“And your Lord has decreed that you should worship none except Him and be kind to your parents (especially) when one or both of them attain old age. Do not ever bully on them or shun them. Address them with gentle voice and humility. And always pray Allah to be compassionate with both of them as they were compassionate with you at childhood”. Q. 17: 22.
Man after demise
“Man surely becomes a subject of talk after his demise. Whoever is privileged to be alive should therefore endeavour to become a pleasant talk for those coming behind”. -By an Arab poet.
Preamble
Inna Lillah, wa inna ilayhi raji’un. We are all from God and to God we shall all return. Those whose fathers are still alive should conscientiously abide by the above quoted verse of the Qur’an. I just lost my own father. It is after such demise that one realizes that a father in the life of his children is like a sun beaming its rays to a farm and photosynthesizing the crops therein for nourishment and fruitfulness. At a stage, the scorch of such rays may become unbearable for the crops. But without the rays, those crops may lack the energy for growth and nourishment. Until the sun sets, the crops may not know its value in their lives.
The Book of life
Human life is like a book of many chapters. Each chapter often opens to another in what may constitute a smooth reading for those who are left behind to read it. Every human being is, consciously or unconsciously, a writer of a book and the readers are free to analyze or interpret the chapters of the book according to their understanding.
Man’s Journey in life
In the introduction to his autobiography, Nigeria’s first President, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe wrote thus about human life:
“Man comes into the world and while he lives, he embarks upon a series of activities absorbing experience which enables him to formulate a philosophy of life and to chart his causes of action. But then, he dies. Nevertheless, his biography remains a guide for those of the living who may need guidance, either as a warning on the vanity of human wishes or as encouragement or both”.
Pa Abbas’ resume
At a time when birth records were hardly available, Alhaji Muhammadul Awwal Oyelola Makajuola Abbas Abioye was born in Iwo, Osun state in about 1913. He was the second of his parents’ eight children, all of whom except one were males. Pa Abbas was one year older than the country called Nigeria. He was not just a contemporary of Nigeria’s first indigenous rulers; he was actually a friend of some of them. Despite his limited literacy, he was particularly close to Obafemi Awolowo and Samuel Ladoke Akintola but more to the latter than the former. There was no official record for his birth but we (his children) were able to determine his age when he told us that his friend, Chief S.L. Akintola was older than him by one year. And since the latter was born in 1912, we concluded that our father, Pa Abbas was born in 1913, a year before the amalgamation of what became Nigeria. Though, born in Iwo, he settled down for a living with his parents in Afaake, Ejigbo local government of Osun State.
Through his peregrination in life, Pa Abbas came across many useful instances and met many people of substances. At a time, he was an apprentice in carpentry which became his first calling in life. It was he along with some of his artisan colleagues who carried out the carpentry work of our family house in 1954. He also led some other carpenters into fixing the carpentry works of our elementary school, Tajudeen primary school, Ilawo of which he was a board member.
His travels
Besides his brothers who sojourned in Abidjan and other cities and towns of Cote d’Ivoire, no villager from Afaake can claim to be more travelled than Pa Abbas whose journeys through apprenticeship and political traverses took him across regions in Nigeria including the North, the South-West, the then Mid-West and South-East. By the local standard of the 1950s and 1960s, he was a traveler par excellence. He climaxed those journeys with a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1975, the year in which a onetime Head of State, Murtala Muhammed performed Hajj.
His artisanship years
Apart from his engagement with carpentry, Pa Abbas was also involved in produce buying of cocoa and palm kernel which encouraged him to establish a big farm of cocoa plantation in Ondo state. That was in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Some years later, Pa Abbas discovered that the farmers in the village including his own father were not prosperous in cocoa farming because they depended fully on wild cocoa plantation that yielded few profitable products. He therefore invited some agriculturists to introduce cocoa nursery to his village, Afaake. With this, he gathered all the farmers in the village for tutorial on how to plant and nurse modern cocoa trees. From there, a cooperative emerged which was named ‘Egbejoda’ (short form: Egbeda), meaning ‘cooperative farming’. It was also Pa Abbas who introduced tobacco farming to Afaake farmers.
Impact
This adjusted the focus of those farmers against the mono-product cash crops that cocoa represented in the late 1950s. Tobacco farming turned out to be so profitable that most farmers in the village almost forgot about cocoa. Yet, in the early 1960s, it was also Pa Abbas that introduced commercial pineapple farming to Afaake village in which both men and women were assiduously engaged. The pineapple farming reigned for quite some time as merchants came from Moore plantation and other relevant companies in Ibadan to purchase the products in bulk. All these activities opened the eyes of the village farmers to the value of agricultural commerce.
Contribution to manpower development
Pa Abbas’ inquisitiveness in life was not limited to agricultural endeavour alone; it extended to the building of human intellect and manpower. For instance, when adult education was introduced by the Action Group government in 1954, Pa Abbas was the one who invited the mobile teachers to Afaake village to teach the male and female farmers how to read and write in what was called adult literacy classes. Through that skill, some farmers in the village were able to read and write. Foremost among them was Pa Abbas himself. And when the same Action Group government introduced free primary education in 1955, it was the same Pa Abbas that championed the sighting of one of those schools in Ilawo to serve the three adjacent villages of Ilawo, Afaake and Inisha-Edoro. That was the beginning of civilization in the area. The school was named Tajudeen primary school, Ilawo. After the establishment of that school, Pa Abbas took it upon himself to ensure the enforcement of attending the school by every child in Afaake. And he did not stop there, he also wrote to those who settled in Cote d’Ivoire to send their children and wards home for enrolment in the school.
Effect of education
Many children who attended that school including yours sincerely have risen in life to become men and women of positive identities. Through those invaluable efforts, the family of Abbas Abioye has become a towering citadel of knowledge that no tempest can wipe off the scene. At least, there is no notable profession today in which the children of Abbas are not found. Among his children, his grandchildren and his great grandchildren and their spouses are professionals like Lawyers, Accountants, Doctors, Engineers, Lecturers, Civil servants, Farmers, Businessmen and women, as well as communicators like yours sincerely. If any human tree of value can be regarded as a reference point in both Western and Islamic education in Osun state today, Abbas family will be foremost courtesy of Pa Abbas’ effort, despite his half-literacy. This confirms the verse of the Qur’an which goes thus;
“Have you not seen how your Lord has planted a seed of words like a gargantuan tree standing gorgeously with its roots firmly planted in the belly of the earth and its foliages sprouting gorgeously into the firmaments of the sky…?” Q. 14: 24.
His contribution to religious development
It was the same Pa Abbas who initiated the idea of building a mosque in Afaake and led a team of other carpenters to package the carpentry apparel of the mosque. He also introduced madrasa system of education into the mosque and championed the hiring of a mu’allim (malim) to teach the village children who were attending Tajudeen primary school. Pa Abbas’ contribution to human and material development of the village was quite legendary and the evidence is still vivid today. He did not only encourage children to attend school for Western education, he also geared them towards acquisition of Islamic education through attendance of Madrasah. Thus, most of the children who attended Tajudeen primary school also attended Madrasah as Pa Abbas believed that acquisition of Western education was incomplete without Islamic education.
His philosophy of life
In his philosophy of life, Pa Abbas believed that no matter how much was realized from farm products, it could not be as valuable and as lasting as education. He does advised all other farmers in the village to invest in the education of their children, pointing to them that the future of those children would depend on the education they were given. He therefore invited the then headmaster of Tajudeen primary school, Mr. Bisi Akande, who later became the governor of Osun state to enlighten those farmers on the importance of education. And the latter did that dedicatedly in style.
Although Pa Abbas was not quite literate, his exposure through travels made his philosophy of life a pattern of that of an American statesman and intellectual, Williams Webster who stated thus inter alia:
“If we work marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust. But if we work upon immortal minds and instil in them just principles, we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time can efface but will brighten to all eternity”.
Were it possible for the demised to look back and evaluate his contribution to human growth and development, Pa Abbas would have heaved a sigh of relief even while approaching the gates of paradise with confidence.
“Who shares his life’s pure pleasure and walks the honest road; who trades with heaping measure and lifts his brother’s load; who turns the wrong down bluntly and lends the right a hand; he dwells in God’s own country and tills the Holy Land”. We are living witnesses.
The old man (Pa Abbas) passed on quietly in his sleep at about 4 a.m. on Thursday, August 10, 2017 at the ripe age of 104 and he was interned at about 3 p.m. same day.
God bless the souls of way-pavers. God bless the rightly-guided followers who handed over the baton to other rightly-guided men and women. God bless the soul of Pa Abbas and his likes.
Conclusion
That is the legacy of a father who had a vision not only for his own children but for the children of others as well as adults who aspired to make the world a pleasant place to live in. That vision was not just a dream, but also the realization of a dream. As a worthy son of this great father, if I did not write this article in commemoration of a man who left a footprint on the sands of time to show gratitude for good deed, who else should do it? If this is an ode to a gold mind who continues to live in glorious history, let those who value glory read it again and again. This legacy is indelible and we thank Allah for it.
Appreciation
The entire family of Abbas Abioye home and abroad seizes this opportunity to thank all relatives, friends and well-wishers who attended the Janazah or attempted to attend it despite the short notice. We also thank those who sent messages of condolence praying Allah to stand by them all in all circumstances of life. God bless you all.
