HIV/AIDS curtailed our adventures during varsity days —Reverend Thompson

Reverend Ladi Thompson is the Special Adviser to the President of Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Anti-Terrorism and Conflict Resolution, as well as the founder and senior pastor of Living Waters Unlimited Church. He speaks with SEGUN KASALI on life and growing up.

 

Your parents were beneficiaries of early formal education in Nigeria. How beneficial was this to them?

Formal education came into Nigeria in 1840. So, the first few Nigerians who acquired formal education were very fortunate because they ended up forming the crème de la crème of the society. Trust me, attending school in my father’s days was very unpopular. My father was among the first generation of medical doctors. They were the frontiers in the days of epidemics and he ended up a permanent secretary in those days. My mother, Florence Adebisi Adeniran, was also well-known in the South-West. She went to Queen’s College, Lagos and from there, she proceeded to Southland College. She was the only black in the school then, that was around 1957/58.

 

Mama must have shared interesting experiences being the only black stusent in the school

(Laughs) One interesting thing Mama told me was that she was going to do her laundry one day and you know in Africa, there is a way we balance loads on our heads. That was the norm for everybody in the 1930s and 40s. So, she packed the clothes and balanced it on her head and was walking to the laundry. She just heard a giggle and everyone turned and looked in her direction, saying “Bisi, how did you do that?” (Laughs). She said the white people were shocked to have seen her do that.

 

How was growing up?

I got more disciplined above everybody in the house because I was very innovative. I could recall my school reported me to my parents that I played too much. Naturally, a child who does a lot of that relates with his peers more than those ahead, like my sister who trained as a medical doctor and later specialised as an Optamologist; my elder brother is a Gynaecologist and based in the United Kingdom, while I am here and I have got twins after me and others.

 

What was your coping mechanism despite being rascally in school?

Well, I thank the Lord for quick grasp. I used to borrow my friend’s notes because I would not go to the class, since I needed only one week to read the notes in order to pass. I graduated with second class upper. So, sometimes I wonder what grade I would have graduated with if I had been serious.

 

Perhaps you did not get your desired course of study

Not that. Even though I wanted architecture because I was told it was good despite having the requirements to study medical courses. But I ruled that out because my father, sister and elder brother are medical doctors. And I would now join them again? No. So, architecture was a bridge between Science and Arts, and I chose Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, hoping that I would not get the admission (laughs).

 

Really, why was that?

In our days, you have to fail GCE London, WAEC, including HSC for you to go and school abroad and I was already bent on going abroad. And I knew there was no way, having passed those examinations by whatever magic I would say I want to go to university abroad. If you did not make good grade in Mathematics, then you go abroad and come back to seek admission and all that. So, I thought of a scheme that if I choose ABU as my first and second choice,  I won’t be allowed to go, because none of my family members had gone across the Niger before and my parents would be left with no other choice than to take me to the United Kingdom to school.

 

So, how did it go?

Well, one day, my father just asked me, ‘Ehn ehn, how far with the admission? What choice did you say you made again?’ I said Ahmadu Bello University. Then, he said, let me call my friend who is a professor there. So, the professor told him to allow me come. My brother, I was extremely angry that very day (laughs). It was the first time in my life I took a flight from Lagos to Kaduna, as the most dangerous road in those days was Kaduna-Zaria.

 

Oh! You ended up not traveling abroad?

Yes, but my father had organised a job for me immediately I left the university. But I thought what if I had no one to do this, what would have happened? So, I decided to be independent having had my Master’s degree at 23. I just decided to go out on my own in order to see what life is all about.  So, I left the house and went squatting with friends. I learnt that nobody is better than anybody else. You may be fortunate to have food on your table, but don’t know how and where the next meal will come from in those years I spent without my parents. I learnt the principle of rice N30, plantain N20 with no meat. These are the things you would never ever have thought of coming across. But you would realise that this is the normal life of an average person in this country.

 

But you still embraced the right values?

Yes. This was because I had enough adventure in college and at the time we were graduating, things like HIV/AIDS had started gaining ground in Nigeria. So, any sensible person would tend to be disciplined. I think it took me three and a half years to learn the ropes.

 

Three years?

Yes. I had established a company, gone into timber export and had a base in Ghana. The major experience for me was a three-letter word – God, because when you approach life from the intelligence perspective and the result does not add up, you would like to know the variables. So, you look at the variables and you begin to explore them. When we talk about variables in life, it is about time and chance. After so many deliberations on these, I found God and God found me.

 

Can you share that experience with us?

The most prominent person who was able to answer a number of questions for me was Taiwo Odukoya. Taiwo and Bimbo Odukoya were able to give me proper guidance as regards Biblical teachings. In fact, I met my wife when their church, Fountain of Life Church, was about to start. My wife and her two sisters were praying with the Odukoyas and somebody had invited me there. So, we met at the prayer meeting. Having known her, she is very hardworking and she is an Omoluabi, which is very important to me, and that was even what spur me into setting up the Macedonia Initiative.

 

What is Macedonia Initiative about?

Macedonia Initiative was interesting because we got to spend a lot of money where your greatest gain is the enmity of those who want to kill people in Nigeria. When you go to a place and a man says ‘see what they have done to my son and his only son had been butchered, how do you respond?’ I got to a place one day and the street was littered with blood and dead bodies. What do you say to the people whose children had been killed before their eyes? So, it sobers you. I started talking about the Boko Haram since 1999. The inaugural meeting we had for the Macedonia Initiative was at MUSON Centre in 1999. At that meeting, we were able to bring together church leaders of Northern Nigeria and Southern Nigeria.

 

Is that why people call you a security consultant?

(Laughs). I had spent 20 years doing this. I learnt this on the field where people are being butchered with machetes and bomb are seen smoking.

I was in America in the week of 9/11. I just convened a meeting where the whites were laughing at me because they thought I came there to talk to them about aid and I told them point blank that I did not come there to talk to them about any aid. You have the same problem like we had. Like a doctor can read a sickness and disease, we can read ours. So, they laughed. A few days later, the first aeroplane landed and the second landed too. And my phone began to blow up. Next, was, they were offering me an American citizenship to stay there and set-up an office similar to what I was doing in Nigeria. They wanted me to come set up such in America and that they would bankroll it. When they saw the annoyance on my face, they knew it was a different ball game. They were like ‘call your wife to seek her opinion`. But, I told them I don’t need my wife’s opinion on this issue. So, I jettisoned it.

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