In this second part of my three-part reflection, I explore how my lifelong passion for culture, environmental stewardship, and nation-building has become deeply entwined with my personal journey of self-discovery. We continue by drawing from the rich perspective of my cousin, Mr. Onuorah Aligbe, whose reflections on my life’s journey offer not only personal insight but also a deeper lens into the values, convictions, and passions that have shaped my path over the decades.
Uncle Newton’s love for the Arts and the Nigerian culture was boundless. Every artist was his friend whose works he must collect. When he ran out of rooms in his house to display them, he built a Museum at the site of a house he had to pull down.
That house was fetching him extra income as a rented building. I asked him if he was going to be charging fees at the museum. He replied, “maybe, or maybe not.”
He clearly was not seeing it as it were and did not intend to have it become a commercial business. His motive was to teach us all how to preserve our arts and promote our artists. Today artists hold exhibitions at the museum and some others hold training sessions there as well. The fees they pay are not at all commensurate with a commercial venue.
At the age of 67, my Uncle decided to make a second trip alone across the Sahara.
With the belief that I might talk him out of it, seeing that his wife was at tenterhooks over this solo expedition, I asked him to reconsider. His response to me came in twofolds. Firstly, he told me he needed to convince himself that he actually drove across the Sahara alone in 1967. Secondly, he decided to coopt me into the planning to calm my nerves. The expedition was a success, and 5 years later he was ready for a third one, this time with five other volunteers. Though I was by this time accustomed to his idiosyncrasies and his quest for a sustainable environment through his NGO, FADE, I could not follow him on this third trip. I stayed behind as the head of Mission Control, tracking their every movement. Such were the details of his planning that would give anyone the confidence to join him. Kelechi Amadi Obi, an artist who had exhibited at the Museum in the past joined the team ten days before departure. At the meeting we held to evaluate his request and his preparedness, he declared that the plan he had seen on the ground had removed every ounce of doubt in his mind and was prepared to ride in the booth of the second SUV if we had no space for him. We added a third SUV to accommodate him.
Before living for the second solo expedition across the Sahara, he established a NonGovernmental Organization called FADE, Fight against Desert Encroachment. This has been the vehicle in his crusade for environmental sustainability. Over the years, and deriving from the successes of the NGO, state governments in Nigeria and some African governments have partnered with him on many environmental projects. He is an Environmental Ambassador for the Lagos State Government. He established the Tree planting competition among secondary schools in Kano State. He established the Makoda Forest programme in Kano State to prove to the people that arable lands can be recovered from the desert. He started the Desert Warrior Reality Show in collaboration with Lagos State and the National Government of the Republic of Niger. He has partnered with MTN Ltd on tree-planting Campaigns.
From a little casually planned drive across the Sahara, Dr Newton Jibunoh created a movement that became a pioneer in a privately driven advocacy platform for climate change issues of our time in Nigeria. At various times he had been a guest of the United States Government, the People’s Republic of China, Israel, and the Desert Research Institute in Bonn, Germany to propagate his experiences and acquire new techniques in his crusade for a sustainable environment.
On my 85th birthday my friend and colleague from London Mr. Akin Olukiran wrote the following column: Fast forward ten years later to 1st January 2023, Dr Newton Jibunoh, the Desert Conqueror, has the enviable grace to repeat that great feat as he turns 85, increasing the number of trees to be planted by ten. Not many people have this kind of opportunity that our own Dr Jibunoh has been providentially blessed with. It is as though, as the 75 trees planted in Lagos 10 years ago are blossoming, so is Dr Jibunoh, receiving a new level of energy and youthfulness, matched with an unquenchable zeal for an innovative approach to his environmental campaigns. It was after his 75th birthday and the planting of 75 trees that Dr Jibunoh conceived the idea of birthing the Nelson Mandela Garden of 95 Trees project in Asaba, his home state, where he had 95 trees planted in honor of the great Madiba to celebrate his 95th birthday. And so it was, that on 18th July 2013, in his steadfast and committed nature, 95 trees were planted in Asaba by notable guests, including the grandson of our iconic Mandela himself, Ndaba Mandela and one of his granddaughters.
Located within the Asaba international airport perimeters, the Nelson Mandela Gardens and Parks will form the epicenter of the 85th birthday tree-planting event.
An acclaimed pacesetter, it gladdened his heart when we discovered that shortly after his emblematic tree-planting event in Lagos ten years ago, it became fashionable among the elite, especially of Lagos, to mark their birthdays with tree planting. I have no doubt that this is going to have the same contagious effect as it did in Lagos, as Deltans would be encouraged to plant trees to mark their special days; thereby unwittingly saving our fragile planet from climate change effects. A man with the Midas touch, in his unrelenting commitment to excellence, he has turned the Mandela Gardens and Parks in Asaba into a resoundingly successful, world-class, tourist center in the capital of Delta State.
I never knew that one could successfully and comfortably take on a new profession after the very ripe age of 80, especially one that tasks the brain and requires a lot of personal discipline to meet strict deadlines and rigors of research materials. After becoming an octogenarian five years ago, Dr Jibunoh saw the print media as a veritable channel to carry his environmental campaign to people’s homes and reach a greater number of people every week. He started a weekly column in the reputable Sun newspaper, writing every Thursday on subjects relating to the environment and national development in general. I remember when he first mooted the idea of writing with me, I scoffed and told him it was an arduous task that even I, as a young man, could not commit myself to, packing it up after three months of being a columnist.
To my admiration and indeed, pleasant surprise, five years on, and over 200 articles and still counting, the indefatigable Dr Jibunoh has defied all odds and taken on a new profession of journalism and thriving in it. I, like thousands of others, look forward to his weekly articles which are informative, fearlessly bold, full of history, and wisdom and laced with light humor. Dr Jibunoh never ceases to amaze me as he constantly reinvents himself and is refreshingly sanguine about the future of Nigeria, ceaselessly proffering solutions to our myriad of challenges. He is so focused on leaving this world better place for his children’s children and by extension, the rest of humanity that he is not prepared to stop spreading the message on the environment. The Scripture says that a good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children (Prov. 13:22). The greatest inheritance he wishes to leave behind is a better world that his children’s children can share with the rest of humanity, is sustainable and addresses the alarming growth in the size of the Sahara Desert and its attendant environmental, social and economic consequences.
