An afternoon with a legend

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Last week, I was in Ado, Ekiti State capital to honour an appointment with the legendary Aare Afe Babalola. When his kind requested you, you drop whatever you are doing as Yoruba will couch giving honour to whom is due. I’m not a big fan of Nigerian roads, including the seemingly fairly useable ones up North, where the nation’s wealth has evidently found better home in infrastructural development, but which sadly, serves only the elite. Despite North enjoying undue patronage from the national purse for decades, poverty is still endemic among the jama’ah. Yoruba will capture the inherent selfishness with a mad man hoeing to own side.

Before last Tuesday, the last time I travelled to Ado Ekiti from Lagos, was eight years ago and the snaky roads to the capital, especially from Itawure junction, crawled my spine, despite being professionally chauffeured in a comfy car. Knowing our poor developmental and maintenance cultures, I wasn’t hopeful of a better ride and I wasn’t disappointed. While the perennially under-construction Lagos/Ibadan expressway offered some comfort, the rest of the journey was better forgotten. Expectedly, the connecting roads in the state, leading to the capital, are barely useable and despite being sinuous, the drivers were still doing the Formula 1 acrobatic overtaking, with lethal articulated vehicles in panoramic view. For most of the journey to and fro, using public transportation, I had my tongue hung in my mouth, whistling to narrow escapes and you dare not caution the drivers that life hath no duplicate. With the hardihood drive on the curvy roads, and overgrown weeds further shading visibility, one was grateful for the numerous chasms on the road, serving as occasional pause button on the recklessness that appears habitual to drivers and commonplace to regular passengers on the road.

Not even several vehicles, which obviously tumbled with their back still to the ground, would deter. Well it is doubtful anyone would do anything about this observation until the next major crash (God forbid), because the police on the road were just following the money. But at least, can someone with statutory responsibility, be responsible enough, to have the roadside weeds, weeded?

I’m not likely to fancy Ekiti road for a long time, but there are appointments one must keep, especially if the caller is an Aare. Yoruba usually warn against the delay of divination when Aare (the generalissimo) calls.

And Baba is humanity warrior, conquering the fragility and frailty of old age, like an ever-refreshened unicorn. I last interviewed him 11 years ago. It was as if he never aged since then, as I was ushered into his expansive office in his University; ABUAD, accompanied by a former Ekiti State Attorney General, who played the perfect host for the days I spent in the state capital.

I met Baba reading document after document brought by some staff, making observation after observation. The acuity was stunning. And he didn’t need eye glasses! I jokingly referenced him a unique retiree, on the assumption that he had completely left law practice, to face administration of the Uni. Before he could answer, my host, a Senior Advocate-in-waiting, course-corrected, pointing out the fallacy in my assumption. Baba then confirmed he is still in full jurisprudential business of vetting and endorsing processes from his chambers. As he vigorously walked around, unbent by age or vicissitudes of life, I asked him 90-what years of age again. He said going to 94. Then, the bombshell. Baba still works till 2am in his office daily, drawing physical rejuvenation from a patterned afternoon/evening siesta. His current scheduling could break a mule but he isn’t even thinking quasi retirement. Apart from the question I promised to ask him about producing calm senior lawyers for national assignments in my column titled “Fagbemi is an orphan”, I had other deeply personal questions I planned for the meeting. But Baba shifted it, saying the formal interview would have to be another appointment, meaning I could be doing the frighteningly-snaky Ekiti road again.

But we chatted father and son aplenty. Baba thinks yours truly has some writing gift. Well, John 3:27 and 1 Corinthians 4:7 say there is nothing we have not given.

He said I conveyed his sentiment in the Fagbemi piece. I appreciated him for finding something connecting in the piece, despite his life, screaming ingenuity.

I listened to him on national and other issues. When you go to his kind, wisdom demands you listen more than talk, to gain life-changing takeaway. James 1:19 encourages it. Baba mentioned the crisis in the media industry, sympathizing with sectoral operators, including his longtime vendor in Ibadan who now sells copies of major dailies, in unit numbers. Right there, he called the vendor.

We were making our see-you-next-time, chewing on the plantain chips from his farm which he had mentioned during the Ibadan interview and which I assumed was just big enough to satisfy his palate for organic foods, when he casually nudged me to visit the Afe Babalola Industrial Park, before hurrying out of town.

After seeing the splendor of ABUAD, I wasn’t too persuaded to see a “Park”. Somehow, my host, a two-time Commissioner who lives in the town, had also never seen the inside, despite his regular jaunts to the University which shares boundaries with the Park. Then somehow I was convinced to “see” it and my host said he was also in. At the not-too-enticing entrance, I almost asked him to zoom off as the security guys peppered us, with authorization and access probing.

But the inside, is breathtaking.

From the combination of the raw material (cassava, yam, pepper et al) from his Afe Babalola Farm and supplies from farmers in adjourning towns within and outside the state, Baba is into industrial-scale food processing business and his products are already on the shelf, including the pleasing-to-behold Afe Babalola rice. He is into everything staple and I even sampled the gaari with fibre. There is also plan for special cashew wine, to splurge on.

I quickly readjusted my plan, to tour the Park. The genial consultant (Ekiti fellow, but based in Lagos) was handy, devoting time and patience to answer our questions, as I kept staring at the most modern, multi-billion gigantic processing machines built by him, for the Park. Learnt the plan is for Afe foods to start, and serve as an encourager to other industrialists to come into the cluster. The Park, sitting on a swathe, seems existing on its own terms, generating even own energy and serving the university community. Between the farm and the Park, Baba and the university community are also fed.

How blessed can one man be.

Since this isn’t a campaign for Buy Afe, I will only encourage the administration of President Bola Tinubu to partner with the Park. Aare is a compelling study in wealth-from-sweat, unlike some portfolio billionaires, running phony businesses.

I exited Ado Ekiti with clashing emotions. It looks a peaceful environment despite hosting multiple higher institutions. The downside is such a town, connected on all sides by agrarian communities, to be as expensive as I found it. Hotel stay competes in cost with Lagos and Abuja, despite the inferior class. Even Iyan (pounded yam), the famous Ekiti staple, is expensive in Ado. A plate I ate somewhere with a piece of goat meat was N4,000. A senior colleague, Mr. Tunde Adeleke from Ipoti Ekiti was pissed Ado might be prizing itself out of reach. Haba!

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