By Chris Osa Nehikhare | Publisher, From My Window

After a short break, FROM MY WINDOW: EDO ICONS returns  and we could not have chosen a more remarkable personality with whom to begin this new chapter.

On September 11, 2026, His Excellency, Sir Chief Dr Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion, CFR, the Esama of Benin, turns 92.

To celebrate this extraordinary milestone, From My Window has produced a Special Magazine Edition dedicated to the life, accomplishments, generosity, adventures and enduring legacy of the Esama.

But this is not just another biography.

Inside are the Esama Stories, some personal, some fascinating, some revealing. Stories that offer another window into the man behind the name.

Here is one of them…

The Man. The Myth. The Legend. 1

THE MAN BEHIND THE NAME

Official biographies record dates.

People preserve stories.

And sometimes a story reveals more about personality than an entire chronology.

“EXEMPTION”

The Legend Called “Exemption”

Every generation creates its own legends.

Sometimes they are born from extraordinary achievements.

Sometimes from stories told around dinner tables.

Sometimes from nicknames whose origins become almost as mysterious as the people who bear them.

Growing up in Benin, one nickname seemed to follow Chief Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion everywhere.

“Exemption.”

As children, we never really understood where it came from.

We simply accepted that it belonged to him.

To many of us, it sounded almost mythical.

If adults called him “Exemption,” then he must have been a man unlike everyone else.

Children have a remarkable way of measuring greatness. Not by balance sheets, titles or awards. But by the stories adults tell when they think children are not listening.

Long before many of us understood the scale of his business empire or his contributions to education, we already knew one thing:
There was a man called Exemption.

And somehow, everyone knew who that was.

Years later, as we came to understand his life’s work, the nickname took on an entirely different meaning.

The legend had become history.

When the Esama Drove By:

Every generation has its own symbols of success.

For those of us who grew up in Benin in the 1970s and 1980s, one of those symbols was the Esama’s motorcade.

Whenever word spread that “Esama is coming,” people looked up.

Children especially.

Not because we understood business.

Not because we knew anything about investments or corporate empires.

We looked because we wanted to see the latest car.

In those days, if Chief Gabriel Osawaru Igbinedion arrived in a particular model of Mercedes-Benz or another luxury vehicle, many of us assumed that was the newest automobile in the world.

The Esama seemed always to be one step ahead.

Then there were the number plates.

As children, we were fascinated by the single-digit registration numbers. We never understood how they were allocated; we simply believed they were reserved for very important people.

Whenever the Esama’s car glided past carrying one of those single-digit plates, it reinforced what many of us already believed—that this was no ordinary man.

Looking back today, I smile at those childhood assumptions.

We measured greatness by cars and number plates because those were the things we could see.

Only much later did we come to understand that the real measure of the man was never the vehicle he drove.

It was the institutions he built.

And that is only a glimpse.

There is much more inside the 92nd Birthday Special Edition — photographs, history, enterprise, education, philanthropy, family, friendship and the remarkable journey of a man whose footprints can be found across generations.

Edo Icons is back.
Volume Two begins with the Esama.

Read the complete magazine at here