.
The keynote speech
was delivered by the great Canadian novelist, public intellectual,
essayist, and President of PEN International, Paul Ralston Saul. And
that, for me, sums up the achievement of Samuel Oghale Oboh. To have a
global cultural figure of Ralston Saul’s standing in a room to celebrate
a Nigerian success. Now, that is something.
The body of Samuel Oghale Oboh, I salute you.
You have done well.
You have made Nigeria proud.
Some outstanding works by Samuel Oghale Oboh
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