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Joseph Wayas was our icon, pathfinder, trailblazer – Ndoma-Egba
Erstwhile Senate Leader, Distinguished Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, SAN, has paid glowing tribute to the late former Senate President, Dr. Joseph Wayas, describing him as a great leader who held the position of number-three citizen of the country with dignity and maturity despite his young age at the time.
The late Wayas, a Cross Riverian, born on May 21, 1941, was the Senate President in the second republic between 1979 and 1983 during the reign of the late Alhaji Shehu Shagari as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He died on November 30, 2021 at age 80, but his burial was delayed till now.
Ndoma-Egba, in a special tribute to the late Second Republic Senate President presented at the Night of Tributes held in Calabar, Cross River State capital, said: “Dr. Wayas was our icon, our pathfinder and our trailblazer. He demonstrated our possibilities as Cross Riverians, as people from the South-South geopolitical zone and the Nigerian ethnic minorities in the Nigerian Project. He found our space in Nigeria’s history and politics, and defined that space. He was 31 years old when he became Commissioner for Transport in the old Cross River State (now Cross River and Akwa Ibom State) and at the age of 38 he was elected President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria when Nigeria returned to democracy in 1979, in the second republic. He made history as the first to be re-elected as Senate President when he returned to the Senate in 1983. He acted as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, albeit, for sixteen days in 1983 when the then Vice President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme travelled out of the country being the first Senate President to so act, making history yet again.
“In spite of his youth Dr. Wayas carried his office with maturity, dignity, style, steeze and panache. He was a polyglot who spoke Ibo, Yoruba, Hausa, Efik, Ibibio, Tiv, and his native Basang fluently. I was a witness to his proficiency in these languages. I am told he spoke many more, including foreign languages. He loved life and lived it to the fullest. He fitted easily with kings as he did with commoners. He had the common touch and spoke the language of every generation.
“Young as he was at the time, he managed a rather complex Second Republic Senate with dexterity. His National Party of Nigeria had thirty six of the ninety-five Senate seats and lacked majority in the Senate. It had to go into a shaky alliance with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s Nigerian People’s Party, NPP.
“Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, with twenty-eight seats was the official opposition and its leader was a much older, stoic and principled Senator Jonathan Odebiyi who was always in Dr. Wayas’s entourage whenever he travelled abroad. When I asked him why this was so, his answer was ‘befriend those who are likely to give you trouble and keep them within sight’.
“On a personal note, he gave me unfettered access to himself in spite of his high office and tried to expose me early politically. Left to him I should have taken political office earlier than I did. He always meant well for me.
“Dr. Wayas’s life is a challenge to today’s youth to dream big and to take on the world. His life is a change to today’s minorities that we can sit at the national table. It is fitting that he is being buried when a son of the South-South Region is Senate President, forty-five years later, Senator Godswill Akpabio, this coincidence is significant. You must take up the mantle of our fallen hero to unify and develop the zone. Let me immediately use this opportunity to personally thank you and your colleagues of the 10th Senate for your roles in bringing this ceremony about. God bless you all. God bless Senator Prince Bassey Otu, Governor of Cross River State for taking the lead to bring the saga of Dr. Wayas’s burial to a happy close and ending our collective anxiety. God will reward you for this Labour of love.
“Thank God he is finally going to rest. That it has taken this long for him to be buried, gives us all, reason to ponder about life, and ponder about dying and death. This call is even more strident for those in power today.
“May the soul of Dr. Joseph Wayas GCON find eternal rest in the bosom of the Almighty whom he faithfully served while on this mortal plane by his life of love, service and sacrifice to family, community, country, humanity and God.
“May he rest in peace.”
