Today, February 4, 2020, I honor the memory of my late father, Ambassador Abel Ibude Guobadia, Ph.D, OFR who transitioned to glory on February 4, 2011.
Dr. Abel Guobadia graduated Ph.D in Physics from the University of Pittsburgh in 1966. He was Executive Secretary of Nigeria’s National Universities Commission (NUC) in the early 1980s. He was Bendel State Commissioner of Education and later on, Commissioner of Finance and Economic Planning. He was Nigeria’s first ambassador to South Korea in 1987. He was appointed Chairman of Nigeria’s electoral commission (INEC) in 2000 and held the position until the end of his tenure in 2005. Dr. Guobadia was Pro-Chancellor of Bendel State University Ekpoma, and Chairman/Member of many boards, including New Nigeria Bank (NNB), WAEC, JAMB, Standard Organization of Nigeria (SON), and President of Science Teachers Association of Nigeria (STAN) for over 5 years.
Of all the offices Dr. Guobadia held, the office he performed in best was that of Husband and Father. We called him Super Dad and he was married to my mother for over 50 years.
A few years after Dr. Guobadia retired from INEC and public life, he summoned us his four children (I am the third) and declared:
I have no foreign account.
I do not have property abroad.
I do not have property in Lagos or Abuja.
The only properties (four in number) that I have are all located in Benin.
When dad died in 2011, we found files containing receipts of the first duplex he built and completed in the early 70s with the aid of a bank loan and the Udoji award. Upon all the public offices dad held, the best car he ever owned in his lifetime was a used (secondhand) Volvo 244DL.
Dad, your humility and love for people was second to none! You spent the last years of your life championing Women’s Health through the NGO, WHARC.
Your legacy endures!
On behalf of my older brothers, Ibude Guobadia and Imasogie Guobadia, and my younger sister Itohan Guobadia Ibuno, I say, Continue Super Daddy to rest in perpetual peace!
Idemudia Guobadia