Category: Tunji Adegboyega

An amiable fellow joins the septuagenarian club

Until he mentioned it on Sallah day, August 21, myself and one of my colleagues that went to his house together as we are won’t to do on that special occasion did not have any inkling we would have cause to be at his residence again to celebrate his 70th birthday, barely seven days after, precisely on August 27. The reason is simple: he does not look the age. As a matter of fact, we would have needed to get confirmation from him if the invitation to attend the event had not come straight from the horse’s mouth.

I am talking about none other than Dr. Adewale Adesoji Adeeyo, a man I met for the first time when I joined The Anchor Newspaper that he founded. The paper debuted in January 2001. I was not a pioneer member of the staff of the newspaper, but I soon got to know the man closely as a member of the newspaper’s editorial board. He was passionate about the publication, which, somewhat, unfortunately, did not live long before it was rested in 2002. I remember, in the course of compiling the list of topics for discussion for one of our editorial board meetings, Dr Adeeyo walked up to me, took a copy of the topics and wondered why The Anchor  hardly featured in the newspaper references from where we derived the topics for deliberation. Rather, some of the other newspapers were repeatedly cited. I must confess this had not made any serious impression on me until he pointed it out. That is the typical publisher for you.

But if The Anchor did not live long, it was not necessarily because of lack of proprietary interest. One reason, among other internal and external factors, was the peculiar nature of the newspaper industry in the country. I will explain, using the advertisements and commissions paid on them as example. This is one aspect of the business that many publishers, auditors, etc. do not understand. In the first place, there is nothing like global standard because each newspaper fixes rates, both for advertisement and commission, as suits its operations. Thus, some newspapers pay between 15 to 20 percent commission; others pay 25 to 30 percent. As a matter of fact, some others crash theirs by as much as 40 to 50 percent. Even some of the most influential newspapers today have had cause to start from ‘humble beginnings’ in terms of commission on adverts. They stopped losing sleep over the issue when they became strong. That explains why there cannot be any global standards.

It was therefore not surprising that the issue was one of the most contentious at the retreat that The Anchor organised, sometime in late 2001 at the Akodo Beach Resort, Ibeju Lekki Local Government Area of Lagos State. Like most other publishers, Dr Adeeyo could not understand why his newspaper should pay about 40 percent or more commission on adverts. The matter was debated back and forth at the retreat, and one could see that efforts to convince the publisher failed to achieve that objective. Not even the passionate presentation by Abdulrahman Black (now of blessed memory), one of those who facilitated many of the adverts in the newspaper, could sway the publisher. As one of the rapporteurs at the occasion, I concentrated more on my assignment even as the debate raged.

It is easy to know why publishers find it difficult to understand why things have to be like this: they cannot imagine why they that bear the burden of the investment and the risks would have to share revenue with someone who invested nothing in the real sense of the word, on a 60:40 basis. This is understandable. But unfortunately, things do not always work out that way, especially in the newspaper industry in Nigeria, particularly as it concerns new publications. They do all manner of things to attract some of the advertisers, including wooing them with extremely generous commissions on adverts.

But I got the shocker of my life when, shortly before the end of the retreat, the publisher asked me to collate all the expenses incurred during the retreat. I wonder how this should be my job, realising that I was only a few months old in the establishment then. Anyway, I did as he instructed and he issued a cheque for the amount I was able to verify.

Before I rest my case on The Anchor, it is important to mention that the paper died, not for lack of efforts or interest on the part of the owner. I remember a painful incident at about the time the publication was to be rested, when someone strolled in from Union Bank with between three to five pages of advertisements for publication the next day. I only happened to be in the office at Kudrat Abiola Way, Oregun, Lagos, that evening and cannot describe how depressed I was when we told the man the paper would not come out the next day.

Born in Kadjebi-Accra, Gold Coast, now Ghana on August 27, 1948, Adeeyo started his educational career at the patrician Western Region of Nigeria Academy, the children’s Home School, Molete, Ibadan. He had a two-year stint at Adeola Odutola Comprehensive High School (Olu-Iwa College), Ijebu-Ode, where he began his secondary education in 1962, from where he moved to Ibadan Grammar School, Molete, Ibadan, where he completed his secondary education with distinction passes in 1966. He did his Higher School Certificate (HSC) programme at the same school. Indeed, his superlative performance was to lead to the reappraisal and re-profiling of his previous admission status by the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY), Albany, New York, where he had secured admission into the university’s undergraduate programme. He was thus issued a fresh letter of admission by the university, which made it possible for him to graduate earlier than he should have.

It is noteworthy that Adeeyo demonstrated that he was not a local champion who could only excel in his examinations in Nigeria but someone who could match brain for brain, his counterparts from any part of the world. At the end of his first semester in SUNY, the university declared him a recipient of the prestigious Rockefeller Foundation Scholarship Scheme because of his exemplary performance. This meant he would have to study tuition-free for as long as he was able to sustain the highest academic point average that made such scholarship possible. Adeeyo did not disappoint.

He bagged his first degree in Political Science and Sociology in 1973 and immediately proceeded to SUNY’s Graduate School of Public Affairs where he was awarded a Master of Arts degree in International Relations and Public Administration a year later. Between 1975 and 1978, he served as research intern and research officer at the New York State Legislature at Capitol Hill, which has always enjoyed extensive and pristine scholarship bond with SUNY.

Without doubt, all of the experiences garnered along the line, particularly abroad, have helped to shape Adeeyo’s attitude to life generally, and particularly, its vicissitudes. Not even the terrible armed robbery attack that he suffered shortly after founding The Anchor could change his attitude to life.

Adeeyo had served at various times at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) where he was its public affairs manager from 1978 to 1984. He also served as director in Wema Bank from 1990 to 1995. From 1984 to date, he is managing director, Vintage Enterprises Ltd; publisher/chairman The Anchor Newspapers and Book Publishing Ltd. (1999 to date);  member, University Governing Council, Adeleke University, Ede, Osun State and chairman, Skyrun Cocoa Products Industry Ltd, Ede, from 2014 till date.

It was in recognition of his contributions to nation-building that the Olusegun Obasanjo administration awarded him the worthy honour of Officer of the Order of Niger (OON) in 2001. And, as if all these were not enough, the present administration of President Muhammadu Buhari also gave him a New Year gift by appointing him chairman of the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria (FMBN) on December 31, 2017.

One thing going for Adeeyo is his ability to retain old friends. And when I say old friends, I mean people who are older than him, his age mates as well as even those of the younger generation. Although The Anchor newspaper which brought many of us in contact with him had since 2002 been rested, he still finds a way to get in touch with us, including the most junior of his former employees. Indeed, we have made visits to his house an annual ritual at Ileya festivals.  Then his Friday sermons; hardly would you know he is not an imam the way he preaches peace, justice and love among mankind in a most inoffensive manner, using the instrumentality of the power of the Queen’s English with which he is richly endowed.  The man makes it a point of duty to reconnect with many of us through his sermons every Friday. I guess he must have missed it only if ever there was an earthquake!

At 70, Adeeyo looks about a decade younger. He still walks straight and smart; talks smoothly and recollects so easily. He is simplicity personified. Not for him any ostentatious lifestyle despite the fact that he could afford it. He is ever ready to help people in genuine need. Like most human beings, Adeeyo is not immune to being annoyed, but he does not keep malice. He is well connected; yet he does not flaunt it.

May this man who is ever proud of his Ede, Osun State ancestry continue to age gracefully.

Welcome to the septuagenarian club, Dr Adewale Adesoji Adeeyo.

Last year, World Poverty Clock predicted that this year, Nigeria would overtake India as the country with the highest number of poor people in the world. True to that prediction, the country has overtaken India (which was at the bottom of the ladder until last year), and is now wearing the cap of the world’s poverty capital. A report by the Brookings Institution, quoting data from the World Poverty Clock, shows that Nigeria now has over 87 million people living in poverty. If this is frightening, then, wait for the bombshell: six Nigerians become poor every minute. “According to our projections, Nigeria has already overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor in early 2018, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo could soon take over the number two. At the end of May 2018, our trajectories suggest that Nigeria had about 87 million people in extreme poverty, compared with India’s 73 million. What is more, extreme poverty in Nigeria is growing by six people every minute, while poverty in India continues to fall. In fact, by the end of 2018 in Africa as a whole, there will probably be about 3.2 million more people living in extreme poverty than there are today.”

So that we can better appreciate what we are talking about, what is poverty in this context? It is defined as living on less than $1.90 a day at 2011 purchasing power parity prices. Even at today’s exchange rate in Nigeria, that is about N720. A lot of money, isn’t it? When you get to the market you’ll know how little it is.

One good thing is that so far, I have not seen any negative reaction from the Federal Government, unlike in previous assessments. This is uncharacteristically Nigerian. Nigerians may not be in the position to say categorically that their country is home to the world’s poorest poor; but they know that millions of their fellow citizens live below the poverty line. As a matter of fact, the figure of the poor given by World Poverty Clock would appear too small when we consider the ever-increasing army of ‘executive beggars’ that dot the landscape in recent years. At any rate, what is there to dispute when even our own National Bureau of Statistics had painted a grimmer picture in 2016 when it reported that about 112 million Nigerians live below the poverty line?

When, as reported in Ekiti State a few years back, someone had to keep vigil until a neighbour who was preparing ‘amala’ left the kitchen to fetch something from the room and then carried the pot of ‘amala’ on the fire and took it to her apartment before the owner returned and began to eat it without soup with her children, then you know that really, poverty is based here. The other time somewhere in the north, a man had to use his son as collateral when he bought a bag of rice without having any money on him. He pretended as if he forgot the money at home and told the rice seller to hold his son while he took the bag of rice home, from where he hoped to bring the money for the rice. He never returned with the money and when traced to his home, it was discovered that he actually had no money to pay. We have had instances where some parents sold one of their children in order to be able to feed the remaining children. There are many cases of mothers whose newborn babies were seized in hospitals because the parents could not settle hospital bills. There are countless such mind-boggling stories.

Yes, mind-boggling because that is not God’s wish for this country. If God had wanted Nigeria to be the Wretched of the Earth that she is now, He would not have endowed us with the human and natural resources that the country is blessed with. It may be an exaggeration to say Nigeria has the highest number of churches and mosques in the world. But we have quite a surfeit of both; that this is not reflecting in the way we live is the jigsaw puzzle. We are so close to our churches and mosques; yet so far from God. Unfortunately, we also lack the capacity to tame corruption, which is the real cankerworm that is stunting the country’s growth. Until very recently, the country has been dancing in circles with graft cases involving especially the politically exposed persons in our midst, otherwise referred to as the big or untouchable thieves.

The World Poverty Clock, created by the Vienna-based NGO, World Data Lab, in 2017, is a tool to monitor progress against poverty globally and regionally. Funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, it provides real-time poverty data across countries. Although it is relatively young, by virtue of its coming into existence only last year, it has set criteria on which it based its assessment. What the body does is to update its data every April and October, to take into account new household surveys and new projections on country economic growth from the International Monetary Funds’ World Economic Outlook. These then form the basic building blocks for poverty trajectories computed for 188 countries and territories, across the world.

A major factor that has put Nigeria in this hall of shame is the lack of social safety nets in the country. For instance, if we had these, the state would naturally have a funding arrangement for indigent expectant mothers such that they would not be ‘detained’ in hospitals with their babies on account of inability to pay bills. Similarly, people would not be keeping vigil in expectation of the time their neighbour would briefly step out of the kitchen before stealing their pot of ‘amala’ or soup on fire if stipends are handed out to people without jobs.

So, what do we do to get out of this mess? Simple. It is the same prescriptions that have been made several times that, sadly, one must repeat here, in the expectation that, perhaps, when we keep harping on them, the governments would see the urgency in accelerating the pace of development. Infrastructural development is key to any meaningful attempt to get out of this poverty conundrum. Yet, we have a huge infrastructural deficit, and one in which our National Assembly legislators do not seem to appreciate its enormity. If they do, they would not be slashing budgets for roads, etc. while raising their own budget. Improved power supply must be taken beyond rhetoric.

Railway must be developed. The disaster that happened in Lagos on Thursday on Otedola Bridge, which claimed several lives and property, including vehicles would have been averted if we had a functional railway. We do not have to be transporting fuel by road. We need to do more on agriculture. We need to do more functionally by way of diversification of the economy. It is when we do all these and more that we can stimulate the economy, job creation and the increased spending would reflect in reduced social tension and crimes.

I know our brethren would say “I reject it in Jesus’ name” when told that Nigeria is the world’s poverty capital. They will add, to boot, that “it is not our portion.” But, beyond rejecting it, we have to take practical steps to snatch our fate from those who have sworn to mess up our lives and the lives of our children. We have to do something about this National Assembly. We have to device a means of making governments at all levels more responsive and responsible. The other time, we were adjudged the happiest people on earth. Today, they say we are the world’s poorest capital.  While the former is sarcastic, the latter is real. But none, at the end of the day, is complimentary.

America’s former President Bill Clinton is one person that will not forget in a hurry that the cost of an “inappropriate relationship” (whatever that meant) with an intern  could be huge, even if he narrowly escaped impeachment. His romance with Monica Lewinsky, described by Wikipedia as “an American activist, television personality, fashion designer, and former White House intern” nearly cost him his presidency. Clinton, relatively young (in his 50s), handsome and dazzling, was any lady’s man any day. That he was the World’s Number One Citizen was an added advantage. Only the naïve would be asking what such a Very Important Personality (VIP) could be doing with an ‘ordinary’ intern; that was later to degenerate to a scandal of monumental proportions. The answer lies in the fact that this thing called “inappropriate relationship” does not discriminate. It is no respecter of social status, colour or creed. For as long as it took two to tango, the affair between Clinton and Monica Lewinsky remained under wraps until something snapped. Thereafter, what began as an amorous relationship between two seemingly consenting adults then became a public scandal.

But this is not about the Lewinsky-Clinton affair. Rather, it is about Prof. Richard Akindele, (now, unfortunately) formerly of Management and Accounting Department, Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, Osun State. Perhaps only Monica Osagie, the prof’s erstwhile student who blew the lid open on the affair that never was; and Prof Akindele can tell when it all started. But by the time it went viral online in April, and until it was finally resolved with the dismissal of the professor on June 20, it was the issue in the newspapers, both print and online. It was so salacious that even the almighty CNN did not want to be left out of the feasting!

In what apparently was a setup, Osagie had called the professor to inquire about his earlier demand for sex to pass her in a course that she supposedly failed. The prof was said to have boasted that she would repeat the exam in the next academic session since she had refused to “take the opportunity” he offered her to have sex with him.

Their conversation is interesting: “I gave you an opportunity and you missed it,” the Professor told her on phone. “Forget about it. You will do it next year.” Osagie then asked if she would pass once she agreed to his demand.

Prof: “Me that agreed to do something. I know what I meant. If you don’t trust me forget about it. If I wouldn’t do it, why should I give you audience in the first place? If I am not interested in doing it, I won’t give you audience.

“The other person has come and I told her straight away because there is nothing I can do to bail that person out and her mark is even better than your own. The person scored 39 while your own is 33.”

”I was really seeing my period Professor Akindele,” the lady responded when the prof asked why she told him she could not give in to him the other day. (At this point, Prof Akindele, perhaps smelling a rat, told her to stop mentioning his name).

”And now nko?” he asked, to which she replied that her period had ended.

”Your boyfriend has done it yesterday?” he asked.

”Is it every time that someone will be doing with the boyfriend?” she responded. “Is it every time you do it with your wife?”

”Yes,” he answered.

”It’s a lie,” the girl said. “Not possible.”

He then told the student when she asked when they would start the sex orgy that they should start the next day, to be continued on four subsequent occasions.

“Is not five we agreed? Our agreement is five,” he reportedly said.

”Is it B that you want to give me or C?” the student asked. “Why would it be five times you will knack me?”

It was at this point that she gave him a sense of what she had planned. She told him point blank that she would not have sex with him five times.

”Prof, you know what? Let me fail it. I can’t do it five times. For what nah? No worry. Thank you, sir,” she said and ended the conversation.

This was what reportedly transpired between a student and her professor, who is also a reverend. Biblically, sex is supposed to be engaged in by people that have been legally pronounced husband and wife. Every other sex, at least for Christians, is ‘haram’. Sex remains such a top secret when it takes place between two romantic pair of lovers; that is, when the parties agree to do it together from the depth of their hearts or for pecuniary gains. But when it is a one-sided affair, the best thing is for the other party to back out. The other party, which could be male or female (because this sexual harassment is not just about the women folk). There are occasions when men too are harassed sexually. It is only that it is more of a challenge to the females than the males. A lady or girl that does not want to have sex with you will resist with everything at her disposal. Even if Monica had agreed to honour prof’s request not because she is interested but because she wanted to pass her exam, it still would have amounted to rape.

It is now that Prof Akindele will suddenly realise that it is possible for one to stroll into joblessness from an otherwise promising career, just like that. May be it would have been better if he had tasted the forbidden fruit before this fall. At least, then he could have taken consolation in the fact that he has enjoyed what he is being punished for.

But we should not delude ourselves that Prof Akindele is alone in this. Many lecturers do; and even beyond the four walls of various institutions of higher learning, sex-for-marks or promotion or other favours is nothing new. As they say, we are all thieves; it is only the person that is caught that is the barao (real thief). If the test that Jesus Christ administered on those who ‘arraigned’ the woman that they accused of adultery had been administered on some of those that sat over Prof Akindele’s fate, perhaps they too would simply have dropped the stone in their hands so that the ill-fated professor could be ‘discharged and acquitted’. This is not my wish though; because people in Prof Akindele’s positions should use same to mentor the children in their care, rather than teach them nonsense (apologies to Fela).

As I said earlier, libidinal matters care less about creed or colour. It has no respect for social status either. If a whole Clinton could go for an intern, then we should know it is a serious matter. Unfortunately, some teachers, lecturers or even bosses feel diminished when a student or subordinate turns down their sexual advances and would begin to look for ways to victimise them or frustrate them outright, whether in school or in the office. What such men do not realise is that the moment they made up their mind to demand sex from their students or subordinates, they are already surrendering part of what makes them the teacher or boss over such ladies. As the saying goes: if you don’t want to get wet, stay away from the brook. When a man makes sexual demands from the opposite sex, no matter how low that member of the opposite sex is, he must know his case is like that of someone going to war: You either make it back home or die in the warfront. When you say ‘let’s get down’, you must know that there are only two answers: you either get a yes or a no for an answer. There cannot be a third answer.

It was because Monica was not interested that we heard about the matter. Unfortunately, the prof fell like a pack of cards, even though he seemed to  suspect at a time as he had to caution the lady against mentioning his name during the telephone conversation that did him in. If Prof Akindele had been doing it before, as some account seemed to suggest, and he was not caught, it was either he knew when to back down or he was lucky. One would think that after the fall of Prof Akindele, other randy lecturers or bosses would take a cue and say never again would they attempt to force their female students or subordinates in office to bed when they are not interested. I am sure Prof Akindele, like Clinton, would forever remember the role his amorous desires with his student has played in his life.