Daniel O. Omotilewa
In 1992, which was my final year as a Law student in University of Ibadan, I was mightily confused on how to finance my one year Law School Programme. I had just bought and read Robert Schooler’s eternal classic at a Book Fair. It is titled “Though Times Never Last But Though People Do”. That book inspired me to write letters to some prominent Nigerians to seek their kind aid in running the one year Law School Programme.
On the day I wrote my last examination in UI, I came to Lagos to discover that 5 letters were waiting for me, in response to my letter of solicitation for help. One of the letters came from Chief Isaac Fola-Alade.
I met with him at his office at the Tafa Balewa Square, Lagos. He told me he had been having Law School students in his house on Muri Okunola Street, Victoria Island, since he moved to the house some years back. He promised to give me accommodation. Typical of that great man, he asked that I should give him some days to discuss it with his children. Right there, he invited Arc. Kola (a chip off the old block, so to say), to his office and introduced us to each other.
My second meeting with him was without any formality. He greeted me warmly as if I was a member of his Family.To my eternal gratitude, he informed me that he had secured the blessing of all his children to accommodate me for the one year Law School Programme. Right there he gave me the opportunity to either move to the house immediately to enable me familiarize myself with the environment or possibly wait till a few days to our resumption at the Law School.
Upon resumption of the Law School, I moved to his house where I stayed and was fed for the entire duration of the one year programme. This was how destiny brought me into the life of this simple, loving and upright Ekiti son, whose generation is fast depleting by the day.
He lived a spartan, fairly regimented lifestyle. On a regular day, he will wake up before anyone in the house. His room had an in built library cum study. If he was not reading, you can be sure he will have something to write or draw. His glass of fresh fruit juice will be served on him in that study around 8:00am and that normally served as his breakfast. His only major food in a day comes around 5:00pm, after which he retires to his private sitting room to monitor the news.
He was of the old – school stock. A generation that was molded in the very best of colonial traditions. He was upright, transparently honest and a brutally frank man. He does not condone any acts of indiscipline, nor was he one to suffer fools gladly. In fact, I was told, a Law School student who lived in his house a year before me was summarily sent out of the house after he was caught watching a porn movie in the house.
As a young lawyer during President Obasanjo’s first tenure, I led a Commissioner of Police of Ekiti extraction to see him at home in Lagos. After a short introduction, the Commissioner informed him of how he had been ordered to proceed on pre-retirement leave despite the fact that he was still having about 3 years left before his statutory retirement. He wanted Chief to help reverse the Police Authority’s directive by speaking on his behalf to either of his friends – General David Jenibewon, the then Minister of Police Affairs, or President Obasanjo himself.
As was his nature, Chief’s response was stubbornly and brutally blunt “if you have done the number of years you claim to have done without blemish, why don’t you want to go now that the ovation is still loud? Forcing yourself to remain in the service for these 3 years may lead to what will destroy your entire career”. He told us that General Jenibewon and himself, flew from Abuja to Lagos few weeks back, but he will not be interested in discussing such an issue with him nor with the President. He admonished the Commissioner to go and face his post retirement life. That was the end of the meeting. That was the kind of stuff he was made with.
His life was rather ascetic. Money was a means to an end and never the destination in his dictionary. Ostentation was not a way of life for him. I remember a day I returned to the house to meet a brand new Honda Legend car, a top of the range then, parked at the garage. I congratulated him for the new acquisition. He promptly replied me by saying the car does not belong to him but rather to a friend of his whose name he mentioned immediately. It was like the friend was not comfortable that there was no status car in Chief’s garage and then decided to buy the car for the use of this great man.
In the same spirit, one evening we were driving to Ebute Meta for the christening ceremony of one of his grandchildren. I was sitting with him at the back of the car and he was commenting on how people can be vain in their obscene display of wealth. He then talked about the clothe (agbada) he wore that very evening, a clothe he said he had acquired 10years earlier for a particular event.
He was not very rich but he was a very contended man. To him, wealth should be an instrument to change the lives of others. I am a testament to that fact! His taste was simple. But, his dress sense was unique. He was a total family man who succeeded in raising children that also adopt a humanist worldview. He resolved very early in his life to be close to the children, especially after the death of his loving wife, just 15 years into the marriage and with 5 young children,. He also resolved not to have any other children from any other woman, so as to protect the bonding with his children. His achievement here was huge and you can only feel it when you see Chief relating with any of the children.
As a professional, he was massively successful. He was one Architect with his hand in so many projects, especially Federal projects across the country. Race Course, old Federal Secretariat in Ikoyi, one of the Federal Secretariats in Abuja, to mention a few, are some of his projects. His “trademarks” were circles and arcs, which you will see in virtually all his works. His Lagos home at Victoria Island then, the country home and the Civil Center, both at Aramoko Ekiti speak volumes about this. Largely, he derived satisfaction and happiness in his job than the wealth therein. He served humanity through his profession.
His thinking was Federal and I am sure he must have died an unhappy man by virtue of what is playing out in Nigeria today. I was in his house during the June 12 Election and its annulment. The man lost composure and was not himself. One day after the Law School was re-opened, following the crises that engulfed the country after the annulment, I entered the house and met him alone, in deep thought. He demanded where I was coming from and I told him I was having a group study with some friends somewhere in Ikoyi. “so you people can still read with what is happening in this country?” was the outburst from him. He was a total Nigerian and a very committed Ekiti man.
His love for anything Ekiti was legendary. A lover of pounded yam, especially with assorted bush meat. Chief will travel to Ekiti at least once in a month and on his journey back to Lagos, he will buy various bush meats, which will be generously used for his pounded yam soup. The late Archbishop Abiodun Adetiloye, another great Ekiti son, used to visit him occasionally to enjoy a dinner of pounded yam with him. He thinks, speaks and acts Ekiti. He was always reminiscing of his friendship and time with the late Prof. Emeritus Kayode Osuntokun, another Ekiti pride, whom he said was irreplaceable. The two of them stuck to each other like co-join twins from their first day in Christ School until death separated them.
He was always reminding me not to forget my parents and also my Ekiti roots. At every point he was always emphasizing that anyone who has seen the light should not hesitate in sharing it with others. On a particular Saturday, my wife and I visited him in Aramoko after he had relocated back home. To prove that my children are not Lagos children, he extracted a commitment from us that we shall bring the children to Aromoko to spend a whole weekend with him. Alas, that promise never saw the light of the day until he flew unto glory.
Mark Anthony in the play of Julius Caesar, By William Shakespeare said of Marcus Brutus;
“His life was gentle and the elements so mix’d in him
That Nature might stand up and say to all the world
‘This was a man!”
Sleep on, sleep well, great soul.
