Seventy (70) “Ọwẹwẹ” for Andy Ehanire @ 70! By Tony Erha

In present-day Nigeria, where the average life span of individuals is 50 years, it is, therefore, enchanting that one clocks three scores and ten – seventy (70) years. Seventy years of age is held as a unique landmark in diverse cultures, which the Holy Bible also sees as significant. Although age 70 appears in different contexts in the Bible, glorifying it, Proverbs 16:13 could be interpreted as;

“Gray hair is a crown of splendor: it is attained in the way of righteousness.”

To Sir Andrew O. Ehanire, who has attained 70 years of age, with his birthday event, holding on Saturday 2 May, 2026 in Benin City, the Edo State capital, it’s a magnificent celebration for a man of openness, industry and fertility.

To Andy’s Siamese wife, Benedicta Eweka-Ehanire, with Alex and Mimi, their beloved son and daughter, it is best wishes as their great ‘Daddy’ clocks this glorious age.

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Whilst schooling, I missed the opportunity of meeting Andy. I lived with an uncle on Atekha Street, off Second Circular Street, Benin City, and shared a common fence with his family’s sprawling residence. It doubled as a sales department for Raleigh bicycles and other high manufacturers’ products. A gesture that was magnanimous, his late father, Chief Ighodaro Ehanire, would allow us pluck from the exotic mango trees in his compound.

“I enjoy cooking at home and my wife loves eating” — Banky W

Later, Andy and I met Johnson Egbon, his relation, who lived in my house, and was one of the boys who frequented. Our regrets were that Andy was not around like some children of Ehanire, with whom we hobnobbed. He was mostly away in schools at Edo College, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria etc.

But the real pathway got crossed and had stuck with that of ‘Andy Ehanire’, as he is fondly called, since we met for the first time – very early in the new millennium. It was a coincidental meeting, which was also dramatic. It was at the all-green Lekki Conservation Centre of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), located on the Lekki/Ekpe highway, opposite the imposing headquarters of Chevron, the giant oil multinational company. He was at the waiting room, to meet Dr. Muhtari Aminu-Kano, who was NCF’s Executive Director.

His appointment was delayed with an impromptu meeting that I held with Aminu-Kano, Paddy Ezeala, then NCF’s Communications Manager, pertaining the publishing of NatureWatch, an environmental biased global magazine, sponsored by Chevron. I was on the editorial board of the publication by NCF, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and other worldwide conservation charities.

While going out, my gaze was concentrated on ‘Andy’, who was perusing some of the publications placed before him on a sitting table, to occupy him whilst he waited. Paddy Ezeala, my soulmate, who later passed on last year, and had maintained very close relationship with Andy, had drawn my attention to the ‘man waiting patiently’ to meet his boss, Aminu-Kano.

“Let them not waste this man’s time”, Ezeala protested, following which we both decided that he go back to remind the NCF’s boss about the man, who was awaiting him. We both had gossiped “that he was a very handsome man”. A readily urbane Aminu-Kano had dashed out of his office to lead Andy in, whilst I headed home, towards Obalende. I hadn’t gone far when Dr. Aminu-Kano called me on my GSM phone, in the period that Econet and smart communication was debuted in the country.

Getting back to his office, with Paddy, Dr. Aminu-Kano jovially introduced me “as the ubiquitous Comrade Tony Erha, the workaholic Edo man, who would have vanished away, if not for the mobile phone that arrested him” We all burst into a paroxysm of laughter. For the first time, it stuck me that Andy Ehanire was not only a patient man, but that he had a sense of making good humours. He was also cerebral.

It didn’t also get lost in me that Andy loved conservation and was willing to contribute immensely to it. His warm embrace with me as an Edo native and conservationist was catchy. He said he had read me at the Lagos Sheraton Hotel, from some publications brought there by the African Forest Elephant Conservation Group, a Europe based global NGO. It was the publications that navigated him to the NCF’s headquarters, and a rekindling interest in nature conservation.

That day, on leaving NCF, we rode in his car and chatted excitedly all through the long and chaotic drive to the Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, where he pressed my stopover for a sumptuous and expensive launch and drinks, which he had provided. I was determined on a continuous journey to the Guardian newspaper office at Oshodi.

Thereby, started a friendship that has lingered on and birthed ‘concrete actions’ alongside a ‘soul brother’, and forthcoming character!. Indeed, his contributions to conservation, tourism and leisure activities at local and global scales, have been immense. Today, his innovative thinking and efforts to bring back the Benin-Ogba Zoo and Nature Park (BENZOPA), had yielded the good dividends, where his enduring intervention had saved the famous enclave, from relentless poaching and ruination.

All along, we discuss and act decisively on projects based on humanitarianism, and nature conservation, raising the awareness in the country. He was also very keen on raising tourism/ecotourism activities in Nigeria and Edo State.

Andy Ehanire is a born and trained organizer, a deft handler of situations, particularly difficult ones, making him a crisis manager. He is also visionary. Then, he was disheartened hearing BENZOPA was logged by some power men, who wanted to grab its land for their private housing estates, where the Benin City urbanization had engulfed the enclave.

He singlehandedly moved to rescue BENZOPA, in the era of Chief Lucky Igbinedion, as governor of the state. A determined Ehanire had put his shrew negotiation skills into use, when he pulled out from difficulty, an enduring agreement to rescue BENZOPA.

On a rare visit to Dr. Samuel Osaigbovo Ogbemudia, the very governor, who established BENZOPA in the 1970s, he (Ogbemudia) was full of praises for Andy Ehanire, whom he said had “wiped away his tears for saving Ogba Zoo and Park, his brainchild, from poachers and land grabbers”.

The late two-time governor of the state, who is still much respected for his solid and pioneering development of the state, had assured me that “the Chief Ehanire’s son, who had come to the rescue of Ogba Zoo and Garden, should be a man of excellent performances, like his late father Chief Ighodaro Ehanire. He will turn the centre around to the use of the people”.

Indeed, Dr. Ogbemudia’s predictions had played out, with the innovativeness that has come to a BENZOPA, which continually ministers to the need of the old and young people and public institutions of Edo and beyond. This is not without the fact that BENZOPA, that witnesses the affronts of poachers and land grabbers, would have long sink into the oblivion, without the intervention of Ehanire and his firm.

Dr. Ogbemudia was also joyous that Ehanire was getting the supports of forestry and wildlife experts like Mr. Tony Oregbeme, late Pa Shokpeka (the snake charmer), who had assisted him to push BENZOPA to national and worldwide fame, which made Jomo Kenyatta, the late Kenya president, to donate wildlife and other materials to the centre.

A synergy with Ladi-Jemi Alade, a foremost tour and ecotourism operator in the country, had fired him on. Today, Ehanire stands tall in the promotion of tourism and leisure, being a great mover for the industries, with his pioneering examples at the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria (FTAN), and assiduous collaborations with some other national and global bodies on propagating zoos, gardens, nature parks and picnicking.

Help wish a happy and eventful 70th birthday and seventy gunshots salute (Ọwẹwẹ), to Sir Andy Ehanire, a naturalist and humanist, who is down to the earth, because he in agreement with simple things of the earth. Even though he is a son of the noble man, nobility has always been deep-seated in the home he came from!

■ Tony Erha, journalist and frontline Nigerian conservationist, writes from Abuja.