Category: Entertainment

The public seldom cast a glance at the other side of glamour of the politician’s wife. We know about the Better Life, the glitz of first-ladism, but what of the lonely peril of the wife of the soldier who failed at coup plotting or the politician on the run for his life after a misadventure? Chief (Mrs)Hannah Folorunso Osuntokun certainly had an untold story. She was married to Chief Oduola Osuntokun who served for eleven years as a Minister in the old Western Region, first in the cabinet of Chief Obafemi Awolowo and later that of his successor, Chief Ladoke Akintola. She knew the peril of power and the gory side of the glamour of being the minister’s wife.

In the Okemesi of the 1960s, the Osuntokuns had a dominant presence. One was the minister. Another was a captain in the Nigerian Army and yet another was a high-flying medical doctor who was to become world famous as Professor Oluwakayode Osuntokun, the neurologist who became the first person in the world to win the Charles Drew award for medicine. Coming up then were Taye Osuntokun, later to become the Auditor-General of Local Government of Ekiti State and Akinjide, distinguished professor of history and first Nigerian ambassador to united Federal Republic of Germany. All these people were names in the air. The one we knew and saw everyday in Okemesi-Ekiti was iyawo Osuntokun, Folorunso.

In 1965, at the time of the regional elections in the West, she was a teacher at Local Authority, L.A. School, where one of her brothers-in-law, Tunde Osuntokun, was the headmaster. Though her husband was a regional minister, she did not have a car. Accompanied by pupils from Ile Osuntokun and other parts of Ile Aro Ogeregere, the ancestral compound of the Osuntokuns, she would trek the almost three kilometres to school everyday. Often on her heels were Gbonjubola, her daughter, Akin, her son and the late Adekemi Ibipomola Bamigbade, daughter of Mrs Kehinde Bamigbade, the minister’s only uterine sister, who was destined to become my wife. Though the distance was long, Iyawo Osuntokun loved to count her steps. She was very slim, elegant and carries herself with an air of dignity. Those were the days when Nigeria was simple and a minister’s wife can do without a car of her own. Think of the first lady of a local government now!

Then the storm came after the election. Chief Akintola’s Nigerian National Democratic Party, NNDP, was said to have won the regional election of 1965, defeating the Action Group of Chief Awolowo, who was then serving a 10-year term for treasonable felony at Calabar Prison. Many of the NNDP candidates were “returned unopposed” because the candidatures of their opponents were invalidated fraudulently. Everyone knew that Akintola had stolen the election, but that would not dampen his supporters’ spirit in Okemesi. They trooped into the street singing:

Akintola wo’le Asofin,

Ese wo!

Ki e ma ba ku ni kekere,

Ese wo!

Akintola has recaptured the House of Assembly,

Be careful!

So that you will not die young

Be careful!

We followed the dancers round the town. I was in primary four at Saint Andrew Anglican Primary School, and like most of my mates, we did not understand the full import of the drama. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Then one day in early 1966 before the coup that killed Akintola and his powerful friends, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the Premier of the Northern Region, and Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa, the Prime-Minister, Okemesi was overcast with fear. Everyone ran indoors. Thugs were in town as part of the general campaign of the opposition resistance against Akintola known as Operation wet e!

That day, the two houses in the Osuntokun compound were gutted. One of them was razed to the ground and the other is still standing till today. It was renovated after the extensive damage. Folorunso and her children, fled to Esa Oke through the bush path. Mama Ootola Osuntokun, the matriarch of the house and mother of the Osuntokun boys, relocated to her family house in Okeloro quarters of the town. Few days later, the First Republic was toppled in a military coup. After some times in Ibadan coping with the aftermath of the loss of power, Chief Osuntokun relocated home. Never again was he to mount the rostrumin electoral gladiatorial combat. Instead, he picked up a job as the principal of Amoye Grammar School, Ikere Ekiti. This was a man who had been a minister for more than 10 years. We can just imagine what would have been the situation today for a man who has been a minister for 10 months! Osuntokun was an honest man who served his country with passion and patriotism.

But the Osuntokuns remained foreshadowed with the halo of power and politics. Iyawo Osuntokun was Baba Osuntokun’s second wife. The first was Chief (Mrs) Mabel Osuntokun, Mama Tinu, who was (and still is) based in Ibadan. She was the daughter of Bishop Osanyin, the first Bishop of Ekiti Diocese of the Church of Nigeria, (Anglican Communion). She is an eighty-something great grandmother.

But Folorunso remained anchored in Okemesi. She picked up a teaching appointment with Okemesi Grammar School after obtaining a higher certificate from the Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo. In the early 1970s, she opened the biggest supermarket, including a medicine store, in Okemesi. Though she did not play any visible role in the politics of the Second Republic, there was no doubt that she had learnt a lot from the master, Chief Oduola Osuntokun. She was a significant member of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, and Egbe Afenifere, at the dawn of the Fourth Republic. Her son, Akin, had grown into politics, serving first as an aide of late Major-General Shehu Musa Yar’Adua and later as a fiery critic of the General Sani Abacha dictatorship. Akin later served with distinction as the managing director of the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, and political adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Mama Osuntokun, who had been installed as the Yeyelaje (Mother of Commerce) of Okemesi, had lived to see the political coming of age of her first son Akin. Events had come full circle before our very eyes.Yeyelaje was the pillar of the home front while her husband and later her son were out there weathering the storms of politics. Her greatest strength was her capacity to remain busy and relevant. Throughout her life, she remained a dominant business person in Okemesi.

The last time I met her was in August last year at Akin’s house in Abuja. Her daughter, Bukola Ogunsina and my niece and Akin’s wife, Ronke, were present in the house and some of her grandchildren too. She was still her jovial self, though it was evident that her illness had taken its tolls. She was in good spirit, her laughter, ringing through the house like in those days when she was the lady in command.

Now, she commands no more. Today, Friday April 12, 2013, she would be committed to Mother Earth in Okemesi, ending a part of a story she started as the minister’s wife more than half-a-century ago. She was a significant part of the Osuntokun story, bringing her practicality and common sense to blend with the tradition of public service that is the hallmark of the Osuntokun legacy. Now she is gone, but the Osuntokun family saga continues.