Growing up, how was it like for you?
I grew up in Lagos. I went to primary school here and three secondary schools largely as a result of moving from one place to another. I attended Government College, Eric Moore Road; Government College, Victoria Island and Government College, Ikorodu. National Theatre was built as I was growing up and lovers of entertainment and sports in those days had a lot of fun then. It was an interesting experience. I spent Sallah and the long holidays in Ikorodu, while Christmas in Ikorodu was also part of it.
How brilliant were you in primary school days?
To be honest, I don’t know. I was probably an above average student. I’m not sure if my mates would remember me as someone who stood out.
What role did your father play while you were growing up?
My father was my role model because he was distinct from the rest of the family. He was much into spiritual pursuit, which is God, and this journey helped me in finding a moral anchor. My father was instrumental in helping me realise that the world is not all about how much money you have, but more about how much you can influence your environment and people’s lives for the better.
How much of your secondary school days did you enjoy?
Perhaps my final year at the Government College, Ikorodu. Before that time, I was an introvert, a very shy teenager. In my last day at the school, Miss Iyun, my English teacher, discovered my interest in writing because I wrote a lot. She nurtured that talent and turned me into a public speaker when she got me to be a member of the Government College, Ikorodu, debate team. We won several championships in Lagos State.
Was there any of the competitions you regretted not winning?
When we lost to Holy Child College. I remember the young girl we lost to, Benedicta Adebowale, who later became Miss Nigeria and we ended up in LASU together. I knew she was a tough cookie. My debating partner at that time, though the format of the debate was that we had to prepare for the both sides of the argument-for and against, there was a particular point that had to do with infant mortality. There was a particular point that I knew Benedicta was going to come up with, so I warned my partner about it. We had to prepare for both sides. There was a point I didn’t really like. I wrote all our speeches, but that day, he insisted that he was going to write his own speech. That was a mistake because the one point he did not hammer on, Benedicta mentioned it. That was the point that cost us the debate. I was inconsolable because I knew what was going to happen. Benedicta was a fire brand as far as debate was concerned. She was very intelligent. I will never forget that.
What did you learn from that experience?
Be prepared always. Be prepared and be ready.
As an introvert, were you bullied by friends?
Yes, I was. I forgot to mention that I went to the Lagos State School of Basic Studies for my O’Level because I passed only four subjects at Government College and I needed five to be able to go to the university. It was interesting. It was a very brief thing. I had been bullied throughout my secondary school in Ikorodu, but in the last three months in the school, I got into sports. My elder sister, Iyabo Gbadamosi, was into judo at United High School. The school had a gym, equipped a punching bag. We used to go there to play football but later developed an interest in boxing. In my final year, there was this bully that always tormented me. His name was Wasiu. As far as I was concerned, everyone called me Ajebutter of the school, so I learned how to fight. After we finished our WAEC exams. One day, Wasiu showed up opposite my house. We had a table tennis in my house. There was a neighborhood guy
that managed a tennis business and charged 10 kobo. When it was my turn to play, Wasiu arrived and attempted to bully me as usual. He didn’t know that I had been taking boxing lessons and was much stronger. I was more confident than I was months before then. So, he told me to sit down and I said he should go and sit down too.
Of course, a fight broke out. I threw the first punch and straightly connected his jaw. Everybody was astounded because nobody knew that I had been taking boxing lessons. A lot of my friends were surprised that I could stand up for myself. Wasiu thought that I would just leave the place when he ordered me to sit down.
Are you still an introvert?
I think I am because I still keep to myself a lot. Once I start a project, I don’t like being distracted. So, I focus my attention on that. I have
What about your mum?
My mum remains a strong pillar for my family. She has been through thick and thin for all of us her children She looks unassuming, but she is one of the strongest people I actually know to be mentally strong.
Was there anytime you thought of what you were going to be in future?
Always. You can’t be a member of the Gbadamosi family and not constantly explore what you are going to be in the future. Everybody in the family was encouraged to explore possibilities, begin to prepare for the future – for the future of your own making. So, yes. I was constantly thinking of what I was going to be. I have gone through all the phases of wanting to be a professional footballer in the mould of Segun Odegbami and Mudashiru Lawal, Felix Owolabi that old generation of football players and also wanted to be a pilot. I also came really close to becoming a lawyer, but at a point, I realised that Nigeria, for all its peculiarities, was not quite mature enough for the practice I wanted to indulge in, so I dropped out of Law class at the Lagos State University and headed for the United Kingdom. I am glad I did.
So, you never regretted studying Law?
Well, I never regretted it. You know, I was fortunate to have, perhaps, enjoyed the kind of tutelage that I had in LASU those days, from my lecturers, including Professor Bolaji Owasanoye, Dr Solanke, I think is one Professor Solanke. We had many of them. Ibukun Alo was one of them. We had many strong lecturers. Yemi Adeola was one of my lecturers then and he’s now the MD of Sterling Bank. He was always a banker back then.
Most introverts tend not to be social. Did you have an intimate relationship while in school?
I never did, but there must have been a lot of interests. Of course, as a teenager, I was interested in the opposite sex, but I had never had the confidence to do that, even when the signs were obvious, I never knew how to respond to it until I was almost out of secondary school. However, everything sorted itself out and I naturally.
Did you socialise?
I had my own clique. I think in my first year at Government College, Ikorodu, I had a nickname, Legelege. I was so lean. I was as lean as a rake. That wasn’t because I was not eating, on the contrary, I ate quite a lot. I was a voracious eater. But for some reasons, I just couldn’t add weight until I was in my mid 20s.
How then did you meet your wife considering your timid personality?
When I met my wife, my timid nature had faded and I became more of an extrovert. I was now the aggressor. We met at her younger sister’s birthday. Her younger sister was, and is still my friend till date. We were good friends and we were neighbours. She is a twin. This is interesting because they were born minutes apart that night. While one of them celebrates her birthday on October 2, her twin brother celebrates his on October 3. My wife’s sister insisted that I had to attend her birthday that year 1999. She just kept calling as if was she was on a mission. I turned up eventually. I almost did not attend. Well, I don’t think there was an intention. It was just God. When I walked in, my wife was the first person I saw and I was dazed by how she looked. We locked eyes and clearly, we were so interested in each other. Just like that.
Were there no pick-up lines in the process?
Of course we had conversations that day and the relationship developed from there.
Having met her and consented, did her family give you any stress?
There was an interregnum between the time I met her dad because she lost her mum much earlier. First of all, we spoke a lot until we eventually met. We had become really good friends. It was a very short time that I met him and it was shortly after I met him, like a year or two after, that he died.
Was there anything she complained about?
Politics. Yeah, she wanted me to stop participating in politics.
How did you get away with it?
We have separated some things. She handles the business aspect of things while I focus on politics. There is no other state for me to go except Lagos. I can’t sit back and allow mediocrity to take over Lagos completely. But the situation is still salvageable. I can still save Lagos. That is my belief. She, however, grudgingly allows me to venture into politics. To that extent, I have her backing. But then, if there is anything she rather wants me stop, it is politics.
What does she do that impresses you?
My wife can cook anything. She is that good that even my son, as a baby, knew his mother cooked differently. The twin were born in England and at six months, she started eating eba. As I put my hand in the bowl to eat the eba, he would follow my hand straight to my mouth and I would say: hey, you wanna taste a bit? Take. He savored it and wanted more despite that it had too much pepper. At six months, my son, Taiwo, insisted that he wanted pepper. One day, my wife and I left the office very late and she couldn’t cook, so we went to a restaurant down the street and bought some things as usual. We brought it home and gave it to Taiwo. As he opened the pack and saw what was in the pack, he skewed his head and looked elsewhere. This was very unusual of Taiwo. I told my wife that this guy knew the food was not cooked by her and he refused to eat it. He wouldn’t touch it, neither did he eat throughout that night until the following morning when his mum was able to cook. In fact, as soon as he smelt it, he knew that was his mum’s cook. Yeah, that’s how good her cooking is.
Looking at your children, which one do you think would take after you?
I am one of those who don’t believe in dictating to children. I think I have done that to the best of my ability. One of them is into entertainment. She is studying to become a sound engineer and music designer at the moment at the University of Middlesex in London. One of the twins is studying to become a lawyer and the other to become a civil engineer.
Now that you are so engrossed with politics, do you still have time for them?
They are in school at the moment, but we talk from time to time. We chat via Whatsapp or call them.
Any pet names in the family?
My nick name is sweetie pie’ (Laughs) and I call her sweetie pie back.
and then