Uzamat Akinbile-Yussuf is the immediate past Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture in Lagos State. She served as Commissioner in charge of four different ministries between 2015 and 2023. The trained pharmacist cum industrialist, who will clock 50 later this month, spoke with KUNLE AKINRINADE about how growing up as a teenager among older male siblings and her disciplinarian mother’s grooming helped her to navigate politics and public office.
Looking back to the beginning and seeing what you have achieved so far, would you say you are fulfilled?
Looking back and seeing how far one has gone in life and the place where one started, it is all glory to God for what He has done in my life for over 49 years. It is marvelous. I came from a very humble background; from a royal lineage and a disciplined background. I always tell people that when you come from a humble background and you are disciplined, you have got the best to start off your life with.
My late mother of blessed memory was a very tough woman. I happened to be the first daughter with five senior guys. You can imagine when you now have a tough woman with five senior brothers. It was not fun. That is just it. The man who would have showered all that love and given me the best of childhood, death cut his life short. He died so early. I was about 12 years old when I lost my father. So, life became another thing because my mother would not mind me.
But to the glory of God, I appreciate the two of them. My mother made me to be the strong, independent woman which I am enjoying today because of the kind of training she gave to me. May her gentle soul continue to rest in peace. That has enabled me to train my children in the same manner.
I realise now that the way my father pampered me, if had grown up that way, I might not have been who I am today. My father showed me love; he pampered me, which I cherish. I would have become a spoilt child if the man had not passed away, because he saw me as his own mother, and he transferred that love to me that nobody could touch, pinch, or do anything to me. He addressed me like his own personal princess. So, I had a special place in my father’s heart. That made my mum to be so jealous of me thinking that it is this girl who owned everything.
I shared everything at home before my father passed on. If I didn’t give you, then it was your ‘wahala’. But my mother was able to bring the best out of my life. She shaped me, unlike my father who tried to pamper me.
How about your foray into business?
The business aspect of my life is from my mother. She was a trader, and she taught me how to be an independent woman. She encouraged me not to get any paid job in my life; to work and work anddepend on my own strength. That was what my mother used to tell all of us.
I came from a polygamous home and I do not see anything wrong with polygamy, maybe because I loved my father. I think I enjoyed the life we used to live together with my step-siblings. I didn’t see anything wrong with each other. We love ourselves. I can’t remember any time my father or my mother, or my stepmother had issues that concerned us. So, we lived in a very large family. We lived in our own house and everybody lived together. I enjoyed my growing up days. I lived with my family, all of us sleeping in the sitting room. We played together, forgot everything and slept there while playing. So, I grew up in a very large family.
At the same time, when it comes to religion, we don’t discriminate in my house. Whether you are a Christian or a Muslim, it is none of anybody’s problem. My mother was a Christian, my father was a Muslim. We never forced anybody to go to the mosque. Whichever religion you chose was your own decision. Just be true to yourself and be kind to people in the community. So, religion was not a problem. My mother was Christian until later in her life when she chose to become a Muslim. In fact by the time she chose to become a Muslim, her husband had passed on. So, it is not as if the man made her to become a Muslim.
We all chose the way we wanted to live our lives. I chose to be a Muslim. In fact, when I was with her, we were going to church together. Even when I was in the University of Ibadan for my first degree, I was going to church until later in life when I decided that I would not go to church again; I wanted to understand more about Islam. It was willingly that I became a conscious Muslim.
How many are you in the family?
My father had 13 of us, and to the glory of God, we are all together. We love ourselves. Even when I was in office, you see them come and I will say, ‘I don’t have time for you. The person will say, ‘Okay, I will see you later.’ None of them said she was doing that because she was a commissioner. They didn’t see me as a commissioner then; they just see me as their sister, which I appreciate and enjoy so very much. We respect each other’s decision and value each other, my mother’s family too.
My mother is from the large Omisore family in Ile Ife. She was a very tough woman. That family, many of them are very tough, both from my mother’s and father’s side. On my father’s side too, we are from the ruling house in Ijebu Ode. I enjoy the royalty in me, and I give God the glory. And that spur me into so many other things in life. So, growing up, I think I will appreciate God that I got the best from my family, and I thank God for that.
What were the thorns in the course of your journey so far?
There have been so many thorns, especially when I lost my father. It was like the walls wanted to crumble on me. He was my pillar of support in life. I could not imagine life without my loving father; the world turned against me because I used to get everything from him. The man passed away when I was still in secondary school. We were eight from my mother to take care of, and it became very tough. I should have dropped out of school when the man passed on, but because I promised my father that I would make sure that I graduated from the university, I think I was the first daughter of my father that actually went to the university.
There was a time when there was an issue in my school, and my teacher called him. He came to visit me in school. My teacher reported me to him that I was not serious. He felt disappointed, but I promised him that I would graduate from the university. So, that was echoing in my head, that I promised my father that I was going to be a university graduate. I decided that whatever it was going to cost me to be a university graduate, I must achieve it. Yet, it was very tough. Nobody to pay your school fees, you needed to be running from one place to another to get your school fees, and so on.
When I sat my first WAEC and I did not pass, my mother told me there was no need to go to school if I was not serious. I just packed my things, left the house and came to Ibadan to stay with a friend. I started looking for opportunities to enroll for WAEC and JAMB. So, I left the house, came to Ibadan, and I was able to pass WAEC and JAMB before I returned to my mother. It was when I was admitted into the university, because I said I was not going to be that trader she wanted to force me to become.
She wanted me to be a trader; not that she had anything against going to school but because of the finance, so that I could, through trading, assist in training others. I said I was not going to be the sacrificial lamb for others to excel; I would rather find my own feet. So, I just left to pursue my own dream and aspiration. And what was my dream? I just wanted to be a graduate.
So, I left the house at a very young age. I got admitted into the University of Ibadan, but I was first given Biochemistry which was not the course of my choice. I tried JAMB again and again. I just wanted to be a pharmacist. I never wanted to be a biochemist. That is just who I am. Whatever I want to get, I don’t look at the challenges. I need to make sure that I get what I want, unless I am not interested in that particular thing. I don’t believe that there is a challenge you cannot overcome, unless you don’t have the strength to go further. I always tell my young people that nothing good comes easy. So, I love to struggle to get whatever I want.
So, you finished your course as a biochemist?
I did not finish as a biochemist. I left when I got married. I needed to relocate, and at that time, I had got admission into the University of Lagos to study Pharmacy. There was no need for me to stay back. The same year I got married was the same year I got admission to study Pharmacy.
How did you cope with being newly married and your study as a new student?
It was a tough one, I can tell you. But when you are determined, you will succeed. I was able to combine both, and here I am today as a proud pharmacist, and a proud mother.
Was there any memorable incident as a married woman that almost stopped you from achieving your goal?
Well, I can’t remember any, because my drive then was that I would be a pharmacist, so anything that would… I could remember when I had my second child. The third day, I left the hospital and I went straight to school. My mother was crying at home that I had to leave a baby and go to school, and I said the baby would not die; I am already out of the hospital. So, I pursued my dream passionately. Whatever that wanted to stop my dream, I don’t always allow it. I love my son, not that I did not love him, and I knew nothing would happen to him between the time that I would go to school and return. So, instead of me sitting down at home to breastfeed the baby, I pressed the breasts inside the bottle, and I would leave it inside the cooler for him to have. I still make sure that the only thing was for me to wake up early enough to press enough breasts milk for him so that he would have sufficient breast milk between when I would go for lecture and by the time I would return. I practised exclusive breastfeeding despite my schedule.
At a time that I had to stay in school, I had people living with me that would bring my child to the school with the car later in the afternoon to sleep over, and early in the morning, they would return my child home and I would continue my classes. I was able to manage the situation, though it was not easy.
I got married in 1997, got admitted in 1998 and also had my first child in 1998 when I also resumed school. I had to like find a way. I could not finish Biochemistry, so I would now be a dropout from school of Pharmacy again, that I had been nursing to study? No, it was not going to be possible. I had to give it whatever it would take. To the glory of God, I was able to achieve that.
You said you had five male siblings ahead of you. How did that prepare you to play in the political scene?
I was born to be a guy, because I was nurtured by guys. I was in their midst, so I know how tough it was growing up with them. That prepared my journey to face anybody in life because my brothers were very tough. That prepared me. If I could face these lions in my house and survive, I can face anybody. I have never been to anywhere a man would now be a threat to my life or ambition. No, I believe that we are all human beings and equals.
If I could survive the tyranny of my family then, there is no way any man can come and say because you’re a lady or because you are a woman…No, I don’t tolerate that. I don’t feel threatened at all. That actually prepared me for the journey in politics.
