There is no doubt that life at 90 must have been associated with many challenges. Can you share some of these memorable challenges?
o many challenges. I can recollect that in 1983, within nine months, I had four major operations. I was 55 year old then. I can also remember when armed robbers attacked me. That was not even the issue. The issue was that they twisted my neck and put a knife to it. However, I asked them what they wanted, and I told them to look at a portrait of my mother who was over 100 years old. I asked them if they wanted to kill me when I still had a mother. I was alone at home that day.
However, the leader of the armed robbers said they would just lock me up, and they did that after taking what they had stolen. They had tied my hands and legs separately but when they were about leaving, they loosened me, and I crawled into my bathroom.
When they left, I moved back into the bedroom and took my medicine. They had initially taken my medicines which were in a bag, but I told them my medicines were in the bag, and they dropped the bag. So, when I got back into the bedroom, instead of taking one dose, I took four.
They had inflicted injury on my neck. So, after that, I had to go to London for treatment. I spent nine weeks in England where my neck was put right.
You can imagine someone who had been hypertensive, who had cardiac problem, subjected to that kind of experience.
You were Resident Electoral Commissioner in two states, a position some believe is exclusively for men. How were you able to weather the storm while in office?
In 1976, when I was a Residence Electoral Commissioner of FEDECO in Rivers State, a candidate came to my office and said I should disqualify his opponent. I thought I was dreaming, and I asked him again, and he affirmed what he had said.
I asked him what was his reason, and he said he didn’t need to have a reason. He said he had money with him which he would give me, and if it was not enough, he would go and bring more since his office was close by.
I told him he must be stupid, that he didn’t know who I am, and he asked who I am, and I started relaying my background to him.
Eventually, when he tried all he could, and I didn’t yield, he put his hand in his pocket and brought out a knife.
I told him there was no way he could kill me because I am a child of God. He said he would kill me and nothing would happen.
He had already raised the knife and as he was about to bring it down, the door of my office opened.
My permanent secretary who I had been looking for earlier just walked in, and I told my permanent secretary that the man wanted to kill me because I refused to disqualify his opponent.
I got him arrested and locked up for two weeks, after which I got him released. I wrote him another letter to contest the election; it was a State Assembly election.
On the day of the election, the poll was to close by 12 noon but I got there by 11:30 am and sat down. The governor was there and the state commissioner of police was there as well, because the incident I had with the candidate had drawn attention to the election. So, after electoral officials finished counting the votes, he had only one vote, while his opponent had 11 votes. I then got up and walked up to him to congratulate him.
I have passed through a lot and I can just say that I am living by grace. I know that because no human being could have saved me. No human being could have done for me what God had done for me.
Can you give us an insight into your background?
I am from a humble beginning. I won’t say we were poor because we had whatever we wanted. My mother carried our pregnancy for 14 months, as we were twins.
I was born in the morning, but my Kehinde didn’t come out until evening, and as soon as she came out, she went back, and that alone is the grace of God. While I survived, my Kehinde went back (died) the same day. So, when I think of all these, because if I should start counting the goodness of God in my life, then I would use the whole day. I don’t even know where to start to thank God.
I am the last born of my parents. My father had 12 children and my mother had seven of them. We were two sets of twins. The first set of twins, the Kehinde didn’t even wait to be born, because she went back as a stillborn. My own also died the same day.
However, my immediate elder brother, who was the first twin, was sick for one day in 1974, and died the same day. Three months after his death, his immediate elder brother also died, and our mother was still alive, remaining only three of us, that is, the firstborn, the second born and myself.
Also, none of my siblings lived up to the age I am today. So, where do I start thanking God? My only sister died at the age of 77 in August 1993.
The eldest of us, Professor Bolaji Idowu, the former head of the Methodist Church, died exactly three months after his elder sister died in 1993 at the age of 80 years and one month. I am now 90 years old. My mother was over 120 years. My mother never complained of any illness. She was my grandmother’s favourite. In those days, I got to know that she, alongside her mother, would trek several kilometres to the market, or anywhere they were going. So, the only complain my mother made was saying she didn’t know what happened to her legs, and I would remind her of her past.
It is just grace, amazing gracing that God has for me, and He is still doing it every day, pouring His grace and love for me.
Somebody came to look for me on a Sunday in church, and I told her to sit down, so after the service, she asked why I was still preaching. I told her that I would keep preaching until the end because that is part of the grace I have.
How were your years in the public service like?
I spent several years in public service, and one day, I just asked myself that with all the gifts God had given me, why was I still doing in the ministry of education vegetating. It was in the middle of the night that I was thinking about this, so I got up, took a sheet of paper, got a pen and wrote my retirement letter, giving six months notice. I had to retire at that time because God told me to retire. I was 46-and-a-half years then.
At that time, my boss was sexually disturbing me, and when I told him I was retiring, he thought I was joking, but I had made up my mind that I was retiring, although I was not prepared for it at all. I did not prepare anything for retirement. That was September 30, 1974.
I told him my schedule was full, and he started begging me. I then told him he was yet to tell me his name, and he said he is Reverend Alokan. When I heard his name, I calmed down. I respect men of God. I have been a preacher since 1944.
So I told him again that my schedule was full. He then asked for my schedule, which I gave him. He then went to build the school’s activities into my schedule. That was how I started contract teaching at Saint Leo’s College in 1974.
I was there for a while, until one day, I was in my house when a permanent secretary who I had known for a very long time, came and informed me that the governor would like to see me. He said the governor needed to see me immediately. I said I was not interested because I had done a lot of work already for the state. He then started begging me too. He said it was important I met the governor.
I then asked him for a letter, but he said that was not important, and I insisted I needed a letter of invitation. Within an hour, he brought a letter, and I said I would see the governor the following morning.
The following morning, when I got to the Governor’s Office, the place was already full. I then saw Chief Laditan, who told me to quickly go and collect my form which would enable me see the governor. I said which form.
After a while, the permanent secretary came and said the governor would see me now. The governor knew me as somebody who had laboured for the development of Ogun State.
When I met the governor, he said he wanted to send me on an errand, that I would go to Lagos State, but I told him I would not live in Lagos again. I said I could go to Lagos in the morning and return in the evening, but would never reside in Lagos again.
He then started begging. This was the governor begging me. Mr Degun was with him then. Mr Degun then told the governor that he was yet to tell me what I was going to do in Lagos. He then told me what he wanted me to do.
So I told him I would go and think about it, but he said if I didn’t agree, then I would have disappointed four governors. What happened was that the Federal Government said all the states in the South West should appoint one female. Nobody knew what the assignment would be, but all the governors voted for me, Olori Yetunde Gbadebo.
That evening, my telephone rang, and it was the Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo. That was in 1976. He said he wanted to see me, and I told him I didn’t have a driver. He then said he would send someone to pick me up. However, I told him not to bother sending soldiers, that I would come. The Head of State resided at Dodan Barracks then.
I drove myself to Dodan Barracks, and when I met the Head of State, he said he wanted me to become a FEDECO commissioner. I told him I would not be able to do it because I couldn’t lie and he said that was why I must be there.
He noticed I was not comfortable, but he said I should relax. Then we discussed, and he told me if I did not accept, then I would have disappointed four governors. I told him I would think about it.
He then said if I refused, he would do to me what he did to Aboyade. So immediately, I agreed to do it, and I gave a condition that I must not go beyond Lagos State. So I started in Lagos.
I got to the office on June 7, 1977, and the executive secretary came to my office and said the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers State was in trouble. He said he was in prison custody, and he said I would have to go and resume in Rivers State. We began dragging it, with me saying I was not interested, but he said I would have to go to Rivers.
As we were discussing, the phone rang, and it was the Head of State. He said I would have to go to Rivers State and solve the problem there, and that I should come out with a report on it within two months.
I went to Rivers State, and at the airport, there was nobody to meet me, and I took a taxi to the office. I was in Rivers for 20 months as against the two months given to me. I thank God that He used me to carry out the assignment. I conducted the election into the state’s constituents’ assembly.
However, when we were preparing for the general election, I was posted to Lagos State, but I asked why Lagos. The two toughest states as far as election in this country are Lagos and Rivers states.
The Head of State, however, said since I could handle Rivers State, I would handle Lagos State. That was how I found myself in Lagos, and I conducted the election in Lagos State in 1979. I have to thank God because I didn’t give myself the assignment. God only deemed it fit to put me there, and I didn’t disappoint Him. Everything is just to the glory of God.
You said you started preaching at the age of 16, and knowing the Methodist Church, that women were not allowed to mount the pulpit. How did you do it?
Women were not allowed to mount the pulpit as ministers, but I was a Lay preacher. You can argue with God for some time, but you cannot resist Him forever. I was called by God at the Methodist Church, Agbowa, Sagamu. I could remember that all the students at the Chancery of the church were sent every day of the week to pray for me. There are processes in the Methodist Church, and I went through all the processes. I was combining all these with my job as a teacher. I passed out from Methodist Teachers’ Training College in December 1946, and started teaching in January 1947.
At the civil service where you were sexually harassed, were there no provisions for petition there?
To whom would I petition? The person sexually harassing me was the head; he was holding three positions then. He was the chief inspector, the permanent secretary in the ministry of education, as well as the chairman, provincial education council. So, who would I appeal to? The only thing I could have done was what I did. This man kept me in one cadre for 13 years without promoting me. My contemporaries were promoted, including those who were junior to me.
As someone who has seen much of life, what will be your advice to young and upcoming females of today?
Things have really changed. Do young ladies even want advice these days? Do they seek for advice from elders? You will discover that even when men do not approach them, they approach men. We are in a very big trouble, because these girls don’t even listen to their parents. They hide their problems from their parents, thinking that they know better than their parents. Most of them who come, you can only advice them from your own experience. But most of them don’t even go to those who are disciplined, and those they look to as tough. We can only continue to pray for them. If you tell girls of today to go to church, they just tell you they would go, but they won’t. They only go to pastors who will reveal to them rosy futures, and tell them they can only find salvation with him. The pastor now constitutes himself into God, and confusing the young girls the more. May God help them.
and then