ONDAJE IJAGWU pays tribute to Bello, Journalist, Lawyer and Administrator at 65
As Mr Tunji Bello marks his 65th birthday on July 1, there is a natural temptation to measure his public life by the offices he has held, the policies he has championed or the regulatory milestones achieved under his leadership. Yet those who have worked most closely with him often tell a quieter story, one found in meetings, conversations and decisions that have gradually reshaped the culture of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). It is a story less about the exercise of power than about the judgement required to exercise it fairly.
When Bello resumed as Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in July 2024, he could easily have disappeared into the familiar rituals of a leadership transition: routine briefings, files awaiting signature and meetings with senior officials. Instead, before settling into his office, he walked through the Commission. He stopped in departments, greeted members of staff and introduced himself to the people who would be expected to translate policy into daily work. It was not a choreographed tour for photographers or a symbolic courtesy destined for the next day’s newspapers. For everyone who witnessed it, it was an unhurried effort to understand the institution through the people who animated it.
Only afterwards did he take his seat behind the executive desk. His first address to the staff reinforced the same impression. “I have been well received,” he said. “I am confident that I am in the midst of people who can accomplish more.” He spoke less about himself than about the Commission’s obligation to ordinary Nigerians.
“We need to expand our reach. Nigerians need to feel us. How can we be of assistance to the ordinary consumer? We need to do more market surveillance.”
Many chief executives spend their opening days defining authority. Bello appeared more interested in defining purpose. The emphasis was not on the office he had assumed but on the institution he believed the Commission should become. One that remained close enough to consumers and markets to respond with credibility.
At a recent meeting, the discussion had turned to staff transfers, one of those routine administrative matters. Operational needs had to be balanced. Managers pondered where officers should be deployed across the Commission’s network of zonal and state offices to maximise efficiency.
Then an unexpected question altered the tone of the discussion. “If someone has stayed for up to ten years in one of the Commission’s zonal offices,” Tunji Bello asked, “doesn’t that simply mean the staff must have built a family out there that should not be disrupted?”
For a moment, the conversation paused. The point was not that transfers should never happen. Public institutions cannot function without movement, and leadership sometimes requires difficult decisions. His intervention simply widened the frame through which the issue was being considered. Behind every transfer file was a family that had found its footing in a particular city, children settled into schools, spouses whose own careers had become rooted, ageing parents accustomed to familiar routines and communities that had slowly become home. The Commission’s operational needs remained important, but they were no longer the only consideration.
That brief exchange revealed something official communiqués seldom capture. Bello appeared to approach administration with the conviction that institutions are communities of people as much as systems of process. Efficiency mattered. So did fairness. Leadership required holding both in balance.
Management meetings came to reflect a culture in which ideas were tested, alternative opinions encouraged and disagreement treated as part of sound decision making rather than as a challenge to authority. Although the Executive Vice Chairman retained ultimate responsibility, colleagues recognised that outcomes were genuinely shaped by contributions made during discussions. People contribute more honestly when they know they are expected to think rather than merely agree. That culture of participation would become one of the defining features of Bello’s leadership.
Listening, however, is only the beginning of leadership. Institutions are ultimately judged by whether their decisions reflect the breadth of experience within them.
One of the quieter changes under Bello has been the steady widening of participation in the Commission’s internal governance. Heads of zonal and state offices now participate in management meetings, ensuring that operational realities from across Nigeria help to shape discussions at headquarters. Separate engagements between management and field leadership have also been introduced, creating a direct forum for practical challenges to be discussed without unnecessary bureaucratic layers. Distance from Abuja no longer necessarily means distance from decision-making.
The same philosophy has informed professional development. Local and overseas training opportunities are now distributed more broadly across the organisation, with officers from zonal and state offices participating alongside colleagues at headquarters. Younger officers have gained opportunities that previously appeared beyond reach, while experienced personnel continue to receive specialised development suited to their responsibilities.
The objective is not equal distribution for its own sake. It is the recognition that institutions grow stronger when knowledge and opportunity circulate widely.
Practical support has accompanied these structural changes. Operational vehicles have been provided, strengthening field activities, while increased operational funding has significantly enhanced the capacity of outstation offices. Institutional assignments have also been distributed more evenly across the Commission.
The same attentiveness extends to staff welfare. When the recent conflict in the Middle East drove up fuel prices and increased transportation costs, Bello approved the procurement of brand new staff buses to support employees’ daily commute.
These measures alleviated immediate hardship while providing longer-term support. They reflected an understanding that people are better able to serve institutions when institutions remain attentive to the practical burdens they carry into work.
That understanding became even more evident in moments beyond administration. When a member of staff lost a spouse, Bello led the management team on a condolence visit and remained personally present throughout events connected with the funeral. No regulation required such involvement. It simply reflected an understanding that institutions are communities whose responsibilities do not end where personal grief begins.
The same spirit was quietly visible during the Commission’s May Day celebration. Rather than remaining apart from the event, Bello sat among members of staff and visiting union officials, narrowing the customary distance between management and workforce.
The day’s most revealing moment came when a senior national union official reviewed the document prepared by the Commission’s union representatives. Expecting the familiar catalogue of complaints, he instead found acknowledgements of welfare improvements, administrative reforms and management’s responsiveness.
The significance lay not in the absence of disagreement, for every healthy institution has differences of opinion. It lay in the confidence that concerns are always heard, discussed and addressed.
Outside the Commission, it appears in engagement with markets, insistence on transparency and the pursuit of fair competition as a practical safeguard for ordinary Nigerians. The settings differ. The underlying instinct does not.
Public institutions are often judged by the visibility of their leaders. Their enduring strength, however, is more accurately measured by the confidence of the people who work within them. Do they believe they will be heard? Do they believe opportunities are genuinely open? Do they believe difficult decisions will be weighed carefully? Do they believe authority exists to strengthen the institution rather than merely to remind everyone where it resides? Those are questions no annual report can answer.
Yet they often determine whether institutions merely function or genuinely endure.
As Tunji Bello marks his 65th birthday, many will rightly assess his public life through the offices he has held, the policies he has advanced and the regulatory achievements recorded during his stewardship of the FCCPC. Those achievements deserve their place in the public record. There is, however, another measure. It is found in the culture a leader leaves behind.
Leadership often reveals itself in moments too small for headlines. A question asked before a transfer is approved; a decision to widen opportunity rather than preserve privilege, a visit to a grieving colleague after official duty might reasonably have ended, a conversation with market leaders before the first sanction is imposed. None of these moments changes a country overnight. Together, however, they change something just as important. They change the way people experience institutions.
Perhaps that is the true weight of fairness. Not that it is proclaimed, but that it is practised so consistently, in decisions both large and small, that it gradually becomes the culture itself. If that becomes the enduring legacy of Tunji Bello’s leadership, it will also be the finest tribute to a public life still in service, and a fitting reflection as he marks his 65th birthday.
Mr. Ijagwu is
Director, Corporate Affairs
Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission.
