The Nation Newspaper

Tag: travails

  • Our travails: Lagos community where measles killed 26 children

    Our travails: Lagos community where measles killed 26 children

    Otodo-Gbame, an island set on the bank of a fetid lagoon in Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos State, can be accessed from a labyrinth of paths.  Located in the highbrow Lekki area, the sand bank community is surrounded by imposing buildings and mansions bearing the insignia of wealth; yet the inhabitants are tenants to the twin-inconvenience of poverty and disease.

    Slithering through the settlements, one is faced with wooden shacks housing most of the inhabitants. Others make their abode on stilts standing on brackish water.  Open defecation, accompanied by foul odour, pervades the atmosphere of the settlements, many of which claimed to have migrated from Badagry and others from Cotonou.

    The community attracted news last week when measles killed 26 children within two weeks. Initially referred to as a strange illness, children who came down with the disease show symptoms of rashes and pains, with many passing out within two to three days of infection with the virus.

    The community leader of Otodo-Gbame, Chief Dansu Hunpe, who confirmed the death of the children, said the outbreak was caused by intense heat.  He also disclosed that the children did not receive immunisation against the measles infection.

    “Those children died because they were not exposed to medical care.  There is a general health centre in Ikate but our people do not patronise the place due to the strained relationship with the Ikate community. We have a land dispute with them. We are more than 10, 000 here and there is no health centre. Before we would say we want to take a child to anywhere, time would have elapsed. That was why those children died that way.”

    Chief Hunpe confirmed that it was after the community raised an alarm over the health crisis that the state government sent nurses and doctors to immunise other children in the community. Health officials from the state government, it was learnt, struggled to revive some of the ailing children but the effort proved unsuccessful as some died at the Massey Street Children Hospital, where they were admitted for comprehensive treatment.

    An octogenerian,  Tankpa Oshlan, who lost  children to the measles onslaught told The Nation that sacrifices were made to appease the gods when the disease broke. “We sacrificed to appease our gods, and also took our children to the hospitals. We invited the government for assistance, and they responded promptly. So far, the disease has been curtailed and the children are responding to treatments.”

    Investigation by The Nation confirmed that recurring death among children and teenagers has been the fate of the community in recent times. This is due largely to restricted medical access and some environmental factors which make it difficult for the inhabitants of the settlement to follow hygienic routine, which can prevent diseases.  Added to the long line of restriction is a long running land tussle between the people of Otodo-Gbame and their advanced neigbours in Ikate, the place which houses the government health centre shunned by the community.

    Mr.  Ishola Agbodemu, the coordinator of the Rural Urban Development Initiative  (RUDI),  an NGO which raised the alarm of the deaths in the community on the social media, told The Nation that over 70 children  and teenagers have been lost to restricted medical access in Otodo-Gbame and other surrounding settlements in the riverine area.

    According to Agbodemu, “Residents of the community have been shunning vaccination exercise due to the suspicion that it might be a ploy by the Ikate monarch to poison them as a result of the land dispute between both communities.”

     

    Findings also indicate that the community has become a safe nest for quack doctors and nurses who enjoy more patronage than the private clinic established in the community by an individual.

    Peace Zosu, a health worker with a private health care centre situated in the community, further asserted that none of the children who died was vaccinated for measles.

    Said Zosu: “They (parents) believe in herbs and when that fails, they would call the quack doctors and nurses into their tents to treat their wards. And because they have some issues with Ikate people, those ones who were going for immunisation at the health centre stopped. At the private health centre here, we charge them N250 for immunisation but they don’t show up because they want to get it for free.  Every Friday when we do immunisation here; the highest number of children we get is 7.  I was brought up in this community and I know there are thousands of children, but their parents rarely get them immunised”.

    She added that some of the children who died from the Febrile Rash Illness caused by the measles virus showed symptoms of swollen lips, rise in body temperature, blood stained mouths and boils on their body.

    Surrounded by water, yet none to drink

    Inability to access safe drinking water is one of the factors fuelling the spread of diseases and virus in the community. It is a pitiable irony that the people of Otodo-Gbame, who live on the bank of the river, are unable to access clean water for hygienic use and consumption.  The harsh economic realities make it impossible for the inhabitants, many of whom make their living from fishing, to purchase packaged water.  The condition, it was learnt, force many of them to paddle canoes to Makoko and Bariga to buy kegs of water. The process of transporting the water on the ocean predisposes it to being contaminated, it was learnt.

    A youth in the community, Bamidele Zangan, a 300 Level Business Administration undergraduate of the University of Lagos, bemoaned the absence of amenities which could make life better for the community.

    “We don’t have pipe-born water; we would go as far as Makoko and Bariga to buy water with our canoes. Since the health crisis, water tankers have been coming to the community to supply water to the private water vendors who sell in turn to the residents”.

    It is not only the elderly who are feeling a sense of loss owing to government’s absence in the community, the situation also applies to the old men who are said to be economically crippled since access to the sea for commercial activities has been barred with the sand filling project embarked on by money bags reclaiming lands for commercial purposes in the area.

    Pa Masene Whedekuten, a 60-year-old fisherman pleaded with government to come closer to the residents  by providing infrastructure like hospitals, schools and potable water.

    “Our problem started when some money bags started the sand filling of Orange Island, which also blocked our access to the sea for our fishing activities. We are dying of hunger.  We don’t have money to cater for our children or pay medical fees at private clinics. We are predominantly fishermen and with sand-filling going on around us, our access to the sea is blocked. We are now economically crippled,” the old man lamented.

    Battered education, bleak future

    Other than poverty and diseases, many of the children in Otodo-Gbame are also missing out in education. On the two occasions the reported visited the community, many of the children who are of school age were playing around their home surroundings. Those in the early teens were seen at the shore of the lagoon struggling to catch some sea food.

    Despite the huge population and the large expanse of land in Otodo-Gbame, only two run down schools cater for the educational needs of the children.  For those who are privileged to attend school, they do so in tattered uniforms with no sanders or stockings. One of such schools is  Olutimi International School, a low cost nursery and primary school where children pay N50 daily for tuition.

    An NCE holder, who has been in the teaching business for 14 years, Mr Olamide Edun, who founded the school two years ago, said parents are beginning to show interest in sending their children to school as a result of the influence of the fine houses and cars they see when they go out to the community to transact businesses. He, however, lamented that the enthusiasm is not backed by purchasing power, since some of the parents find it difficult to pay the N50 daily tuition fees.

    Enrollment in the school is very high with about 200 children divided into nine classes, forming three nurseries and six basic classes. The classes separated by thin planks have not succeeded in preventing noises from filtering in from the other classes. The whole scenario appears disjointed and the proprietor of the school offers an explanation.

    “We are dealing with poor kids, which is why the structure is like this.  The reason why we cannot have a permanent structure here is because of the land dispute between them and the Ikate community. It would be a waste at the end of the day if we build and we are sent packing,”  the teacher submitted.

     

    A land tussle claiming lives of innocent children

    With its booming population and limited landmass, scouting for land in Lagos is as complicated as scouting for gold.  There is no gainsaying the fact that  a major factor which led to the death of the children was the failure of the parents to access medical health care at a nearby hospital for fear of being poisoned owning to a lingering land tussle between both communities.

    The Baale of Otodo-Gbame alleged that one of the sons of the Ikate community brought hoodlums to attack them in September 2014. The fracas, it was learnt, led to the death of thee people, two of whom are still in the mortuary.

    “We instructed our people not to go to the health centre in Ikate because they might do whatever they like to our children.  We know that the health centre belongs to the government but it is situated in Ikate town. They want to send us out of this land because they are rich but we are not on their land. Our fore fathers have been dwelling here over 100 years ago.

    “Now that the doctors are here, they have told us that   we should not be afraid since the clinic belongs to the government. That is why we are now bringing our children out for immunisation. We are begging government to build our own hospital here. There is no public toilet. There is no government school and we do not have electricity,” he stated.

    Reacting to the accusation,  the Odofin of Elegushi,  Chief Kehinde Odofin, discredited the claims of the  people of Otodo-Gbame over fears that their children could be poisoned should they patronise the government clinic in Ikate land.

    “We cannot stop their children from using the clinic because it belongs to the government. It is their conscience that is disturbing them.  They used to come even when the hospital was under construction. They were using the palace and nobody would argue with them because it is a general hospital”.

    On the tussle over land ownership, the chief said the land the community is laying claim to does not belong to them.

    “They do not have lands here. They were relocated to this place from Banana Island. They have been staying there for long and nobody has questioned them. Now, they are saying they are the owners of the place, claiming they are from Badagry when the truth of the matter is that they are from Cotonou.  Imagine having a visitor coming to stay in your land and they want to claim ownership. The case is still in court”, the chief disclosed.

    The Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Mr Jide Idris, at a recent news conference, disclosed that the deceased children had missed out during the previous measles immunisation. He cited mass migration to Lagos from neighbouring states which has led to the emergence of some far-to-reach rural areas in the state.  He, however, added that the state government is conducting mapping of all slum areas in the state toward reducing the health hazards associated with such areas.

    Of the 10 countries with the most unvaccinated children in the world, five are in Africa with Nigeria alongside DR Congo, Ethiopia, South Africa and Uganda.  The point has been made that investing in the healthcare, infrastruture and education of children in low income communities not only gives children a healthy start at life but is also a long term benefit.

    The United Nations included vaccines for all as well as universal health coverage as key to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. Ensuring children in various slums in Lagos and other parts of the country get access to this will go a long way in preventing deaths among children of the poor.

    Additional reports by Biodun Adeyewa

  • Travails of Falae

    Travails of Falae

    Ilu-Abo, a rustic village in Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State, was in agony for four days, following the abduction of the village head, Chief Oluyemi Falae. His where about was unknown. The people were seized by panic. Since, according to his workers, the chief was maltreated before the abduction because he resisted his assailants, he may have sustained severe injuries.

    However, his kinsmen heaved a sigh of relief yesterday as he was released by his captors. But, the old man has not recovered from the shock.

    Throughout Nigeria, Falae, economist, administrator and Afenifere chieftain, is perceived as a harmless person. He is against violence in all ramifications. While in power, he had shunned opulence and materialism. Although a progressive, he has embraced conservative lifestyle. In retirement, his intervention in national life is always in the national interest. His arguments are robust and lucid. For him, Nigeria can still be a better place for all, if the national question is resolved.

    But today, Falae, 77, is a victim of violence. He was kidnapped on his farm in Akure. It is a double tragedy for the Falae family, which is just recovering from the death of its son, Deji, a former commissioner, in a plane crash. Akure traditional rulers, chiefs and associates of the elder statesman were enveloped by anxiety, following his forceful seizure by kidnappers.

    A shocking Deji of Akure, Oba Aladesulu Aladetoyinbo, contacted the state government. Townspeople were asking questions: what is the motivation for abducting the retired civil servant? What kind of food are the abductors giving the old man in captivity? Will he have access to his drugs? How will he change his clothes? How will Falae, who has not amassed wealth, raise the N100m ransom?

    The Olu of Ilu-Abo is a national figure, having served as the Managing Director of the NAL Merchant Bank, Secretary to Government and Finance Minister. Even, when he stirred controversy as the apostle of Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), he articulated his views without provocation and endeared himself, at least, to his boss, former President Ibrahim Babangida. His assets are his credibility and integrity. Even, when he supported former President Goodluck Jonathan against Gen. Muhammadu Buhari in the last general election, despite the abysmal performance of the former leader, public criticism of his inexplicable alliance with Dr. Jonathan was mild.

    He had sought for presidential power twice, but without success. For him, the contest for public office is not a do-or-die affair.  The Akure chief, who was a chieftain of the proscribed Social Democratic Party (SDP), thought that his chance was bright during the transition programme packaged by Babangida. But, it ended in fiasco. Shortly before the collapse of the ill-fated Third Republic, the midwife was also disgraced out of office. In 1999, Falae picked up the gauntlet again. He was the presidential candidate of the Alliance for Democracy/All Peoples Party (AD/APP). But, he lost his deposit at the presidential election. A non-violent politician, he approached the court for justice. But, when his prayer was turned down, he accepted his fate with philosophical calmness.

    Falae continued his intervention in Afenifere, the Yoruba pan socio-political group. Ilu-Abo, a rustic village in Akure, where he is a monarch, is his base. He had turned to farming to make ends meet, as his plastic industry was ebbing away. In the ancient town, he is a moral authority of some sorts. A patriot, he had wanted to use his influence to create more local governments in Akure. But, the move was  resisted by old chiefs who feared the balkanisation of the city. In later years, they agonised over their lack of foresight.

    The Akure ‘boy’ is emotionally attached to his root. He believes in its culture, customs and tradition. Falae was a major participant in the popular Egungun festival of yore. Youths always trooped out and followed masquerades from morning till evening when the messenger from heaven returns to the abode of the spirits (Igbale). It was during one of those festivals that his admission letter to the University of Ibadan was handed to him by a friend. He was captivated by the Egungun dance and did not bother to look at its content. To him, the letter bearer was an agent of distraction. But, when he got home and his parent requested wanted him to share the joy with them, he was confused. He had forgotten that the letter was in his pocket. When he brought it out, his joy knew no bound. It was more than the joy of following the masquerade.

    At the University of Ibadan, Falae was a brilliant student. He was also an activist. In fact, the former Minister of Information, the late Chief TOS Benson, once said at an event in Lagos that he suspected that he was among the tertiary students who dragged the parliamentarians out of the National Assembly in Lagos during the protest against the Nigeria/ British Defence Pact, which the Balewa government was pushing. After graduation, he taught briefly at Oyemekun Grammar School, Akure. His first point of call in the civil service was the Office of Statistics. As one of his senior colleagues, the late Pa M.D Olayinka recalled, Falae did not find the place challenging enough. He sought transfer. But, in the mainstream civil service, he became a star technocrat, climbing the hierarchical ladders, until he became the Permanent Secretary.

    The crowing of his glorious career was his appointment as the Secretary to Government. He became the economic mouthpiece of the government. Towards the end of the administration, he was appointed as the Finance Minister. Falae had confided in Babangida that he would contest for the Presidency. Thus, when he resigned and joined the presidential race, he was among the top contenders. He and the late Major General Sheu Yar’ Adua were running neck to neck. It was on the eve of the presidential primaries that one of his associates, Hon. Alex Adedipe, a Second Republic Majority Leader of the Ondo State House of Assembly, died in an auto crash on his way to Akure to mobilise for his Akure kinsman.  At the middle of the game, Babangida changed the goal post. The contenders were banned, unbanned and banned. Following the ban, the late Chief Moshood Abiola, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Alhaji Baba Gana Kingibe came to the central stage.

    Falae was among prominent Nigerians who decried the annulment of the historic June 12, 1993 presidential poll. He joined forces with other Afenifere chieftains-Senator Olaniwun Ajayi, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Chief Ganiyu Dawodu, Senator Kofo Bucknor Akerele, Senator Bola Tinubu, Dr. Femi Okunrounmu, Senator Ayo Fasanmi and Chief Segun Adegoke-to insist in the reversal of the annulment. He was persecuted by the military for the cause he believed in. The cries of the progressives fell on the deaf ear of the soldiers of fortune and lords of manor. After tossing around the politicians, the military shoved aside the interim contraption headed by Chief Ernest Sonekan and proclaimed Gen. Sani Abacha as the Head of State. The political class was back to square one.

    For five years, the victims mounted pressure on the military to return to barracks. They cold only make a headway, following Abacha’s sudden death. Up came Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar, who hurriedly put together a transition programme. Two parties-the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the APP-met the registration deadline. The two parties were rooting for Falae because they knew that the President should come from the Southwest to compensate the zone for Abiola’s travails and death in detention.  In fact, prominent PDP leaders, including the late Chief Solomon Lar, were addressing him as the in-coming President. But, when Ige and other Afenifere chieftains pulled out of the PDP, and later, the APP to avoid contamination by the so-called Abacha politicians, Falae encamped in the AD, which the Chief of General Staff, Vice Admiral Mike Akhigbe, advised the Head of State to register, despite its inability to meet the deadline by the electoral commission. Akhigbe, who was governor of Ondo and Lagos states. reasoned that, if the Southwest pulled out of the transition programme, it will suffer a credibility crisis.

    However, the AD failed to overcome the challenge of bitter struggle for power among its leading lights. Ige and Falae were the presidential aspirants. The former governor of Oyo State believed that, in terms of seniority and contributions to the progressive family since the days of Awolowo, he was more qualified. But, those who supported Falae played up the sentiment that he had been branded a Yoruba irredentist, warning that he would not command a national acceptance. The majority of the 24 Afenifere/AD wise men opted for Falae. When the late Chief Hammad Kusamotu broke the news to Ige, who was abroad, he described it as the second fall of man. The party was never the same.

    Ige felled betrayed by his colleagues, the Awoists. Cracks appeared on the wall. The crisis had weakened the AD, ahead of the 1999 election. Crisis resolution mechanism was absent. Although the AD teamed up with the APP to present Falae as a joint candidate, the joint platform crumbled before the seeminly more formidable PDP arsenal. On that note, Falae’s presidential ambition became a permanent dream.

    In post-1999, AD split into two. Ige, who had joined the Federal Government, was being resisted by his Afenifere colleagues. A leadership crisis broke out in the AD, with Ambassador Yusuf Mamman and Alhaji Ahmed Abdulkadir, leading the factions. Reconciliation was deadlock. But, in Lagos, the rift between Tinubu and Dawodu has also polarised the leaders. The woes of the party were compounded in 2003 when it supported former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s second term ambition. In 2007, when Falae decided to try his luck again at the presidential election, his platform, the Democratic Peoples Alliance (DPA), could not fly. His next point of call was the MPPP, and later the new SDP, of which he is the chairman.

    Having given up his presidential ambition in utter sensitivity to the reality of the times, he embraced the pastime of drumming support for the resolution of the national question. He explained that he accepted nomination to the National Conference set up by Dr. Jonathan, in furtherance of his belief that, unless the multi-ethnic groups reach a common ground on peaceful co-existence, Nigeria will not move forward. But, as another delegate, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), pointed out, the Yoruba agenda collapsed on the floor of the conference.

    Also, Afenifere leaders, including Falae, drummed support for Dr. Jonathan’s re-election in the Southwest. But, the region rejected the former President, citing ineptitude, marginalisation and inability to fulfill his 2011 promises. The outcome of the poll underscored Afenifere leaders’ waning popularity and diminishing influence, unlike 1999, when it could bark and bite.

    However, despite Falae’s position on contemporary issues, many Nigerians have continue to hold him in esteem. This may be due to his incorruptible record as a public servant, modesty, integrity and lack of avarice. Thus, many Nigerians sympathised with his family over his abduction by suspected herdsmen. Ondo State Information Commissioner Kayode Akinmade, who condemned the abduction, described it is sad development. He said the government, which immediately reviewed the security situation in the state, will ensure that the ugly incident does not repeat itself.

  • Travails of JAMB candidates in Bayelsa

    Travails of JAMB candidates in Bayelsa

    Most candidates that applied to participate in the ongoing Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) in Bayelsa State are currently going through a tough time. For no fault of theirs, the candidates are groaning and battling to have  computers to write the examination organized by the Joint Admission Matriculation Board (JAMB).

    The travails of the candidates are borne out of an online system adopted by JAMB for writing the examination. JAMB recently reorganized UTME and introduced a full-blown electronic system for the examination.

    The system, called Computer Based Test (CBT), requires the candidates to have fundamental or elementary knowledge of the computer because they are expected to use it to write the examination.

    Despite the advantages of the system which is designed to eliminate examination malpractices, the ongoing experiment has revealed some challenges. The Nation monitored the conduct of the examination in the five approved centres in Bayelsa State. A major challenge identified by our reporter in all the centres is lack of support infrastructure.

    Lack of electricity supply and insufficient computers heightened the level of frustration among the candidates in some of the centres. Two of the centres were located in the Niger Delta University (NDU) ,Amassoma, while others were in Agudama, Yenezue-Gene, and Otuoke.

    Candidates for the examination were stranded and seen complaining bitterly over the technical challenges they faced during the exam. One of the UTME’s technical employee, Mr. James Oladipo, said, unstable power supply was a big challenge.

    “Power failure is an issue and the generator we were provided with was going on and off. We have been  trying to rectify it and believe God will give us the grace to do that,” he said.

    He, however, said the computers provided for the candidates at the Niger Delta University Centre 1 were enough for the candidates.

    It was observed that the exam which was supposed to start at 9:00am began two or three hours later in some centres.

    One of the candidates, Masa Terry, while praising the system also criticized it for not taking into cognizance the poor infrastructural development in the country.

    He also said the system was not favourable to candidates from rural areas who were not conversant with the use of computers.

    “This is a modern system and it’s very good but for people who came from remote areas,it was not a good experience for them because they’ve never used a computer before. This resulted in mass failure,” he said.

    Another candidate, Ezi Rex, lamented that he could not join the first batch in writing the exam because the computers were in short supply.

    “Before initiatives like these are executed, adequate provisions should have been made so that nobody would be embarrassed at the end of the day”, he said.

    Also Mr. Obagua Jonathan, questioned the preparedness of JAMB for the examination.

    He said: “They said the exam would be done using computer  but we have been here since morning without being provided with any computers or other materials  to write the exam. I have been here since 6:00am. This is past  11:00am and I have not written the examination because the computers are in short supply. It is frustrating and capable of making us to be psychologically unstable to write the exam at the end of the day. ”

    But the State Coordinator, JAMB, Mr. Joseph Oboh, said the candidates are always instructed on modalities for answering questions before the commencement of the exams.

    He said the system was designed to eliminate examination malpractices and to enable candidates get their results three hours after writing the examination.

    The state Commandant of Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Mr. Desmond Agu, took time to visit most of the centres. Agu and his entourage went round to ensure that the environment for the examination was adequately secured.

    His men were stationed around the centres to restrain persons who have no business with the examination. Agu commended JAMB for adopting the electronic system but observed that most of the challenges were technical.

    “It is one of the mandates of NSCDC to monitor every exam that is conducted in Nigeria. I commend JAMB for making use of this system despite the challenges which are basically technical,” he said.

    He said his men were mandated to check examination misconduct and advised candidates to report to their centres early. He said the examination would be conducted from March 10 to March 18

  • Travails of a war hero

    His name conjures fear. When many hear the name Benjamin Adekunle, they look behind their shoulders to see if he is coming. As the legend goes, Brig – Gen Benjamin Maja Adekunle aka Black Scorpion was a brave and ruthless soldier. Many heard the tales of his exploits during the 1967-70 civil war. Gen Adekunle’s fame grew during the war. As small as some of us were then, we heard how he handled the enemy and treated his soldiers who fell out of line.

    There was a myth surrounding Gen Adekunle. It was said that he could disappear and reappear to wreak havoc on enemy territory. Of course, many of the stories were embellished, but the people chose to believe them because they suited those times. People believed anything thrown at them so far the Nigerian side was winning the war. The Adekunle myth grew as he was said to be a soldier that the enemy could not touch because he wielded certain powers.

    The Adekunle myth followed him home after the war. Many wonder till today if he actually did all that people said he did during the war. The man is tough no doubt and he showed early in life that he is going to be a non-conformist. For a boy to run away from home at the age of nine to fend for himself is enough evidence that he will not allow people to trample upon him anyhow when he becomes an adult. This rebellious streak in him stalked him all the way. At military training schools in the United Kingdom (UK) and India; in the Nigerian Army; as aide-de- camp (ADC) to the former Eastern Region Premier, the late Sir Akanu Ibiam and at the war front, Gen Adekunle played by his own rules.

    But he could not be ignored by his bosses because, according to those who should know, he was a damn good soldier. The Black Scorpion fought the war as if his life depended on it. Those in his command remember him as a commander’s commander. Hear one of them, Brig – Gen Alabi Isama, who was Adekunle’s chief of staff during the war : ‘’What did these people (Adekunle and others) do wrong to the society? They went to the war and came back alive. But what did they get out of it? Nothing! Today, Adekunle is forgotten by the country. That is the hero of the civil war. He won all the battles…’’ Yes, as Gen Isama said, the Black Scorpion ‘’won all the battles but not the war’’.

    By that statement, Gen Isama was referring to the sorry state of Gen. Adekunle, who is lying critically ill at home. Should a person in such a condition be kept at home? The answer is no, but the Black Scorpion is being treated at home because an air ambulance is not readily available to fly him to Ghana. When I read his story in last Saturday’s edition of this paper, I shook my head in disbelief that a thing like this is happening to someone of Adekunle’s calibre. No matter what some may consider as his eccentricities then, Gen Adekunle does not deserve to be treated as a nobody in this country.

    Our country owes a lot to people like him for fighting to ‘’keep Nigeria one’’. If they did not make that sacrifice, we may not be where we are today. The war in which he played a leading role ended 43 years ago, but it seems some people are still holding that against him. What could he have done to warrant being treated like this at the ripe old, age of 77. He was 77 yesterday. Happy birthday sir. But the best birthday gift we can give him as a country is to assist his family in getting him to Ghana fast for further treatment. All the family needs to do that is an air ambulance. The family says it has written to the army to assist in that regard without success. The army worldwide does not abandon its own. It rallies round its operatives and does everything to protect them.

    Where they are ill or wounded in battle, the army ensures that they get the best of treatment. And here, we are talking of Adekunle. Does he have to beg before he gets his right? This is the tragedy of our country. We treat our heroes with contempt and give looters of the treasury red carpet treatment, thereby sending a wrong signal to those coming behind. The Adekunle family seems to be at its wit’s end in its bid to get the authorities to help in flying its patriarch out of the country. Hear Abiodun, son of Gen. Adekunle : ‘’He is very weak and not in control of his memory. It is more of memory problem. He is not able to recognise people around him or anything. But, at some other times, he recognises people. So, it is an on and off thing. I have tried very hard to get the Nigerian Army to come to his aid without luck. Here is a man who spent his youth fighting a war to keep the country one. In other organised societies, he would be treated as a hero. But unfortunately, here in Nigeria, he has been forgotten by all’’.

    Let those in authority listen, whatever is done for the Black Scorpion today cannot be too much. As they say, he has paid his dues. Many, if not all in Service today, are his juniors. Will they watch and allow their superior to die all because of his family’s inability to get an air ambulance to fly him to Ghana? It is Gen Adekunle that we are talking about today, we don’t know what may happen tomorrow to those still in office. God forbid, if they become seriously ill after leaving office and help is not forthcoming as in the case of Gen Adekunle, how will they feel about their country? In Gen Adekunle’s present position, he cannot be happy that a country he fought to preserve seems to have abandoned him at his hour of utmost need.

    To those in authority, I commend, Gen Isama’s remarks in this paper last Saturday. He said: ‘’Everybody is aware that he (Adekunle) is battling to stay alive. But, should we wait until he dies and then roll out the drums, shouting that he was a hero and start marching round the town? Every January 15, the whole country gathers to remember our fallen heroes. What about our living heroes?…As the Commander of the Third Marine Commando, he captured Calabar…he sent me to capture the whole place. We captured the whole of what is today known as Cross River State…So, Adekunle was our leader. But, unfortunately for him, he was not a thief like many of them. If he were a thief like many, his condition would not have been like this today. Can’t you see the others? Don’t you see where they live? Adekunle’s house was renovated by Ogbomoso people…Let this country rise and help this man to live a little longer in comfort because he has denied himself such comfort while fighting in the war. There was no commander of the Nigerian Army that is better than Adekunle. Why should he be the worse off today?’’

    Indeed, Adekunle or any other retired officer for that matter should not beg for bread. They should not be made to see their service to the country as a curse after retirement otherwise we may start breeding officers, who will be more interested in making money rather than serving the country.

    There is still room to make amends in Adekunle’s case; it is not too late to do that. The country awaits the Chief of Army Staff’s prompt response to this matter. Whatever he does, he should remember, he will be doing for a senior colleague and only God repays such a kind gesture.

     

    Footnote : This article was first published on June 27, 2013, when the Benjamin Adekunle family cried out for help  over its patriarch’s failing health. The much sought help never came. But since Gen Adekunle’s death last Saturday,  many, including his colleagues, have been shedding, what I call crocodile tears, and also singing his praise. Where were they when he needed them most?  What a world! Certain people don’t matter to us when they are alive, but they become saints when they die.

  • NNN: Travails of the northern voice

    NNN: Travails of the northern voice

    The New Nigerian Newspaper (NNN), once one of the adored newspapers in the country as a result of its quality editorial contents, is now in a deplorable state. For the past 16 months, this paper has been off the newsstands. This has provoked fears that the newspaper may soon be liquidated.

    Although the paper was privatised as the Daily Times was, its travails didn’t emanate from the privatisation exercise. The problem was its inability to pay workers their monthly salaries, thus resulting in the workers refusing to continue work without pay. In the circumstances, the company was closed down on January 22, 2013.

    Before then, the workers had earlier embarked on a four-month strike in February 2012 over non-payment of six months’ salaries. The strike was called off following the intervention of Sokoto State Governor, Aliyu Magatarda Wammako who was chairman of the committee set up by the Northern State Governors’ Forum to look into the problems of the company and find ways of address them.

    Chairman of the New Nigeria Newspapers Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Amos Thomas told our correspondent that they called off the strike because Wammako appealed to them to go back to work, even as he promised that the problems of the company was over.

    “He came and addressed us, telling us that the problems of New Nigeria Newspaper were over. He gave the company N60 million to pay outstanding salaries and also promised to be giving the company N5 million monthly to keep it going. We were paid for three months, with a balance of three months. But after that, the situation relapsed. Even the promise he made was not fulfilled,” he said.

    The failure of the governor to respond to the distress calls from the company apparently forced the workers to down tools again. This time, they were being owed 11 months salaries, while retirees were being owed several months entitlements.

    About 19 months after, the owners, the 19 Northern State Governors have not done anything to bring the newspaper back to the newsstand. At a news conference in January, 2013 preparatory for the strike, the Joint Consultative Committee of the workers’ union in the organisation accused the management of failing to meet its financial obligations to the workers, coupled with the unacceptable behaviour of the 19 northern owner-governors towards the company.

    In view of this, the union said: “We are left with no other alternative than to shut down the company, pending the time the owners are prepared to turn around the fortunes of the company through whichever way deemed necessary.”

    The union also expressed disappointment over the inactivity on the part of the northern state governors towards reviving the newspaper, recalling that

    “Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Magatakarda Wamakko, in his capacity as the chairman of the Northern States Governors’ Forum (NSGF) Committee on New Nigerian Newspapers came to the company in the wake of our strike in May 2012 and appealed to us to call off the strike, promising that the owners would not only ensure that all our arrears were paid, but would as well guarantee regular monthly payment of our salaries with effect from the period he intervened.

    “We, however, suspended the strike then. Wamakko was able to fulfill part of his promise by releasing N60 million for the payment of our six months’ salary; leaving a balance of four months at that time.

    “For that gesture on his part, the workers were grateful to him and will remain grateful to him. However, between that time and now, the payment of salary in arrears which he condemned and described as anti-labour is still the order of the day in the company.

    “This is viewed as a contradiction of the statement he made that he had come to NNN to ameliorate the workers’ pains and long-suffering.”

    While the northern governors failed to address the plight of the workers, they took their cry to the pan-northern socio-political organisation, the Arewa Consultative Forum.

    The former leader of the forum, Aliko Mohammed promised to look into the plight of the workers. But months after the promise, nothing concrete has been done aside the fact that the northern state governors are believed to be waiting for the Federal Government to pay the entitlements of those who worked in the company before it was handed over to the northern states in 2006.

    However, our correspondent gathered that the Northern Governors have asked the management of the company to compute the total liabilities of the company which they are expected to pay after the Federal Government must have paid its own liabilities.

    The management, it was learnt, was also told to verify some of their landed properties; value them and report back to them with a view to selling one of such properties to settle the outstanding liabilities and then revive the newspaper.

    The intervention of Vice-President Mohammed Namadi Sambo made the Federal Government to agree paying its liabilities to the workers in three different installments.

    Secretary of the NNN chapel of the NUJ, Nasiru Suleiman said the Federal Government had paid part of its liabilities to the workers in two installments, adding that most of them are old staff and retirees. He also said the northern governors have directed the management of the Newspaper to evaluate some of the company’s properties with a view to selling some of them to offset their liabilities and may be revitalise the company or privatise it.

    One of the staff of the company told our correspondent that even though they could not confirm the information, they learnt that the management has concluded the evaluation exercise and had reported back to the government.

    This has raised the hope of the workers that they would soon return to work or be paid their 25 months’ salary.

    However, some of the workers seem to have lost faith in the company and are not sure the newspaper will hit the newsstand again.

    Many northerners are not happy with the state of the company. They accused the northern governors of allowing the legacies left behind by the late Premier of the North, Sir Ahmadu Bello to waste. Some of them made reference to the extinction of the Bank of the North and Kaduna Textile Limited as well as the sorry state of other institutions put in place by the late Premier.

    Sources close to the Northern State Governors’ Forum told our correspondent that with the current attitude of the governors, it will be difficult for the newspaper to be on the newsstand again.

    “I am sure that if the Federal Government hands over the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Kaduna Polytechnic back to the northern state government, they will go comatose within a short period like they did with the New Nigerian Newspapers. They took over the newspaper from the Federal Government and have refused to fund it.

    “The fact that the North is made up of19 states makes it difficult for them to speak with one voice on this issue. On the other hand, the northern states are controlled by different political parties and different interest groups. Whose interest will the newspaper protect when it comes back to the newsstand?

    “Wammako who heads the committee on the revival of the company set up by the northern governors is no longer a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The Kwara State Governor, who is a member of the committee, is also no longer in the PDP. The Chairman of the NSGF and Niger State Governor is a member of the PDP.

    “So, you can see that the interests are diverse and I think that is why nobody is saying anything about the prolonged strike by the workers,” said Musa Yakubu, a resident of Kaduna metropolis and an avid reader of the newspaper.

    When our correspondent visited the premises of the company located along the busy Ahmadu Bello Way, weeds have taken over the compound while the offices were covered with dust. Most members of staff hang around the NUJ premises located few metres away, hoping that things will soon be better.

    The workers alleged that their working condition was worsened by the lackluster and unimpressive management style of the Managing Director, Malam Abdulrah-manTukur.

    At a news conference preparatory to their strike in January, 2013 they said: “Since Tukur assumed office as the Managing Director in 2010, he has not been inward-looking enough to turn around the fortunes of the company by way of improving the situation he met on ground.

    “For instance, rather than improving on the print run, it has continued to nosedive, thus making the company to run at a loss while a handful of management staff are feeding fat at the expense of the generality of the workers who are made to produce a few copies.

    “The tenure of Abdulrahman has witnessed the suspension of two titles in the stable of the New Nigerian Newspapers, namely Weekly and Sunday New Nigerian. The suspension of the titles which is seen as the first ever since the floating of the titles resulted from the Managing Director’s management style.

    “Amid the excruciating pains resulting from non-payment of salaries by his management, the Managing Director blamed the inability to pay salary on the staff strength of the company by sacking about 28 members of staff without their entitlements.

    “Efforts by the company’s labour union to make the Managing Director to consider his action as being anti-labour law proved abortive as he refused to rescind his decision on the so-called termination letters.

    The workers also said they had made several attempts to meet the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, the Kaduna State Governor, Mukthar Ramalan Yero and other northern governors concerning the situation of the company without success, even as they said Vice-President, Mohammed Namadi Sambo had been briefed on the situation of the company.

    Efforts by our correspondent to have Abdulrahaman comment on the issue were futile as he was said to be having serious health challenges.

  • Travails of Al-Makura

    Travails of Al-Makura

    Nasarawa State Governor Tanko Al-Makura has been having a cat and mouse game with the House of Assembly for three and half years. Now, the plot to remove him has thickened, following the resolve of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to emasculate the opposition, ahead of next year’s elections,  writes Deputy Political Editor RAYMOND MORDI. 

    Impeachments threats are not new to Governor  Tanko Al-Makura. He has received quite a number of such threats in the three and half years he has been occupying the  Government House in Lafia, the Nasarawa State capital. But, following the impeachment of former Governor Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, a colleague from the All Progressives Congress (APC), Al-Makura knows the threat is real this time.

    Twenty out the 24 members of the House of Assembly want him impeached. The 20 lawmakers are card-carrying members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The House reached a resolution on Monday to serve Al-Makura with an impeachment notice. The resolution followed a motion of public interest raised by the deputy majority leader, Yahaya Usman (Umaisha/Ugya) Consti-tuency.

    According to the Clerk of the House, Mr. Ego Maikeffi  and Al-Makura is being impeached for gross misconduct and the violation of the constitution. The clerk  on Tuesday that the governor is frustrating efforts to serve him the impeachment notice, saying attempts by him to reach the governor has been unsuccessful as he was denied entry into the Government House by the security personnel at the gate.

    But, the governor has responded through his Special Adviser on Public Affairs, Abdulhamid Kwara, saying he was ready to answer the allegations leveled against him appropriately when served the notice. Thousands of protesters loyal to Al-Makura took over the Abuja-Keffi highway early on Wednesday  threatening to shut down the state in the event of his impeachment. The  protesters caused a traffic gridlock on the expressway, the gateway between Abuja and nine northern states.

    Following the latest development, he left Lafia on Tuesday evening for Abuja for an undisclosed reason. The governor, who is facing impeachment threat from the House left; shortly after holding series of meetings with his commissioners and other stakeholders in the state.

    From the time Al-Makura sent the PDP government led by former Governor Akwe Doma packing at the 2011 general elections, he has not had any respite. The PDP had been at the helm of affairs in Nasarawa State since the restoration of democracy in 1999. The tide turned when Al-Makura, who contested the election under the platform of the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), pulled a surprise victory at the poll.

    The emergence of Al-Makura was made possible by the widespread disaffection with the PDP’s inability to provide a level playing field for its aspirants vying for tickets for various elective offices, including the governorship. In fact, the emergence of Doma as the governorship candidate  never went down well with many stakeholders. These  factors prepared the ground for the massive defection of Al-Makura and scores of his supporters into the CPC, one of the parties that later came together to form the APC.

    Al-Makura’s travails started from day one. He came to power with a lot of commitments, determination and plans to rescue the state from its socio-economic woes. But, the first challenge that hit the administration was the state’s poor financial standing; no thanks to intimidating debt profile inherited from the immediate past administration. His administration inherited close to N40 billion in debts. The challenges had become so daunting that the state was said to be borrowing not less than N850 million monthly to pay salaries.

    Thus, one of his immediate challenges was to identify additional sources of income  to enable him meet the expectations of the people, in line with his campaign promises. In doing this, he required the co-operation of the House  which is dominated by the PDP. But, this was not forthcoming. As a result, the administration has been having a running battle wi th the  legislature. The House also rejected most of his appointments, policies and programmes. The lawmakers’ opposition to his policies and programmes, according to observers, was politically motivated and has nothing to do with the interest of the state.

    This cat and mouse game between the governor and the lawmakers resulted into many impeachment threats against Al-Makura at the slightest opportunity. It is believed that the threats are being instigated by the PDP  which is yet to recover from the shocking defeat of their benefactor in 2011.  The PDP leadership  is very critical of the government, accusing it of high handedness, incompetence and insensitivity to the people’s plight.

    To compound the situation, the people of Nasarawa State woke up to  the resurgence of communal clashes in the southern senatorial district,  leading to loss lives and property. Despite government’s efforts to nip the crises in the bud, the crises keep escalating and spreading like wildfire. The most recent was the murder of no fewer than 70 security personnel drawn from the police, Directorate of State Security Service (DSSS), civil defence corps among others which has come to be known as the Ombatse massacre.

  • My travails for three and a half years over child trafficking allegation —Bisket

    My travails for three and a half years over child trafficking allegation —Bisket

    Bisi Dan Musa, a.k.a. Bisket, bestrode the social scene like a colossus in the 80s, 90s and early 2000. Now 66, her life is one that movie makers can make a fortune from. As a fabric merchant, she was already comfortable enough to build her own house at 24. And by the time she clocked 30, she was already a mother of eight children. Tall, graceful and endowed with benevolent disposition, it is no surprise that celebrities were always flocking around her. As a matter of fact, her business office, called Bisket Store, on Allen Avenue, Ikeja, Lagos, was always a beehive of activities. It was the first to run a 24-hour schedule. She later became a born-again Christian and before any of her top society friends knew it, she had become seriously involved in ministry work. She founded a church and intensified her work in humanitarian services, picking up orphans and destitute and rehabilitating them. It was a success story that turned into a nightmare when she was arrested for alleged child trafficking in 2001. It was one incident that shook her life to its very foundation and forced her into a quiet life when she got over the storm that lasted for three and a half years. She went down memory lane as she discussed these and more with PAUL UKPABIO

    IT is not unusual to hear that you are in Jerusalem, Rome or some other holy cities on pilgrimage. How does one reconcile this with the fact that you were once accused of child trafficking?

    I believe that in the journey of life, God will always take you through different phases. The Bible tells us that there was a time in Joseph’s life that God gave him a vision, the vision backfired and he went solo like I did. But that did not deny God’s promises upon his life and the vision was made manifest. When God wanted him to go solo, he went solo. When God wanted him as a slave, he became one. When God wanted him in prison, he was in prison. But the promise of God upon him, he never missed. And those channels of suffering became the channels through which God elevated him.

    A vision is like a divine promise. Before something can materialise in your life, you and God must share a vision together. He will first give you a vision; not necessarily in a dream. It may be an idea in your heart. It may be something that you visualise that is coming to you and you are excited about it.

    You went into fabric business early in life and made great fortune from it. How did you get involved with the poor and the destitute?

    I did not go into fabric business, I was born into it. I am always a dreamer. I diversified into supermarket line and I happened to be the first to run a 24-hour supermarket in Nigeria. Up till now, nobody has achieved that feat. I did the business when Nigeria was tensed up during the military era. There were guns everywhere and I did a 24-hour supermarket business because God gave me the inspiration to do it. And anything I have an inspiration to do, I go for it and I achieve it.

    God also gave me an inspiration to serve him. Up till now, people cannot understand the calling. Not even my family members, my children, my husband, my late mother and other people who are close to me. None of them could understand why somebody at the highest level of her career would suddenly divert into taking care of the ordinary people on the streets. They believe that most people who divert into such callings do so out of frustration or career breakdown. But I was still in limelight and at my prime, because at the time I answered the call, I was still in my 30s.

    I did so many things very fast in life. Even my tenants thought that my building belonged to my mother. I had been delivered of eight children before I reached 30. Some preferred to believe the rumour that I had no children. In between all that, I was still working, travelling overseas and importing goods in containers. I was fine and I already had five branches of the supermarket. At 20, I was doing all that. I was never a wayward woman. No man in Nigeria can stand up today and say he invested in me. No man can say he has gone out with me, and no governor or minister can say he helped me or gave me a contract. I have never gone out for such largesse in my life. It was my sweat and the benevolence of my husband.

    As a wealthy woman, what is your take on success and wealth?

    My children are in their late 30s and above now. They tell me that I am a genius. They compare me to Bill Gates. They and others who know me would tell you that money is not my priority. If I were to value money, I would be one of the richest women in Nigeria today. I see many opportunities I can make money from, but I don’t go for it. Rather, I give out to people. Many whose lives I have touched are living witnesses to my generosity. I am rather careless with money. I give out more money than I make. That is why I say I don’t value money the way other people see it as a matter of life and death. Some people are so eager to achieve and do not care if they hurt anybody in their shrewd desire to make money. People hurt me. Even those that I have helped hurt me, but I just look at them and laugh. They don’t even know how to say thank you.

    Money is nothing in this world. It is only those who God has given the vision that understand the power of the source. They are the ones who know the value of life and also know that money is not everything. Money is good. I pray for it every day. I pray for my generation not to taste poverty. But one thing I used to tell my kids any time they feel bad and say, “Ah, Mummy, you are nice to a fault,’ is that life and power are transient. Everything that has a beginning also has an end. Nothing is too big to gain and nothing is too big to lose.

    I was in the office of an influential government official who is close to retirement. He was telling me that all he needed in his life was N3 million so that he could retire to his farm. I looked at him and I felt like weeping, because I know what that means. Some months ago, I gave someone a property worth N8 million free of charge. My children were angry, but I pacified them that God has favoured us and we have never lacked. I told my children that the ones they needed, I had already given them.

    Tell us about your background

    I was born into affluence. My dad and mum were very rich. My father, Chief Zacheaus Adekoya Okeowo, brought power to Ijebu-Ode. He owned the first petrol station in Ijebu Ode, and at a time, he was one of the finest politicians in the progressive politics of that era. And my mother, Chief (Mrs.) Christiana Alaba Okeowo, was one of the pioneers of the fabric business in Nigeria. She started in Lagos and went up to have her own factory. She didn’t stop employing foreigners to work in her factory. So I grew up with silver spoon. I have never tasted poverty in my life. I don’t even know what they call poverty. My parents bought me my first car at the age of 16. So, I have never tasted poverty. Maybe that is why money is not a big deal to me. When I see people running after money like life and death and they are ready to hurt anybody because of money, I feel sorry for them. Even when they accused me of stealing children, I just laughed. The question I first asked is how much would I sell them? As an individual I built my first house at the age of 24. I know how much I get from rent alone. Up till now, I live on rent because I decided not to work again. I retired at the age of 40.

    What has life has taught you?

    There are some positions God put us in, though they make us unhappy or uncomfortable, they are part of the packages that will locate our destiny. I always tell my kids that I know I may have hurt you, you may not be happy with me as your mother, maybe I wasted opportunities in which you would have been swimming in money, but it could also be that I am preparing your future. You will enjoy it. I tell them to trust me that my seven generations will reap the fruits of what I am sowing. I may not reap it, but I pray that God will give my children the grace to reap it. That’s because He works according to His grace.

    If Jesus can die at the age of 33, who am I to query God for my own cross? Jesus’ short time on earth did not deprive Him of God’s promise upon his life. Today, He is worshipped and adored globally. Before Adolph Hitler died, he confessed that Jesus was the greatest and most popular entity in the world. Even Times magazine at a time adjudged Him the Greatest Personality of the Century. Even Muslims appreciate Him. They say He is not the son of God, but they still accept him as a prophet of God. I just came back from Jerusalem and I visited where Jesus was buried. It is Muslims that are watching over the place. And it is a mosque that is beside Jesus Christ’s burial ground. They said the land is owned by Muslims and the Muslims were very careful; they were watching us. They didn’t want us to damage the place or do anything evil to it. So, they hurry you out so that you don’t overstay your visit. They say they open the place in the morning and close it in the evening. They are very watchful of the place, so that nobody will come and bomb it or do any evil to it.

    So, if God can glorify Christ up to that level and Christ promised us as His followers that ‘when you take my step, I will never owe you,’ I say that God will not owe me. It may take time for people to realise who this woman is, but God will never owe me.

    Do you regret helping abandoned children and destitute after you were accused of child trafficking?

    Thank God, one of the children they said I stole is in The Bells University today. We spend over a million naira on him in a year, but the papers are not reporting that, I don’t care. All I care about is what God asked me to do. That child (points to a sleeping baby) is a child to one of the children they said I stole. I am taking care of the mother and I am taking care of the child. Nobody is seeing that. They accused Jesus more than that. People fight what they don’t understand. My children too don’t understand, but I know with time, they will understand that I have a purpose on earth. I have a vision that I am pursuing. Nobody is seeing that vision, but I don’t care. It is not about money. God has given me a time to enjoy. I have enjoyed money. I have entered presidential jets many times. I have been to places in England where it was white people that opened the gates for me and white executives chauffeured me. So, God has given me my good times.

    Even now, I am still having my good time because at my age, I have no sickness: no diabetes, no high blood pressure, no headache, nothing. People see me and they cannot believe my age. Some people even see me and they say it to my face that all your friends are old, why are you looking young like this? It is the grace of God. Because what I have gone through, they have not gone through it. They have stayed in the limelight. They have enjoyed their lives. They are mixing with their likes while I have been mixing with the low class for the pass 20 years. I still enjoy being around them and I am not complaining. I don’t want to be in the limelight. But I do tell my children if you want the limelight, go for it.

    As a popular society figure then, a lot of people must have swam around you…

    From youth, I was happily married and started rearing children. I have never lacked anything. So, nothing prepared me for such a huge challenge. I was giving birth to children every year. Some people even said to me, pretty women like you don’t normally have kids, how come you are having children every year? God has been too kind to me. So, when the other side came, it was like a big blow. It knocked me on the floor that I couldn’t even pray. There was a time I was no longer praying. Since I gave my life to God, I have never done anything fetish and I will not do it until the day I die. But in that period of tribulation, I was just blank.

    It was not even the incident per se, but the way people disappointed me. It was something I never thought could happen. The first day they took me to court, I was thinking that I would see thousands of people waiting there to fight my cause and say, ‘No, Bisket is not like that!’ But I got there and saw only those who wanted to persecute me. The mob was shouting. They were carrying stones. I looked into the heavens and said God, I am not Jesus Christ. Jesus is your son, you both died together in heaven, but I am a child of faith. This woman is about to break to pieces. I was praying to God in my heart.

    That is why my husband, Dan Musa, no matter who they say he is, I can never leave him. My marriage to him may not be a bed of roses. People said I should leave him, but I will never because during my trying moments, he was there for me. God used him. He stood as a man to the last minute, and for that, I can never abandon him. He is with me and we will be together for life. That is my destiny. But the whole episode made me to see life from a different perspective and that really weakened me for a couple of years.

    So, how was the issue resolved?

    I pursued the case for three and a half years before I was discharged and acquitted. They could not prove any case against me because God knows that I don’t have any case, and I proved myself in the court of law. No policeman or law enforcement person can say that I bribed him with one naira, and the heavens witnessed that. I intentionally did it so that I can still trust God. If I had bought my way out, I might not trust God again. I wanted to see whether the righteous would be punished, because according to His word, the child of the righteous will never be a victim of misfortune. I wanted to establish that biblical fact.

    When I first came, the Magistrate was very hostile. But when I proved my case that I take the children with me to England, I take them on holidays, and how much will I sell them in Nigeria? Even if they say they are selling children every day in Nigeria for N500,000, the money I spent on their return ticket to London for holidays alone is more than that. So, any magistrate who knows her onions can see the proof, with their passports. The hospital they were attending was Eko Hospital. They were not going to General Hospital. And I told the magistrate to go there and check the records. There was another hospital we used on Norman Williams Street, Ikoyi. I said go and check. So, how much will I sell them? The magistrate became sympathetic. I read it in her. But she was hostile when the case started. They even begged her to give me a seat in the dock. But when she saw the reality of the case, she changed.

    Chief Rhodes insisted that I should go into trial, because they wanted to set the case aside. I have forgotten the term they used in law, but Chief Rhodes said if what I had told him was true, I had no case. He said I should not go for the easy way out because my enemies might bring the case back in 10 years’ time. He said, ‘Let them put you in the dock. If you have passed through this and you have not collapsed up till now, you can’t collapse again.’

    So, I went into the dock. By the time we finished the case, people were on my side. When I am testifying, people shed tears. By the time I was discharged and acquitted, the whole court was jubilating. People were clapping. If they didn’t believe in the discretion of the magistrate, they would have hissed or protested. But when they counted charge one, discharge and acquitted; charge two, discharge and acquitted up to charge 21, the whole court started clapping.

    People said you cried on TV

    That was because the children were not allowed to follow me. I couldn’t clap, so I was crying. That is why people who saw the television footage thought I didn’t win the case. They saw me crying on TV and thought I had been sent to jail. And you know after that case, I went into my shell. So, everybody thought I went into jail. They never knew that I was discharged and acquitted. But my joy was not completed because I said I am going home but these children are going into detention with no care and love. As a mother, what is my joy?

    It was three and a half years later, through the favour of God under Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, Barrister Opeyemi Bamidele, who was the Commissioner for Sport and Youth Development, assisted and the children were returned to me. May God continue to favour these two people. One of the children is at The Bells University. Others are in other higher institutions.

    We hear that you have a new passion caring for animals…

    That is funny, because I never grew up in the village. I grew up in the city. But I have the tendency to love not just animals but anything that has life. I don’t play with life. I don’t also believe that it is my doing. It is God that creates human beings and He will just create you the way He wants you to be. I always explain this to my kids that the fault you see in me is exactly how God created me. There was a time my daughter’s friend came from England into my house. She saw me spoon-feeding a kitten. She looked and went to tell my daughter that ‘your mother has a problem o. She is now spoon-feeding animals.’ I appreciate anything that has life. That is how God created me and that is who I am.

    And your beauty has stayed over the years. How do you do it?

    There is no secret to it. I relax. I don’t worship money. If one has stroke, that means wheel chair. You can’t enjoy that money again. God didn’t allow me to beg my enemies for food. That means I am a rich woman in the Lord. So, I always thank God.

    And how is life in retirement?

    My husband lives in Kwara State, and where a man stays is where his wife takes as her home. But I am somebody who cannot just stay permanently in Kwara because of my kids. They are in the stage where they need me most. So, I need to be around them even though they may be older. They are actually in their 40s, and late 30s, but a child, no matter how old, still needs the native wisdom of the mother. Moreover, many of them are just re-settling in Nigeria. They are just returning home from the UK and the US, and they don’t know much about Nigerian way of doing things. So, I make sure I shuttle between them and my husband.

    And thank God, I have a reasonable husband who is very accommodating and caring. I live in his house here in Lagos. Dan Musa gave me a whole house I live in here in Lagos. So, I shuttle between Kwara and Lagos. I live on rent. My husband has a rice plantation with a factory in Ilorin. It is such a huge agricultural investment. He produces all brands of rice. I also have a store in Ilorin because my family is into buying and selling.

    What advice do you have for young couples?

    I believe that no woman should break up her marriage, because I believe from experience that there is no perfect human being. Anybody God has given you, just take him as your destiny. Even when you change, you will not find perfection in your new partner. So why change? And the changes always affect the children. Like I always advise my kids, the love story you see on television is different from reality. Don’t believe it. Don’t even expect it! Marriage is a reality show, and reality means no perfection.

  • Travails of a new wig

    A paper delivered at the ceremony in honour of the graduating final-year law students of the Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State on 15th June, 2013 by WAHAB SHITTU

    Permit me to start this address by thanking the authorities of the Igbinedion University particularly its prestigious Law Faculty for graciously extending to me the invitation to address this August gathering. It is indeed a huge privilege to beopportune to mount this unique podium today realizing the fact that there are millions of people of greater accomplishments who would have willingly and eagerly jumped at an opportunity such as this to talk to aspiring lawyers of the most distinguished and noble profession.

    I must also confess that I have some other private reasons why I could not have refused this tempting invitation. Professor RasheedIjaodola the Dean of the Faculty of Law, Igbinedion University who thought it fit to honour me with this invitation on behalf of the faculty is not a stranger to me at all but a real brother in the true sense of the word that some of us have always looked up to over the years as a mentor, inspirer, and an exemplar per excellence.

    In saying this, I recall that Professor Ijaodola it was who first broke the record of offering and excelling in four (4) A level papers at the Kwara State College of Technology, Ilorin in the late 70s, a tradition which also encouraged yours sincerely to toe the same path. Secondly, I recall that our distinguished professor also served meritoriously as the National President of Offa Students’ Union a move which also encouraged this writer to also follow suit in his footsteps. Thirdly, I am sure all of you are aware that your Dean is an Alumnus of the Prestigious Faculty of Law, University of Lagos, I was also privileged to have attended that celebrated University. I am also sure that most of you are aware that your Dean enjoyed and still enjoys a formidable reputation at the Faculty of Law, University of Ilorin where for more than two decades he joined others in mentoring law students of that university most of whom are accomplished legal practitioners today. Interestingly, this role he combines effectively with distinction and recognition in legal practice. Apparently following that footsteps too yours sincerely is also a Lecturer presently at the Faculty of Law, University of Lagos where I play my little role in mentoring future lawyers. Lastly, Professor RasheedIjaodola is my kinsman, a proud native of Offa regarded in some circles as ‘Small London’. Given this antecedents how could I have refused an invitation from such a distinguished fellow who is a pacesetter in the profession?

    The expectations and frustrations of the new wig

    Now to the business of the day, the Travails of a New Wig; The Law! The Law!! The Law!!! The monstrous chants are endless, the expectations all the more huge. Like a little bird weaned from its mother, the young law ‘otondo’ – as would be called, joins the noble league of men in silk charting the course of legal freedom. He is left to fly into an endless world of possibilities – some positive, others negative. The many dreams he had as a child are beginning to materialize faster than he imagined. Things are becoming clearer, reality shaping his view and outlook to life. No doubt, he is in one of the most prestigious professions in the world. The possibilities are that he might have had those dreams for the prestige that comes with the profession or opted into it in order to please his parents but the fact remains unchanged – a new wig just like most others is to be immersed in the dastardly, merciless quest for survival and success.

    The many ordeals of ‘baby lawyer’ start the moment he filled in Law as course of study in his Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) form, an act that bestows on him great responsibility. At this stage he has no idea of what rigours are ahead of him. If he did, he’ll probably have had to reconsider. He soon realizes the enormity of the expectations before him when he is admitted to join his colleagues in the prestigious law faculty. Asides from having to contend with the jealousy and frustration of those who could not make it to study Law, he is posed already with the responsibilities of lawyer right from his first year of study. It is not uncommon to have him arbitrate, mediate or moderate arguments between students on campus all because he is a law student.

    The status of the law student however, comes with its advantages too. While the males deploy their so-called status to woo girls all over campus, females also feel they are the perfect ‘independent wife material’ for suitors outside campus. Coupled with the tedious rigmarole of academic challenges, the law student is usually in for a tough time on campus. Many are engulfed by all the activity, do not make it till the end but those that do usually believe it’s the end of the tortuous road. Little do they realize it had only begun!

    After five years of the rigorous baking process with all the hype, the prestige and the respect notwithstanding, Law graduates are not guaranteed a secured future unlike their medical counterparts. Passage to law school after university is always almost impossible for a good number of the erstwhile envied ‘The Laws’. While a medical student on internship is on attractive monthly remuneration for the one year period, a law-school bound graduate is made to cough out a fortune. Inability to afford the ever-exorbitant law school fee has made some aspirants become lawyers later than they ought to.

    If they are fortunate enough to afford Law School and its rigours and so bag their ‘Call to Bar Certificate’, their troubles still do not end. The literarily ‘new wig’ swaps his wig for the cap of a ‘youth corper’ in the year-long National Youth Service. He is employed into a State or Federal Ministry of Justice which is inadequately funded itself and so it goes without saying that he’ll be paid ‘peanuts’. If not, he is posted to a private firm where he is apportioned the most work load but when it comes to remuneration, someone always remembers he is a mere ‘corper’.

    After his youth service, the new wig plunges into a deep of ocean of confusion in a bid to find a path to tow of the many legal frontiers to explore in accordance with his passion and interest. This is coupled with the frantic search for employment made worse by pressure from family and friends who can hardly wait for ‘The Law’ to start dispensing his legal duties. After many denied attempts, he is forced to make do with whatever job comes his way giving personal interest least priority.

    If he is lucky to find any job at all in the very competitive Nigerian labour market, it is either his take home can hardly take him home or he suddenly finds himself in a slave camp where he wriggles in a web of stringent dos and don’ts such that he begins to lose his confidence and the assertive aura of a lawyer. He begins to prefer an encounter with a strict judge in open court to an encounter with his fiery, bad-tempered and hard-to-please boss in the office, a fellow lawyer. The poor lawyer begins to have a rethink. In a bid to find a comfortable working environment as well as better pay, he finds himself swapping portfolios from Company Secretary to Legal adviser to Partner-in-Chambers. He hardly has any time devoted to carving a niche for himself in a particular field, proper career progression or self-development.

    In similar vein, he is battled with the need to garner as much experience as possible, a challenge tied to his ability to get as much knowledge around his field of interest. The question is: how is he expected to get experience if he is not even certain about a field of interest and all he does is jump from one job to the other?

    Tired of his situation, the learned counsel begins to think of tossing his wig, hanging the gown and opting for other well-paying jobs. In the alternative, he may be toying with the idea of going solo. And with such frustration-induced determination to survive against all odds, very many despicable practices may follow, thus lowering the standards of the noble profession, and by extension degrading its practitioners.

    The result of these many travails of the new wig, is an ineffective, shabby and corrupt justice delivery system. A system that does not put appropriate structures or modalities in place for the sustenance of the harbingers of the legal system to ensure that the generation coming behind is even better than the present one, a system that is riddled with inadequacies, inefficiencies and lowered standards, a system where lawyers are only concerned about remuneration as opposed to quality service delivery and proper career progression.

    The fact remains that the governance system has failed us but the onus is largely on us not to fail ourselves. If we can rise above the stakes and the daunting challenges, it would only ensure we are made a better generation. If we turn our fortune around, we would largely be the generation of lawyers to beat in the world!

    Categories of lawyers

    Let me start by identifying two categories of lawyers: the first category is those lawyers who are obsessed with the theory of change. The second category is those lawyers who are obsessed with the theory of forestalling change. At the end of this address, all of us here gathered as aspiring lawyers would have to make up our minds which of the category we would want to belong to and into we would want to be remembered.

    The category to which any of us will choose to belong would depend largely on convictions, principles, goals, aspirations, perceptions as well as revolve round the choice of whether we would want to be remembered on the positive or negative side of history.

    On perception, our choice of the category would depend on how we view our calling as a lawyer. Do we see our calling as a lawyer merely from the perspective of a career, or do we see it as a call to duty to render imperishable services to humanity? If we conceive our calling merely as a career, our aspiration would be guided largely by the profit motive as well as the indices of success whether by hook or crook. I want to encourage all of you gathered to see your emergence in the legal scene beyond the fulfillment of the demands of a career and extend your aspirations to the realm of rendering such qualitative services that would impact positively on humanity.

    Therefore, it would not just matter to you that you qualify as a lawyer but you must also be able to ask yourselves genuinely the question, what kind of lawyer are you?

    This brings us to the travails, challenges and prospects of the young lawyer. Let me ask you the question, do you all want to be successful lawyers? I can hear all of you answer in the affirmative. If that is the issue, what are those core values that you need to imbibe on your road to success, speaking from my perspective as a lawyer with more than two decades experience in legal practice.

    Let me first proceed by making a distinction between legal practice and the business of legal practice. If you practice law alone without factoring into your calculations the business component of legal practice, you may end up been less than successful and this in many quarters would certainly be considered as tragic. I will return to this subject later when I start giving you tips of what you need to do in order to be able to rise above poverty line in legal practice.

    Elements of success in the legal profession

    (a) Talent

    Since all of us resolve to be successful, I must say that what guarantees your success in legal practice is just not your knowledge of the law or your finishing your graduating exams and even your law school exams with first class degree honours or second class honours upper degree. Excellent results at the end of these examinations are important and may infact demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and talent in law. But talent is never enough. Like Peter Drucker, the father of modern management said: “There seems to be little correlation between a man’s effectiveness and his intelligence, his imagination or his knowledge…intelligence, imagination and knowledge are essential resources but only effectiveness converts them into results by themselves the only set limit to what can be contained.”

    Please do not misunderstand me. When people graduate with excellent results we should marvel at their giftedness and also recognize their unique talents as well as what such excellent results contribute to society. However as Irving Berlin said; “The toughest thing about success is that you have got to keep on being a success. Talent is only a starting point in business. You have got to keep working that talent.” Therefore beyond knowledge or talent there are other fundamentals that you must put in place if you want to be an enduring success in your career. What are these fundamentals? Peter Drucker says effectiveness is necessary for converting talent into results. In his own words “The key choices you make apart from the natural talent you already have- will set you apart from others who have talent alone.”

    In the words of Dr. Suss in his book ‘The Places you’ll Go,’ he summarized the position as follows:

    “You have brains in your head

    You have feet in your shoes.

    You can steer yourself

    Any direction you choose.”

    What does this mean? It implies that more than your knowledge or great talent, you need to make the right choices in order to be a talent plus person or if you like a celebrated lawyer. These key choices will add value to your talent.

    How do you begin to achieve this even as you leave this hall after this address?

    (b) Belief in yourself

    The first thing is that you must have belief in yourself in that such belief in yourself will lift your talent. This implies you must have self-confidence always. The first and greatest obstacle to success is lack of belief in yourself, lack of trust in yourself, which in itself is a self-limitation. This element of belief itself has several variables. It also includes belief in your potential. This is because your potential is a picture of what you will become. The Indian statesman, Mohandas Gandhi said:

    “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”

    (c) Belief in your potential

    Regrettably, many people fall short of their real potential because of lack of belief in their potential. In the words of Cartoonist Charles Schulz:

    “Life is a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use.” What does this mean? You don’t have to underrate yourself.

    In the words of Charles Schwab:

    “When a man has put a limit on what he will do, he has put a limit on what he can do.”

    Therefore, underrating yourself as to the height you can attain in life is a disservice to your destiny. In the words of Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler in the book If it Ain’t Broke:

    “We don’t have a clue as to what people’s limits are. All the tests, stopwatches, and finish lines in the world can’t measure human potential. When someone is pursuing their dream, they’ll go far beyond what seems to be their limitations. The potential that exists within us is limitless and largely untapped…When you think of limits, you create them.”

    Therefore, I charge all of you to live your life to the fullest and actualize your full potential.

    In the words of Phillips Brooks, writer of the song “O little Town of Bethlehem,”

    “When you discover you have been leading only half a life, the other half is going to haunt you until you develop it.”

    As lawyers you must always be very confident, assured that you are capable of winning your cases no matter the profile of the lawyer on the other side.

    Arnold Palmer, the Golfer lived by a credo which he hung in his office. It reads:

    “If you think you are beaten, you re.

    f you think you dare not, you don’t

    If you like to win, but think you can’t

    It’s almost certain you won’t…

    Life’s battles don’t always go

    To the stronger or faster man

    But soon or late, the man who wins

    Is the man who thinks he can.”

    (d) Belief in your mission

    The other variable of belief in yourself is belief in your mission in life. This will enlarge you and determines your expectations. The formula is simple.

    “You will become on the outside what you believe on the inside.”

    You must never be afraid of making mistakes. Indeed there are two kinds of people in this world, those who want to get things done and those who don’t want to make mistakes. I challenge you to make your choices without fear of making mistakes for not to decide is to decide.

    (e)Passion

    Another important element that would guarantee success in your legal career is your passion for the job. Indeed what carries people to the top, what makes them take risks and go the extra mile to achieve their goals is not their talent but their passion. You must love the legal profession and enjoy working as a lawyer or else you may miss it. This is because your passion is the first step to achievement. It increases your will power. Please ask yourselves these questions:

    “What do you sing about?

    What do you cry about?

    What do you dream about?”

    Your answer to the last question is what determines what will bring you fulfillment tomorrow. Therefore, if there is any of you in this hall who thinks he/she does not have passion for law, then it is not too late to engage the reverse gear as you can only be successful in legal practice if you have passion of the job. This is because passion produces energy and is the foundation to excellence as well as the key to success.

    In the words of Tim Redmond:

    “There are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few that catch my heart. It is those I consider to pursue.”

    Having identified your passion, then you must take steps to protect your passion and pursue same with everything you have got.

    (f) Take Initiatives

    The third ingredient of success apart from passion is initiative. I enjoin all of you not to ‘siddon look’ but to take initiatives. Chief GaniFawehinmi took initiative when he started the Weekly Law Reports of Nigeria to fill a lacuna in legal practice. And this was one of the factors for his greatness. Please note that initiative is the first step to anywhere you want to go and opens the door to opportunities. Please ask yourself is there a decision you should be making? Is there a problem you should be solving? Is there a possibility you should be examining? Is there a project you should be starting? Is there a goal you should be reaching? Is there an opportunity you should be seizing or a dream you should be fulfilling? Do not wait a minute longer seize the initiative today.

    In the words of Dawson Trotman: “The greatest time wasted is the time getting started.” Do not wait till tomorrow to take your initiatives. This is because the best way to begin is to begin.

    (g)Be Focused

    One other element of success that you need to have is focus, as this directs your talent. Let me illustrate this issue of focus with the reality of our profession. When you are called to bar as a lawyer, there are several doors open to you for access. You can decide to stay back here and lecture, you may also decide to embrace private legal practice, some of you can also decide to go into corporate world and contribute to the economy. There are also windows of opportunities available in non-governmental Organisations, other may choose to embrace consultancy, yet others may veer into politics and politicking, yet others may also choose to go to legislative houses of assemblies or render support services to the Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary including the Civil Service etc.

    Let me assure you that there is none of these windows of opportunities that cannot guarantee you success in the long run. But you must make up your mind today which of the windows of opportunities you want to access and stay focused on that window if you want to achieve meaningful success in the long run. In other words, you cannot afford to aprobate and reprobate at the same time or imagine you can access all of these windows at the same time without dire consequences. Therefore, if you want to stay in private legal practice as your passion, stay focused in private legal practice if indeed you want to attain great success as a lawyer. This is because focus lifts you, expands your life and must be intentionally sustained. Indeed if you want to be successful, you must focus on what you can do and not on what you can’t. In the words of Hank Aaron:

    “I think what separates a superstar from the average ball player is that he concentrates just a little bit longer.”

    Therefore, stay focused on the present, focus on your strengths not your weaknesses, focus on results and focus on your priorities.

    I know for instance that great lawyers in Nigeria are really very focused people. From the East, one can mention OlisaAgbakoba SAN, Awa Kalu SAN, O. J. Okocha SAN, etc. In the South South, one can mention; Austin Alege SAN, Chief Mike Ozekhomeh SAN, Charles Edosomwan SAN etc. In the South West, one can mention, Late Chief Rotimi Williams SAN, Chief AfeBabalola SAN, Late Chief GaniFawehinmi SAN, Chief WoleOlanipekun SAN, Femi Falana SAN and many others. In the North, we have such great lawyers as J. B. Dawodu SAN, A. B. Mamood SAN, Abdullahi SAN, RikiTarfa SAN. One thing common to all these great lawyers is that they remain focused on private legal practice.

    (h)Preparation

    The other ingredient of success in your legal career is the element of preparation. You cannot overcome great challenges if you are unprepared. This means constantly, you must read, research and consult authorities well ahead of proceedings, whether in court or elsewhere. You must see the value of preparation before action. Preparation allows you to tap into your talent and is also a key to success. The questions you must ask yourself always are:

    What work is to be done?

    How is it to be done?

    When is it to be done?

    Where is it to be done?

    How fast can it be done?

    What do I need to get it done?

    Your answers to these questions will prepare you for the task ahead. The only thing that relieves pressure is preparation.

    (i) Practice as a vehicle to perfection

    The next element of success is practice as practice makes perfect. As lawyers you must always oil your skills and be prepared to step up your game. It is practice that enables development and leads to discovery. Practice also shows and builds commitment and to be effective, practice demands discipline. In the words of Andrew Carnegie: “There is no use whatever trying to help people who do not help themselves. You cannot push anyone up a ladder unless he is willing to climb himself.” Therefore I challenge all of you to embrace pupilage, learn the art of lawyering from the masters who are on the job ahead of you. Consult widely, watch constantly court proceedings, make use of precedents, go through law reports and judgments, embrace continuing education, attend seminars, workshops and conferences, keep up to date with current legal problems and solutions, take advantage of information communication technology, be willing and ready to undertake constant research and generally be prepared to improve yourselves. These are all elements of practice.

    Therefore, the rules are, you need to embrace the five pillars of practice;

    (1) you need an excellent teacher or principal.

    (2)you need to deploy your best effort.

    (3)you need to have a clear purpose.

    (4)you need to identify your greatest potential.

    (5)you need to make use of the right resources.

    These imply a little extra effort, a little extra time, a little extra help and a little extra change.

     (j) Perseverance

    Gentlemen, to be successful you need the element of perseverance. In the words of John Maxwell, in his book “Beyond Talent”,

    “Perseverance is not an issue of talent. It is not an issue of time. It is about finishing. Talent provides hope for accomplishment, but perseverance guarantees it. Playwright Noel Coward commented,”Thousands of people have talent. I might as well congratulate you for having eyes in your head. The one and only thing that counts is: Do you have staying power?”

    I want to assure all of you that the road to success in legal practice is very rough indeed. Let no one deceive you that it can be easy. Therefore, if you are looking for a short cut to success in legal practice, you stand the risk of not succeeding or running foul of the rules of professional ethics or at worst, losing your wig and gown or ending up in jail. I do not wish for any of you any of this misfortune. In the words of Thomas Edison:

    “Many of lives failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

    Therefore, if you want success in legal practice, you must persevere believing that perseverance recognizes that life is not a long race but many short ones in succession. Gentlemen, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Do not give up if for the first two to three four years you are yet to hit gold in legal practice. Indeed giving up when adversity threatens can make a person bitter. Persevering through adversity makes one better.

    Robert Strauss captured the issue more clearly when he said:

    “Success is a little like wrestling a gorilla. You don’t quit when you’re tired you quit when the gorilla is tired.”

    You should avoid the five enemies of perseverance. John Maxwell listed these enemies as follows:

    “A lifestyle of giving up a wrong belief that life should be easy, a wrong belief that success is a destination, a lack of resiliency and a lack of vision.”

    (k) Courage

    The other element of success that you must possess as a lawyer is courage. Let me mention some few examples of lawyers not lacking in courage to illustrate this. In the United States, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton are a lesson in courage and they are lawyers. In the UK Margret Thatcher was an example in courage and she was a lawyer. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela confronted the evil Apartheid regime with courage he is a lawyer. In Nigeria, GaniFawehinmi, in my view, the greatest lawyer that has ever lived was a man of high courage and that is why we remember him with fondness every time. There is no way you can defend the interest of your client decisively if you are lacking in courage. Courage is an everyday virtue that every decent professional must possess. In the words of Sydney Smith:

    “A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage”.Ourown Professor Wole Soyinka also alluded to this trait when he said:

    “The man dies in him who keeps silent in the face of tyranny”.

    Make no mistakes about it, in your career as lawyers, your courage will be tested, the faith of your convictions will also be tested. But in saying that you should have courage, one is not implying that you should be stupid. At all times you must observe, act, evaluate, readjust, and strategize even as you maintain the courage of your convictions.

    (L) Hunger for Knowledge

    The other element of success is the hunger to learn. First of all rather than develop hunger for money at the onset, you must rather develop hunger for knowledge as a prerequisite for enduring success in legal practice. Therefore the formula is not money first and knowledge later rather it is knowledge first and money later. Tied to this element is the parable of the crown and the cross. Ironically today, many of the new wigs want the crown but they are not prepared to take the cross. There is no way you can have the crown without the cross and this is the reality of human existence. And at the risk of sounding philosophical, the crown and the cross are birds of the same feathers who are always flocking together. There is no way you can separate one from the other without dire consequences.

    On the need to develop hunger to learn, nothing is interesting if you are not interested. In the words of Goethe:

    “Never let a day pass without looking at some perfect work of art, hearing some great piece of music and reading in part some great book.”

    Syney J. Harris echoed the same sentiments when he wrote:

    “A winner knows how much he still has to learn, even when he is considered an expert by others. A loser wants to be considered an expert by others, before he has learned enough to know how little he knows.”

     

    (m) Core values

    However, one crucial issue that you must have in addition to your degree no matter how impressive is character. Character protects your talent. If you ask me, I would say character, character and character. There are a lot of fundamentals tied to this element of character in guaranteeing the success of the lawyer. One of such elements is integrity. One example of this factor is late Honourable Justice KayodeEso who left the Bench as a distinguished jurist with his integrity intact. Who amongst you does not want to be like late justice KayodeEso who was an epitome of integrity of the highest order? He was also revered as extraordinarily brilliant, hardworking and honest.

    There is also the element of principles and the best exemplar here is late Chief GaniFawehinmi. This was a legal practitioner who stood on the side of principles throughout his life. He was reputed to have said that ‘you should always stand on the side of principles even when you are standing alone’. Gani anchored all his struggles on principles and no one can fault him on the side of principles. Who amongst you would like to be like Gani? He was also extremely knowledgeable and honest in his crusades.

    Let me also mention the element of hard work and use our irrepressible Chief AfeBabalola SAN as an exemplar. I recall a period when I had to work closely with Chief AfeBabalola SAN at his Emmanuel’s Chambers in Ibadan in respect of a matter in which those of us who look up to him were eager to benefit from his wealth of professional expertise. I recall that we had worked up to 12 am midnight in company of the erudite Chief after which he made arrangements for us to be checked into our respective hotels to enable us rest and resume work the following day. We were all shocked when upon arrival in the chambers by 7am in the following morning we had met Chief AfeBabalola SAN at his desk already working. We had wondered aloud whether the old man went to bed at all. Our investigation was to reveal that the erudite Chief is obsessed with the theory of hard work. No wonder he became such a monumental and unprecedented success in the legal profession and in the realm of the larger society.

     

    • To be continued

  • Travails of a war hero

    His name conjures fear. When many hear the name Benjamin Adekunle, they look behind their shoulders to see if he is coming. As the legend goes, Brig – Gen Benjamin Maja Adekunle aka Black Scorpion was a brave and ruthless soldier. Many heard the tales of his exploits during the 1967-70 civil war. Gen Adekunle’s fame grew during the war. As small as some of us were then, we heard how he handled the enemy and treated his soldiers who fell out of line.

    There was a myth surrounding Gen Adekunle. It was said that he could disappear and reappear to wreak havoc on enemy territory. Of course, many of the stories were embellished, but the people chose to believe them because they suited those times. People believed anything thrown at them so far the Nigerian side was winning the war. The Adekunle myth grew as he was said to be a soldier that the enemy could not touch because he wielded certain powers.

    The Adekunle myth followed him home after the war. Many wonder till today if he actually did all that people said he did during the war. The man is tough no doubt and he showed early in life that he is going to be a non-conformist. For a boy to run away from home at the age of nine to fend for himself is enough evidence that he will not allow people to trample upon him anyhow when he becomes an adult. This rebellious streak in him stalked him all the way. At military training schools in the United Kingdom (UK) and India; in the Nigerian Army; as aide-de- camp (ADC) to the former Eastern Region Premier, the late Sir Akanu Ibiam and at the war front, Gen Adekunle played by his own rules.

    But he could not be ignored by his bosses because, according to those who should know, he was a damn good soldier. The Black Scorpion fought the war as if his life depended on it. Those in his command remember him as a commander’s commander. Hear one of them, Brig – Gen Alabi Isama, who was Adekunle’s chief of staff during the war : ‘’What did these people (Adekunle and others) do wrong to the society? They went to the war and came back alive. But what did they get out of it? Nothing! Today, Adekunle is forgotten by the country. That is the hero of the civil war. He won all the battles…’’ Yes, as Gen Isama said, the Black Scorpion ‘’won all the battles but not the war’’.

    By that statement, Gen Isama was referring to the parlous condition of Gen. Adekunle, who is lying critically ill at home. Should a person in such a condition be kept at home? The answer is no, but the Black Scorpion is being treated at home because an air ambulance is not readily available to fly him to Ghana. When I read his story in last Saturday’s edition of this paper, I shook my head in belief that a thing like this is happening to someone of Adekunle’s calibre. No matter what some may consider as his eccentricities then, Gen Adekunle does not deserve to be treated as a nobody in this country.

    Our country owes a lot to people like him for fighting to ‘’keep Nigeria one’’. If they did not make that sacrifice, we may not be where we are today. The war in which he played a leading role ended 43 years ago, but it seems some people are still holding that against him. What could he have done to warrant being treated like this at the old, ripe age of 77. He was 77 yesterday. Happy birthday sir. But the best birthday gift we can give him as a country is to assist his family in getting him to Ghana fast for further treatment. All the family needs to do that is an air ambulance. The family says it has written to the army to assist in that regard without success. The army worldwide does not abandon its own. It rallies round its operatives and does everything to protect them.

    Where they are ill or wounded in battle, the army ensures that they get the best of treatment. And here, we are talking of Adekunle. Does he have to beg before he gets his right? This is the tragedy of our country. We treat our heroes with contempt and give looters of the treasury red carpet treatment, thereby sending a wrong signal to those coming behind. The Adekunle family seems to be at it’s wit’s end in its bid to get the authorities to help in flying its patriarch out of the country. Hear Abiodun, son of Gen. Adekunle : ‘’He is very weak and not in control of his memory. It is more of memory problem. He is not able to recognise people around him or anything. But, at some other times, he recognises people. So, it is an on and off thing. I have tried very hard to get the Nigerian Army to come to his aid without luck. Here is a man who spent his youth fighting a war to keep the country one. In other organised societies, he would be treated as a hero. But unfortunately, here in Nigeria, he has been forgotten by all’’.

    Let those in authority listen, whatever is done for the Black Scorpion today cannot be too much. As they say, he has paid his dues. Many, if not all in Service today, are his juniors. Will they watch and allow their superior to die all because of his family’s inability to get an air ambulance to fly him to Ghana? It is Gen Adekunle that we are talking about today, we don’t know what may happen tomorrow to those still in office. God forbid, if they become seriously ill after leaving office and help is not forthcoming as in the case of Gen Adekunle, how will they feel about their country? In Gen Adekunle’s present position, he cannot be happy that a country he fought to preserve seems to have abandoned him at his hour of utmost need.

    To those in authority, I com

    mend, Gen Isama’s re

    marks in this paper last Saturday. He said: ‘’Everybody is aware that he (Adekunle) is battling to stay alive. But, should we wait until he dies and then roll out the drums, shouting that he was a hero and start marching round the town? Every January 15, the whole country gathers to remember our fallen heroes. What about our living heroes?…As the Commander of the Third Marine Commando, he captured Calabar…he sent me to capture the whole place. We captured the whole of what is today known as Cross River State…So, Adekunle was our leader. But, unfortunately for him, he was not a thief like many of them. If he were a thief like many, his condition would not have been like this today. Can’t you see the others? Don’t you see where they live? Adekunle’s house was renovated by Ogbomoso people…Let this country rise and help this man to live a little longer in comfort because he has denied himself such comfort while fighting in the war. There was no commander of the Nigerian Army that is better than Adekunle. Why should he be the worse off today?’’

    Indeed, Adekunle or any other retired officer for that matter should not beg for bread. They should not be made to see their service to the country as a curse after retirement otherwise we may start breeding officers, who will be more interested in making money rather than serving the country.

    There is still room to make amends in Adekunle’s case; it is not too late to do that. The country awaits the Chief of Army Staff’s prompt response to this matter. Whatever he does, he should remember, he will be doing for a senior colleague and only God repays such a kind gesture.

  • The travails, triumphs of a missionary politician (2)

    Chapter 3 titled “GENEALOGY” contains elaboration and elucidation on the family trees of Pa Ajayi in his four cities. The chapter naturally includes description of the lineage, as well as the distinctive values and unique virtues of the father of the autobiographer, Moses Ajayi. Though from a lineage of medicine men and warriors, Moses Ajayi “veered off the family line of traditional medicine as he got converted to Christianity very early in his own life …”

    This chapter highlights the age-old issue of land tenure system in Nigeria. Pa Moses Ajayi (because his father came from Erinmo and his mother from Efon) was a virtual stranger in Ilara, so “he had to beg for land to farm.” It is a strange irony that, in Nigeria, no matter how many years you have been resident in a land outside the birth place of your parents, you are still considered a settler who must beg for land or pay through the nose to acquire land for farming and housing purposes, even when you yourself might have been born in your current location outside your ancestral roots. This forced the author’s father to go secure farmlands in distant locations and virgin forests like Omimeje, “where no one was landowner and vacant land lay plenty.” However, apart from the long distance and the huge trees that a farmer needs to contend with in the pristine forest of Omimeje, there was also the menace of wild beasts, such as monkeys, baboons and wartdogs that devastated farm crops. So, only sticklers of a rare genre could farm in Omimeje jungles in those days! However, the autobiographer gleefully informs readers that those brutes (jungle beasts) met more than their match in his father, who was “a formidable fighter and a sharp shooter of a hunter.” He recalls with admirable nostalgia: “We ate bush meat to the point of losing some of our teeth.” It is hyperboles like this that Pa Ajayi, an enchanting story teller, generously deploys to breathe life into the otherwise dry bones that are recipes of historical narratives. Unfortunately, he concludes the genealogy of his paternal lineage with the death of his strong and dedicated father under mysterious circumstances that he, as a practical psychologist, attributes to assassination through “mental suggestion”. The Ifa diviner, called Epipu-kan-gidi, who visited the author’s home without invitation, told them of the need for conducting sacrifices and rituals to ward off imminent death. The family cooperated with him and provided the materials for the sacrifice, which the diviner dutifully performed with all the razzmatazz associated with such rituals. A couple of weeks later, the author’s father came back from the family distant farm, Omimeje, shivering with severe fever which, within three days, degenerated into a distended abdomen accompanied by acute pains. The intervention of the village nurse who administered an enema provided temporary relief, as the author’s father defecated “but as comfort replaced pain, he grunted and breathed his last.” The tragedy occurred, in the inimitably dramatic language of the author, “at about 8 p.m. on Tuesday September 21, 1943; and there was a great tumult, then a great calm; and I became fatherless, bedevilled by a life of struggles.”

     

    Chapter Four, titled: “The Birth of a Revolutionary”, describes the political import and impact of the obnoxious British policy of indirect rule on Nigeria as a whole, as well as the regions, provinces and other sub-units of the country. Indirect rule introduced the concept of paramountcy of some traditional rulers (Obas, Baales, Emirs, and Obis) of big towns and the consequent political subjugation and social marginalisation of rulers of relatively smaller towns unilaterally put under them.”

    Rightly believing that “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God,” it was the tyranny and injustice that the concept of paramountcy constituted to the people of Ilara and other villages and towns in Ifedore community that compelled the autobiographer to go into political activism and later politics proper. Given the seemingly accidental but carefully predestined circumstances through which he was introduced to and became engrossed with the fight to free his people from the oppression of the Deji of Akure, Pa Ajayi identifies his historic destiny as the liberation of the people of Ifedore from colonially inspired slavery.

    In his own words, “There is a clear indication that my mission in life is to fight for liberation and it was easy to realise that the scourge I came to combat was also ready for me.”

    The author recalls how he was sucked into political activism by a seemingly innocuous assignment of helping certain Itaogbolu traditional rulers to write a letter, which turned out to be a petition to British administrative officers, against the imposition of an Oba or Baale on Itaogbolu against the wish of the chiefs.

    Pa John Ajayi innocently wrote the protest letter at the behest of the chiefs and it was dutifully forwarded to the Native Authority. The Native Authority police reacted by arresting the chiefs, who revealed the identity of their letter writer, and subsequently picked up the then young and politically naïve John Ajayi for writing a subversive and seditious letter. He was dumped half-nude in a dingy cell and later charged to court. Needless stating that rather than discouraging or demotivating him, this baptism of fire into political activism whetted his appetite for the liberation struggles that he later spearheaded in Ilara.

    Chapter Five is devoted to “My Religious Life”. The academic rigour and polemical essence of this chapter are testimonies to the intellectual sophistication and spiritual depth of the autobiographer. This recommends this chapter, and several others like it, to theologians and polemically inclined academicians. The chapter takes the reader down memory lane on how the author was born a consummate “omo awo”, into a family of warriors and veritable medicine men, who were reputed, revered, envied and persecuted in the same breath for their sorcery, wizardry, juju, efficacious herbs, voodoo, necromancy, hypnotism and mesmerism. He goes on to say, “So, in all the meanings and connotations of the term, I could be said to be an omo awo indeed,” asserted Pa John Ajayi.

    Largely due to intellectual curiosity and inquisitiveness, the author, as a youngster, devoted ample time to collecting and memorizing ofo or ogede (incantations), as well as compiling herbal recipes and antidotes for common ailments, such as fever, aches and snake bites. He also took special interest in herbal ingredients and incantations for ofe (burden lightener or body lifter) and isoye (memory enhancer). Yet he abhorred, resented and shunned divining and elements of traditional medicine “requiring consultation with or conjuration of any god and idols.” In the same vein, he resented, “the concoctions and decoctions prepared and administered by the dirty hardly-ever-washed hands of awo dispensers” oftentimes forced on him to drink to treat sicknesses that are less nauseous than the dirty hands and repulsive activities of omo awos. He recounts sickening and unwholesome rituals, such as “the sight of blood oozing out of the neck of a fowl whose head was pulled out to supply blood for one medicine or the other” and the scene of “miniature gourds (ado) and statues sprinkled with blood of fowl or other animals.” Yet, he retained his interest in incantations and made a habit of collecting ofo and ogede on all problems or challenging situations that could require them.

    Perhaps to warn the reader of the limited reliability of incantations, the author, in his inimitably dramatic manner, recalls how “one day during high jump at a school meet” he put ofe to use and commanded it to lift him up, only for him to crash down and break his right wrist!” In his words, “Ofe, rather than bear me up, had let me down. It marked the parting of ways between ofe and me, and largely too between traditional medicine and me. At any rate, even while writing notes on herbal medicine recipes and collecting incantations for deployment in several trying situations, he said, “yet I did not worship the gods of the awos or babalawos.” He declares, “I never for one day deviated from my belief in and loyalty to the one God, though I had problems of not knowing how to benefit from His power!”

    examinations that earned him academic and professional certificates comparable to first and second degrees. This chapter is an exposition of how Pa John Ajayi became a home-grown professor who could not be outperformed or intimidated by any intellectual of his time. It is a revelation of how the author became an academic terrorist despite never seeing the four walls of a university. This segment of the autobiography is a practical manual for those who want to learn about self-development. It could be a motivational tool and an encouragement to those who lack the financial resources but are desirous of achieving higher academic goals.

     

    Chapter 7 of the autobiography details the work experience of the author from the tender age of 10 years until he breathed his last on earth.

     

    The sundry occupations discussed in the book as having been engaged in by the author at various times of his life are not just indicative of his versatility but also evidence of his positive work ethics, can-do spirit, doggedness and diligence. The job descriptions and titles include Isaana Oju Ale re e (Matches for evening light are here), Agbegilodo (timber merchant), the Alagbaro (the farmhand), Weaver of Baskets and Maker of Thatch, the Untrained Teacher, the Public Letter Writer, Journalist and Salesman, the block maker, the Oyinbo Elepo (Fuel Merchant), Gari Maker, Produce Merchant, and the Party Agent.

     

    An incurable believer in the dignity of labour and an apostle of “hard work does not kill,” Pa Ajayi did every legitimate job available to raise money for his cherished life goal: sound education. From his account, he started work as an auxiliary teacher because “teaching provided the only salaried employment in those days.” However, he had to leave teaching because of “the drudgery of the job, compounded by the untrained, uncertificated stigma, the low earning and the monotony.” He even tried to become a constable in the police force, as he “preferred that to remaining in teaching without any prospect of advancement” or returning to good old farming!

     

    This was the difficult situation under which he went into trading. The objective, he says, was “first and foremost, to facilitate the means of funding advanced education.” He reflects, “All the business enterprises I did in those years were for keeping body and soul together, while the real goal [good education] remained at the back of my mind all the time.”

     

    Not for him the life of a loafer or cheat, he strongly believed the only way to success is hard work, self-denial, perseverance, dedication to the achievement of the defined goal. He says excellent service was always his goal.

     

    Despite his diligence and dedication, the author recalls how he got sacked from A. J. Seward under very strange and inexplicable circumstances. However, he says the contrary winds that led to his getting sacked took him to Cadbury Nigeria Limited, where he rapidly rose to become an Area Manager. “When a person needs to be pushed up the ladder of life, men and circumstances are used by the divine hands for the pushing.”

     

    Chapter 8 of the book is about his Family Life. The chapter describes how the loneliness of being orphaned at the age of 23 years drove the author into early marriage, as he lost his father when he was only thirteen and his mother barely ten years after. Desperate “to fill this aching void through marriage,” he got married in 1954, at the age of 24, to the second girl he ever befriended, Beatrice Adebanke, then an 18-year-old girl. The author speaks glowingly and passionately about this love of his life “who filled her roles beautifully.” She was a wife as well as a mother.” The early and unfortunate loss of his parents, a shattering experience of his life, ironically brought his marriage to his wife Banke (the best marriage that he could have had), a testimony to the truth of the Scripture, “All things work together for good to them who love God…” He equally says that his blissful marriage to Banke made her untimely transition at the age of 60 on 25th December 1996 “the most grievous experience of my life.”

     

    The author also uses the book to explain the circumstances that led to his contracting another marriage even during the subsistence of his “recounted blessed marriage.” He attributes his second marriage mainly to the fact that his wife, because of the demanding circumstances of her profession, “was most of the time in the early days an absentee wife.” Aside from “this fact of perennial separation” from his wife, the author, in his characteristic bluntness and candour, confesses, “But fundamentally, the African in me is polygamist.” So, in 1958, while his first wife was undergoing her midwifery course, the author married another spinster, then Miss Margaret Ogbenuubi Ojo, who, like him, was a descendant of Erinmo. He recalls that he had to snatch the maiden from the man to whom she was betrothed at a tender age, “as the custom went in those days.” Explaining the seeming conflict between this anti-tradition action and his self-description as “an irredeemable traditionalist,” he says, “while I am a traditionalist and I respect the tradition of my people a lot, I revolt against, and break at will, such as I regard as unreasonable, anachronistic and unacceptable.” He points out that this oppressive aspect of our marriage custom falls into this category. The author pays tribute to the understanding of his first wife, her liberality and the motherly role she played to his second wife for the period the second marriage lasted. He regrets the dissolution of his second marriage, which he attributes largely to his pattern of “distancing from wife” because of the roving existence forced on him by his occupation.

     

    The book underlines the topmost priority that the author placed on the education of his children. He states, “I could not bear to have children that would not be well-educated and well-read.”

     

    The book also highlights the travails and trials of the author in his quest to build a personal house to provide shelter to his family. The experience, he notes, was “typical of the difficulty faced by all salary earners in the country and perhaps most countries of the world.” As the monthly income is never enough to take care of immediate and basic family needs while the building of a personal house is capital intensive, it is a daunting challenge saving enough capital, except in rare cases where employment conditions of service include a housing loan scheme. As he could not cut corners or bend the rules, not to talk of engaging in outright stealing or embezzlement, because of his moral principles and Christian ethics, he had to wait for God’s time. God’s time came through “a government wage policy [that] reverberated in the private sector and gave me a lump sum in salary arrears.” This was how the author started the building of his house, which he completed several years later.

     

    The narration about the building project does not end without an account of the fortuitous circumstances that gave the author the “building site in a choice area” of Ilara. The prime land, which later became Ajayi Street, was left undeveloped and overgrown by weeds because people, rooted in superstition, believed “it was the forest of ghosts, the abode of fairies, which no human being could share or, in fact, visit at night, as, according to general belief, fairies would snuff life out of such mortals!”

     

    As the author, despite being an irredeemable traditionalist, by his own admission, lived above silly superstition, he built and inhabited his house without any interference from fairies. He records having welcomed six other houses to Ajayi Street with several occupants, none of whom ever saw any fairy or had any unusual experience.

     

    The autobiography also vividly captures the circumstances that pressed the author into community service, development activism and ultimately partisan politics. The remote cause is of course the ancestry of the author as “his forbears, left and right, maternal and paternal, were politicians, warriors and servers of the people.” Another motivating factor highlighted in the book was the fascination of the author by “the exploits and struggles of Nigerian nationalists who were agitating for independence”.

     

    Notwithstanding this, the book pin-points the actual trigger of his entry into politics as “the dehumanizing practice of paramountcy”, which was a logical consequence of the system of Indirect Rule imposed on Nigeria by the colonial British administration. Ilara, according to the passionate account of the author, felt the full and brutal weight of “the repulsive practices of paramountcy” which peaked with the banishment of the then Alara of Ilara-mokin, Oba Adamu Arojojoye for re-crowning himself and wearing a beaded crown in defiance of the colonially-selected paramount ruler, Oba Afunbiowo, the then Deji of Akure. This, the author stated, “sets the stage, no doubt, for a liberation struggle since slavery is not the legitimate state of man, and must be overthrown.”

     

    If any was needed, this provocation was a clarion call to arms for the autobiographer. Being a man of valour by lineage, by nature and by nurture, he took up the gauntlet to play “Moses” of not just Ilara town but the entire community of Ilara, Ijare and Igbara-Oke, later christened Ifedore. The rest as they say is history.

     

    The book further documents the pioneering role of the author, along with other patriots, to mid-wife Ifedore community, which later transmuted into Ifedore District Council, and much later to Ifedore Local Government. Ifedore was the unified umbrella for collective and effective resistance to the oppression and enslavement of Ifedore people by the rapacious and evil agents of paramount mis-government. The book also chronicles the titanic efforts of the author and other community leaders to resolve the divisive tripartite battles that later ensued for the hosting of the Local Government Headquarters of Ifedore.

     

    Aside from “passion for service to humanity” that is a common denominator of all the actions and activities during his life and time, one unmistakable tendency is the missionary zeal and messianic streak of the author. This led him to spearhead several liberation struggles and freedom-fighting initiatives which inevitably brought him into confrontation and face-offs with external political oppressors like the Deji of Akure, social suppressors like the local Ogboni confraternity and tyrannical traditional leaders like Oba Ojoopagogo. The autobiographer’s abhorrence for “arrogance of power and despotism or tyranny” and “misrule” or “reign of terror” saw him fight to finish several monarchs, including Oba Ojoopagogo, though the author was largely instrumental to drafting him from the police force for royal tutelage and subsequent crowning as an Oba. Thus the king-maker easily and unrepentantly turned to a king-fighter because of his moral outrage against oppression and injustice against the people.

     

    The author’s fight for freedom was also extended to social vices like silly and anachronistic superstitions and obnoxious cultural practices. The book gleeful reports the battle that the author singlehandedly fought and won against the retrogressive cultural taboo attached to selling of pounded yam in Ilara Mokin. Now, thanks to the daring and revolutionary Pa John Ajayi, Ilara people don’t have to leave Ilara and go to ‘bukateria’ in Ijare, Igbara-Oke or Akure to buy and eat good Iyan-gbona (hot pounded yam)!

     

    For all his zeal for selfless service and passion for people’s welfare, the many intrigues and the pervasive pathologies of politics forced the autobiographer to leave politics on two different occasions which is responsible for the chapters on to his second coming and third coming into politics in this book. The author was detained several times on trumped up charges by the native authority police and he narrowly escaped assassination several times by either the Ogboni confraternity or Oba Ojoopagogo, who he helped to install but, he stated, “who was in mortal fear of my political activism.”

     

    Perhaps because the Akure-styled “wizard of Ilara”could not be assassinated, his political enemies decided to raze down his family home. The book narrates the circumstances that surrounded the attempted burning down of his family house and the heroic efforts of Ilara indigenes to rescue the house after the endless wait for the summoned firemen to arrive from Akure. The author testified that the villagers successfully put out the fire before the coming of the firemen, adding: “My whole house remained standing but with my own apartment reduced to outright charcoal. “ The fact that the arson preceded the third coming of the author into politics after his earlier “indefinite withdrawal from community service” is a clear testimony that the author was indeed a fanatical and incurable community servant, who is passionate about service to his community even at the risk of losing his freedom.

     

    Teaching by example, the author has through his autobiography made a good case for selfless service to mankind as the raison d’etre for continued existence and relevance. As one of the converts and disciples of the autobiographer, let me in concluding this review leave you with my own thoughts on service:

     

    To serve is to live,

    And to live is to serve,

    A life devoid of service

    is a life bereft of essence.

     

    Pa Ajayi’s career and life were uniquely driven by the irresistible passion and altruistic desire to right societal wrongs as well as promote fair-play and justice. He was a development missionary and veritable change-agent with undeniable dedication to value addition and positive social transformation.

     

    Though William Shakespare said that “the evil that men do lives after them and the good often interred with their bones”, yet Pa John Ajayi will be remembered and his memory cherished anywhere selfless service is valued because he lived for service and fought for justice.

     

    At this stage, permit me to express my appreciation and enduring love to the noble family of Pa John Ayanfe Ajayi. I feel quite honoured that I was given the rare privilege to review this exceptional autobiography of a quintessential personality and outstanding community leader whose life of selfless service positively changed the course of history of his people and community. I thank you all for your presence and attention.