VICE ADMIRAL USMAN OYIBE JIBRIN, RTD.: SERVICE, LEGACY AND THE PARADOX OF IGALA POLITICAL MEMORY
A Poetic Reflection on Service, Institutional Development and Political Recognition
By Amb. Valentine Opaluwa Ejeh, PhD Abuja
Introduction
There are moments when an ordinary conversation unexpectedly opens a window into history. Such moments remind us that history does not always announce itself with trumpets. Sometimes it arrives quietly, in the sitting room of an old friend, in the recollection of a retired officer, or in a telephone conversation between men whose lives have been woven into the story of Nigeria.
It was one such moment that recently brought me into deeper reflection on Vice Admiral Usman Oyibe Jibrin, Rtd., former Chief of Naval Staff of Nigeria.
I had gone to see my kinsman, Commodore Usman Ejembi, Rtd., former Managing Director of AgroMillers, Makurdi, and a distinguished naval officer whose own career represents an important chapter in the story of the Igala and Idoma peoples in the Nigerian Armed Forces.
Our meeting was principally about family matters concerning Akogu Omaga, the progenitor of the Onu Egume stool, and our ancestral homestead at Igalaogba, Idah. But, as often happens when people with long memories sit together, one story led to another.
Commodore Ejembi spoke about his military career, his encounters with distinguished officers, including the late Admiral Ibrahim Ogohi, former Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ekoja, among others and the experiences of officers who undertook foreign assignments during the formative years of Nigeria’s military professionalism.
Then the name Usman Jibrin entered our conversation.
I told Commodore Ejembi that I knew Vice Admiral Jibrin and had a relationship with him as an Igala man. I also told him that I intended to contact the Admiral concerning a book project we had already commenced.
I called him.
When I told him I was with Commodore Ejembi, he responded with a question that immediately revealed the depth of their relationship:
“Do you know who he is to me?”
I handed the phone to Commodore Ejembi.
What followed was a conversation between two retired naval officers whose voices carried decades of shared memories. I could not hear every word because the telephone was not on speaker, but I heard enough to learn something that made me pause.
The discussion turned to the Army battalion around Aji Ogidibeje Junction near Agbeji.
From the account shared during the conversation, I learnt that Vice Admiral Jibrin had been instrumental in advocating for the establishment of the military formation years earlier and had pressed the then Chief of Army Staff, General Tukur Buratai, to ensure its development and commencement. Funding constraints reportedly delayed the implementation. The project subsequently received renewed attention under the leadership of General Waidi Shaibu.
I mention this not merely because of the battalion itself, but because of what the story represents.
There are people whose contributions to development are visible because their names appear on plaques and commissioning programmes. There are others whose contributions remain hidden in correspondence, conversations, institutional memories and the recollections of those who were there.
Vice Admiral Jibrin appears to belong, in many respects, to the latter category.
THE QUIET ARCHITECT OF INSTITUTIONAL PRESENCE
My conversation with the Admiral afterwards reminded me that there are other institutional developments in Kogi State with which his name has been associated, including the strengthening of naval presence in Lokoja and Idah and the Naval Secondary School at Okura in Dekina Local Government Area.
These interventions deserve to be understood beyond their physical structures.
A military formation is not merely a collection of buildings and uniforms.
It brings security.
It generates economic activity.
It attracts professionals.
It creates opportunities.
It connects communities to national institutions.
And sometimes, it changes the meaning of a place altogether.
This is why development must be understood not only through the people who eventually commission projects but also through those who first conceived, advocated and fought for them.
There is a profound difference between cutting a ribbon and planting an idea.
The person who commissions an institution may receive the applause. But the person who first fought for its establishment may remain unknown.
History must therefore learn to distinguish between inauguration and origin.
Vice Admiral Jibrin’s career demonstrates another important truth: national service and attachment to one’s homeland need not be contradictory.
He served Nigeria at the highest professional levels of the Nigerian Navy. He became the 21st Chief of Naval Staff, serving from January 2014 to July 2015.
But service to Nigeria did not erase his identity as an Igala son.
Indeed, the finest expression of patriotism may be the ability to carry one’s roots into national service without compromising the larger national interest.
FROM THE SEA TO THE POLITICAL ARENA
Perhaps the most fascinating chapter of Vice Admiral Jibrin’s story is his transition from military service into democratic politics.
Having reached the summit of his naval career, he ventured into the political arena and sought to serve Kogi State as governor.
His political aspiration was not merely the ambition of an ordinary politician. It came after decades of professional experience, national exposure, strategic responsibilities and interaction with the highest levels of government.
Public records confirm that he entered the Kogi governorship contest, including his 2019 bid under the All Progressives Congress. At the time, he described his aspiration as an effort to rescue Kogi from maladministration and emphasised the need for courageous leadership.
But politics has its own arithmetic.
And sometimes politics does not calculate competence in the same way history does.
This is where the story becomes painful for me as an Igala man.
THE PARADOX OF IGALA POLITICAL MEMORY
During the political contests, many Igala people did not rally behind Vice Admiral Jibrin.
Instead, significant support went to other political actors, particularly Hon. Muritala Ajaka during the later contest.
Supporters of Ajaka had their own reasons. Some pointed to immediate interventions in communities—solar projects, transformers, financial assistance and other visible forms of support.
Those things are not necessarily insignificant.
Communities have genuine needs, and leaders who respond to those needs deserve recognition.
But the question I continue to ask is:
Should immediate material assistance be the principal measure by which a people choose its leaders?
A transformer can illuminate a community.
But a visionary government can illuminate a generation.
A solar project can brighten a village.
But institutional development can transform an entire region.
A political gift can solve today’s problem.
But competent leadership can create systems that prevent tomorrow’s problem.
This is the distinction between the politics of immediate relief and the politics of enduring transformation.
My argument at the time was that the Igala people should examine candidates beyond what they could distribute during a campaign. We should consider professional competence, experience, national networks, strategic understanding, administrative capacity, character and the ability to attract institutions and investment.
I wrote at the time in support of Vice Admiral Jibrin because I believed that his experience offered Kogi a different model of leadership.
Whether one agreed with that position or not, the question remains relevant:
What exactly should a people look for when choosing leadership?
WHEN A PEOPLE FAIL TO RECOGNISE ITS ASSETS
This is perhaps the deepest lesson in the story.
Every society possesses human capital.
Some people possess money.
Others possess political structures.
Some possess technical knowledge.
Others possess institutional relationships.
Some possess the ability to mobilise crowds.
Others possess the ability to build institutions.
The wisdom of a people lies in knowing how to combine these different assets for collective advancement.
The tragedy begins when a society recognises only the most immediately visible asset.
If we reward only money, politicians will learn to bring money.
If we reward only gifts, politicians will compete through gifts.
If we reward institutions, competence and vision, politicians will be compelled to develop those qualities.
Politics is therefore an educational system.
The electorate teaches politicians what it values by what it rewards.
This is why the story of Vice Admiral Jibrin should not be reduced to whether he won or lost an election.
The larger issue is how the Igala nation evaluates leadership.
SERVICE BEYOND THE UNIFORM
There is something poetic about an Igala man who spent his professional life on the sea and later sought to serve his people on land.
The river has always been part of the Igala story.
The Niger and Benue have carried our ancestors, traders, warriors and travellers.
Perhaps it was fitting that one of our sons would rise through the Nigerian Navy and eventually command the institution responsible for defending the nation’s maritime interests.
Vice Admiral Jibrin’s journey from the waters of the Nigerian Navy to the political waters of Kogi State represents two different forms of service.
One wore a uniform.
The other sought a democratic mandate.
The uniform eventually came off.
The political contest eventually ended.
But service, if genuine, does not end with either.
It survives through institutions.
It survives through people.
It survives through opportunities created for others.
And it survives through memory.
HISTORY MUST REMEMBER THE QUIET CONTRIBUTORS
My encounter with Commodore Ejembi reminded me of something important: many of the people who help build Nigeria’s institutions may never receive adequate public recognition.
There are those who make the phone call.
There are those who write the letter.
There are those who persuade a minister.
There are those who speak to a service chief.
There are those who quietly insist that their community should not be forgotten.
Years later, people may see only the completed project.
They may never know who fought for it.
That is why history must preserve conversations like the one I overheard between two retired naval officers.
Because sometimes, an apparently ordinary conversation reveals the hidden architecture of development.
A CALL TO THE IGALA CONSCIENCE
The story of Vice Admiral Usman Oyibe Jibrin should therefore become more than a story about one man’s political journey.
It should become a mirror through which we examine ourselves.
Why do we sometimes fail to recognise our strongest assets?
Why do we confuse temporary generosity with enduring capacity?
Why do we celebrate political victory more than developmental possibility?
Why do we remember what a politician distributed but forget what an administrator built?
These questions are uncomfortable.
But societies do not mature by asking comfortable questions.
The Igala nation has produced military officers, academics, administrators, judges, diplomats, entrepreneurs and political leaders of considerable ability.
Our challenge is not necessarily the absence of talent.
It is our ability to recognise, organise and deploy that talent for collective advancement.
We must therefore move from:
Who gave us what?
to:
Who can build what?
From personality to institution.
From patronage to policy.
From temporary gratification to generational transformation.
From electoral excitement to historical responsibility.
THE LEGACY THAT REMAINS
When I left Commodore Ejembi’s presence, I carried with me much more than the family discussion that had brought me there.
I carried a question about memory.
I carried a question about leadership.
I carried a question about gratitude.
And I carried a renewed reflection on Vice Admiral Usman Oyibe Jibrin.
The Navy may have been his professional home.
The nation was his larger constituency.
But Kogi and the Igala people remained part of his identity.
Perhaps the true measure of a public servant is not the number of offices he occupies, nor the number of elections he wins.
It is the footprint he leaves behind.
The institutions.
The opportunities.
The relationships.
The ideas.
The possibilities.
The lives touched.
The roads opened for those who come after him.
The sea does not preserve the footprints of the sailor.
The river does not preserve the footprints of the traveller.
But both carry the memory of movement.
So it is with service.
The uniform is eventually folded away.
The office passes to another.
The campaign ends.
The ballot produces its verdict.
But institutions remain.
And generations inherit what individuals fought to create.
That, perhaps, is the deepest lesson of Vice Admiral Usman Oyibe Jibrin’s journey.
A man may lose an election without losing his place in history.
A people may fail to recognise a contribution when it is made, but history may eventually return to retrieve it.
And perhaps the greatest responsibility before the Igala nation is to learn to recognise its builders before they become monuments.
For the greatest gift a leader can give his people is not always what can be held in the hand.
Sometimes it is an institution.
Sometimes it is an opportunity.
Sometimes it is a connection.
Sometimes it is a vision.
And sometimes it is the courage to insist that tomorrow must be better than today.
Vice Admiral Usman Oyibe Jibrin, Rtd., therefore deserves to be remembered not only for the rank he attained, but for the possibilities his journey represents: the possibility of an Igala son rising to the highest professional levels of the Nigerian Navy, carrying his people’s aspirations into national service, and seeking, even after military retirement, another avenue through which to serve.
The story is not simply about an Admiral.
It is about service, memory, missed opportunities and the responsibility of a people to recognise value when history places it before them.
