“Here on Earth God’s work is truly our own.” – John Kennedy, 1917-1963.
Kennedy as US President, 1960-63, ensured that America positively touched the lives of millions of people living in abject poverty globally. I would never have been able to receive education in American universities without the African American Institute established by him. As the father of six girls, all graduates, and each embracing education for their kids, JFK had set rolling a chain reaction that will last forever in my family. Only God knows how many people who will ultimately benefit from Kennedy planting just one seed – me. Today, another President is uprooting the trees planted by his predecessors.
But one does not need to be a President to be a saviour. Sir (High Chief) Olufemi A Daramola, KJW, played such a role in my life.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MUMMY AND UNCLE IN ADVANCE
“What separates privilege from entitlement is gratitude. Brene Brown However, before going into the Tribute to the Alage II of Ilawelle, Onuo, Ekiti, I want to take this opportunity to wish the heroine and hero of my life Happy 90th Birthday in advance. Like three planets aligning themselves in the sky on the same day, the three people who were most responsible for my being what I am today will turn 90 this year. I will come to Chief last; it’s his birthday first.
Mummy, the Matriarch of the Sobowale Family will be 90 in November. She came first in my life. How did a 90 year old woman become Mummy to a 30-year-old-man like me? Perish the thought. She didn’t have a baby at the age of ten. She adopted one – me — when she didn’t have to. Miss Victoria Olayinka Oshin became Mrs Sobowale just about the time my Father died and I was in Form One at Igbobi College, Yaba. It was perhaps the most expensive secondary school in Nigeria at the time. Her husband, late Chief Sanu Sobowale, my eldest brother became head of family. That didn’t make him Daddy. He became Daddy when he undertook to send me through Igbobi. He needed help. His young new wife could have refused to offer financial support. Instead, she willingly added her own funds to send me to Igbobi. Father died in December 1958; I had young Daddy and Mummy in January 1959. It was a miracle which set me on the road.
Daddy and Mummy gave me the flying start which made me, on my own, to apply for American Government Scholarship and to get it on merit in 1964.
From 1968 to 1987, I was in the corporate rat race – trying to reach the top in various companies. And I was fairly successful at the race. By 1982, I had three kids attending Adrao International Nursery and Primary School, Victoria Island. It was the most expensive school in Nigeria at the time.
In 1987, I was the Marketing Manager in North Brewery, Kano, which was the third largest brewery in the country. For a habitual beer drinker, the brewery was paradise – all the beer you can drink was available free; entertainment allowance equal to the total take home pay of a Level 10 Civil servant. You were even allowed (actually encouraged) to visit seedy hotels and enjoy the “bush meat”- if you know what I mean. Marketing and sales staff of breweries in those days were naughty by nature. I literarily swam in beer from 7.00am till midnight. Only God knows how I got any work done. But deep down, I was unhappy. Something told me I was in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing and might end up in the wrong destination. Salvation came in 1987.
VANGUARD Newspaper was launched in 1984 and as the Marketing Manager I received all the national papers. The very first one had an inviting lady on the front page. What! Is this a newspaper? I peeked inside for more pictures and discovered that it was indeed a newspaper, not pornography. I started reading and have been reading ever since. In 1987, out of absolute boredom with getting up at am with a hangover and going to bed half-drunk, I read the VANGUARD, as well as other papers; then impulsively called my Secretary, Betty, and dictated a letter to the Editor of VANGUARD, Toye Akiode. As politely as possible, the Editor was told that the Business and Economic pages of his paper were of no use to business people and economists. To his everlasting glory, Mr Akiode, more politely, asked me to send four articles to prove that I can do better. I did very quickly and promptly forgot about the foolishness.
Three weeks after, the VANGUARD Correspondent in Kano came to the brewery to inform me that the Editor asked me to send more articles. I was told later that the first article was almost my last because of the storm of controversy it raised. One of the papers biggest advertisers was livid with rage. To cut long story short, it was the Publisher of the paper, Uncle Sam, who thought he had a good talent to develop. The next three were published, and by the time you read this article, I would have written over 4000 articles for VANGUARD.
Uncle Sam made me famous or notorious and for that I will remain eternally grateful. But there was one day I deeply regretted writing to Akiode and going to work for Uncle Sam at VANGUARD. Unknown to everybody, I would have been wasted by Abacha in 1998. I am alive today on account of the courage and self-sacrifice of Sir High Chief Olufemi A Daramola. K..W. Here is the story.
JANUARY 1998 RESCUE FROM THE GRAVEYARD.
Under Abacha’s murderous regime, I was in detention three times before January 1998. The routine was the same. I was picked up on Friday, interrogated and tucked away until Sunday evening and then let loose with a warning not to tell anybody. My arrest in January 1998 was different. I was arrested in the VANGUARD office by several armed officers who came in four vehicles. Given a brutal military regime, to be honest, I was the architect of my own misfortune. I was too clever for my own good. Here was why.
For months in 1997, a series of bomb explosions had rocked Lagos; two of them purportedly targeted then Lagos State Governor Marwa; one occurred at the Ojuelegba flyover immediately after a bus conveying Navy Officers had passed the spot of explosion; another one took place at the Federal Government Secretariat, Ikoyi, in an empty staircase. The government attributed all of them to terrorists embarking on toppling the regime and ordered a crackdown. I thought there was something suspicious about the entire development. I then went out to investigate the incidents on my own. My findings indicated that Abacha’s agents were the ones detonating the explosions in order to establish the grounds for widespread arrest of dissidents.
My findings were presented during an Editorial meeting, after which it was decided that I would write a front page analysis – which was rarely done in VANGUARD. Thus, for the first time in my years of writing for the paper, my articles appeared on Sunday, on Monday, and a News Analysis on page 1. I was the happiest person in print media on Monday morning. My joy turned to panic and regret when a young lady walked into my office at about 11.40am and asked:
“Are you Dele Sobowale?” She was beautiful, and I adjusted my tie; plastered my best Casanova smile on my face before saying: “Yes, I am. Can I help you, Madam? – intending to toast her at all costs. The smile vanished when she said: “I am from DSS, you are under arrest.”
I was on my way to Abacha’s death row.
To be continued…
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