In this piece, Samuel Elere pays tribute to the memory of the former Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum, the late Chief Sunday Awoniyi, who passed on 10 years ago.
As a teenager in 1998 I met Chief Samuel Bolorunduro Awoniyi in Mopa after General Sani Abacha’s death. Earlier I had read his interview in a newspaper when ANC was not registered and Awoniyi spoke about the beautiful rivers and mountains of Okun land, and that he would rather retire home to watch them than participate in Abacha’s gloomy democratic plans. I considered him brave and inspiring, so I went to him to tell him my feelings. He received me warmly, asked of my ancestry and as I told him he said, ‘no wonder’.
Again in 1999 after he failed to clinch the chairmanship seat of PDP, I went to meet him and narrated how I read so may commentaries on that election, I quoted Tony Momoh’s piece in the Vanguard of November 28 1999, where he explained how Senator Ogbeha, Senator David Mark, Bamanga Tukur, Adamu Ciroma, Abubakar Rimi and Edwin Ume-Ezeoke pushed their way through the protective glass where President Obasanjo, Atiku , Ekwueme, among others sat to complain loudly, about abuses and that the elections must be stopped. I gave him my poem on that issue and he laughed so long after reading it. That marked the beginning of a tutorial relationship.
I remember sometimes in 2006, I was with Chief Awoniyi in his study when a young boy came in with a letter from his father. After reading the letter, in the presence of Mr. Paul one of Awoniyi’s most trusted aides, his countenance changed as he handed the letter over to me. While going through the note he explained to me that the sender was the person in charge of his small palm plantation before leaving controversially. He wrote requesting for financial assistance because he fell from a palm tree.
Baba was so worried that he engaged the boy for some minutes, asking him questions. He asked him how such a dangerous thing happened and the boy responded that ‘it was the climbing rope that cut’. Awoniyi turned to me and said ‘ki igba se ro ja?’ meaning how could climbing rope cut? He went on to say ‘the climbing rope is the life of the climber, how come it breaks? We will have to go there’.
Chief told Paul to call Ade the driver so he could take us to the place. When Paul left, Awoniyi asked the young boy if he had eaten and he said no. So I asked Thomas, baba’s Ghanaian cook to give him food to eat. After this, I was called back into the study room to continue until the driver comes. However we were in the room for more than an hour before the driver showed up, baba was very angry with him, so much that he collected his car key from him and asked him to close for the day.
We entered baba’s old Mercedes car and drove off. On our way out of the factory the small boy with us pointed at a woman just entering the gate and said, ‘this is my mother’. We stopped and Awoniyi called the woman, when she came he asked her what the problem was and she said ‘ I returned from farm over two hours ago and did not see my son, when I asked his father he told me he had gone on an errand to this place so I decided to come and look for him’. Awoniyi asked her to enter the car and said, ‘I am going to your house to pick him to the hospital now, I was told he fell from a palm tree’.
To our surprise, the woman said, ‘no sir, he did not fall from any palm tree, he was afflicted by a chronic disease that makes it difficult for him to do anything on his own. Few days ago I helped him to a nearby bush to ease himself and he fell with a bad thud, I could not carry him on my own so I rushed back home to call some men to help me carry him home.’
Immediately, Chief Awoniyi stopped the car and said, ‘he did not fall from any palm tree; so this man lied and taught his seven year old kid to perfect the lie by saying the rope cut?’ He moved on and we were in silence till we got to the man’s house just behind the football field of a primary school in Orokere Amuro. When baba stopped the car, he said, ‘obviously this man did not perfect his lying craft with the wife; they would have taken me for a fool’. He took his small bag from me and said ‘I will do the little I can for him’, he followed them inside and when he came he said, ‘with his lies, I gave him N10, 000.
We came back to Mopa and sat on the culvert in front of Boja plastic factory where baba lived just beside the Federal highway. He asked me as usual, have you learnt any lesson today? I related the question to what he taught me earlier in the study but he said ‘no, that is not what I am talking about, you see, all I taught you today, if am not alive, you may learn from someone else but what just happened now, no one can teach you, you have to learn by experience, but you will be a smart kid to learn from other people’s experience’.
‘You will get to a level in life and most people around you would be looking for opportunities to exploit your weakness, if you yield ground to them, they can ruin you. You will soon find yourself in leadership position, and then you will understand more, but I warn you, never be gullible! Because this man used to take care of my small plantation, he reasoned the best way to get at me was to say he fell from a palm tree and I fell completely for it, can you imagine that? But one question you should ask yourself is this, why didn’t he just tell me the truth? I hate lies, I detest falsehood’.
I remember going to thank Awoniyi after my NYSC and he asked me ‘what’s the next thing’? I told him my people asked me to contest for councillor and I want his support. He rose up angrily and said ‘is it because you see somebody got elected and has built a house or bought a car? Those things are fleeting, I understand you seek economic empowerment but you must build up yourself to the level where you can handle the economic freedom you want. You are young and you need more knowledge’. He produced an envelope, handed it to me and said, go for your masters.
