Cleric Sets up Foundation for Police Officers’ Children, Wives

To honor the two outstanding persons that have shaped his life and that of his siblings, founder, Flaming Sword Ministries, Bishop Adebayo Babalola recently set up a foundation to cater mainly for the police officers’ children whose fathers died during active service and by extension cater for their wives too. Writes Mary Nnah

The family Thanksgiving Service held at the auditorium of the Flaming Sword Ministries, Lagos Island, was in honour of late Pa James Babatunde Babalola and his wife, Oyeyemi.

It was their 50th year remembrance and founder of Flaming Sword Ministries, Lagos Island, Bishop Adebayo Babalola, one of their children who felt they have been instrumental for his growth and that of his siblings, deemed it fit for them to establish a foundation to immortalise his parents.

“We have decided to start a foundation in honour of our late parents that will be known as Heroes Foundation”, adding further that the foundation will cater for any military or paramilitary officer’s children that suffer abandonment.

The foundation he explained further will focus on children of officers who have been deprived of their rights due the death of their fathers who once served the nation one way or the other.

Speaking on the inspiration behind a foundation of such, Babalola, who revealed that his late father was equally a police officer who was, “brutally murdered by his orderly through an internal collaborator while he was on official duty”, consequent upon this, his mother was abandoned by the police force to struggle with life and the children the late Babalola left behind.

Lamenting further, he said, “It is with deep regret that our father worked effectively and diligently without a stain, promoting the image of the Police Force locally and internationally but was rewarded by getting killed on January 26, 1971 by those threatened by his rising profile and his family was abandoned.”

The cleric alleged further that their mother was left to struggle with life and the children his left father left behind and that even though the woman’s struggle with her children was successful, it took a toll on her, so much that she died in the process and never lived long to enjoy the fruit of her labour.

“Our father must have had an insight to have married his heartthrob, Oyeyemi, because after papa’s death, the indefatigable wife took over the building of the Babalola family consequent upon the realisation of the fraud and dishonesty in the process of the police to take care her children who were underage as at the time the officer was brutally murdered. She became an emergency trader spanning Kano, Enugu, and Lagos.”

The cleric said the purported promises by the Nigeria Police Force were void, adding, “What a shame! All the promises made by the Nigerian Police Force were not met.”

Babaloal who expressed the fear that the same ill-fated action meted on his mother and her children, may also be the experience of children and wives of most police officers who died on active service, added, “we are sure that the same unfulfilled promises are still going on in the Nigeria Police Force, which is very sad and unfortunate”.

He averred that the experience his family went through after their father’s death prompted the establishment of the Heroes Foundation, which will cater for military and paramilitary officers` children, especially the police who are going through the same experience they did.

Recalling his experience as a child after his father was allegedly assassinated, he said, “I was 12 years, that’s about 50 years ago and in form 2 when father died. I was used to my parents paying school fees promptly and going to school in a private car. And then suddenly, I had to be entering public buses and then those whom our wellbeing was entrusted in their hands were refusing to pay my school fees.

“The Nigeria Police didn’t fulfill their promise because if you are killed on duty as a police officer, it is the duty of the police to take care of your children and wife, which you left behind but the police refused to, even when they had promised to.

“The first time I cried so bitterly was when I was publicly disgraced at school just because I couldn’t pay my school fees. I didn’t weep when my father died but there I wept like never before. I then said I will never allow anyone to weep like I did”, he added.

Speaking on his desire to alleviate the pains of the oppressed and less privileged through his Heroes foundation, the retired Assistant Director General of the State Security Service (SSS) said, “It’s my money and I could have used it to gone to London for holidays but I decided to spend it to wipe away tears from people’s eyes and by the time we have trained someone who is hopeless you have strengthen the nation.

” I was only lucky or else I would have turned out to be a miscreant or an armed robber and you can imagine the kind of armed robber I would have been with my kind of intelligence and bravery.”

Asked why he was just opening up on the ill-mannered treatment his family suffered from the Nigeria Police Force 50 years after, Babalola said, “I couldn’t have brought it up before now because I was young. And when I became an adult, I joined SSS and soon after I joined, I became an assistant director general of the SSS.

So, you can’t be in the SSS and be criticising the police. I am now a retired Assistant Director General of the SSS, so I can now speak”, adding, “What can I do again at this level if I don’t speak the truth”.

Speaking further he said, “Secondly, 50 years is a diamond and a good time to remember an incident, take a lesson from it and then move on. And again, I did not have money to do this but now, I have enough friends that can pump money into the foundation and some of them have started pledging large sums of money. “

The cleric believes that talking about the gruesome murder of his father at this time would bring about a lot of positive impact on the police force and the nation as a whole.

“When there is a development in a nation, do not expect that it comes from the top, it has to come from the grassroots. So saying it out now and spending my own money to uplift other people’s lives will bring about a change and development in our society,` he said.

“Usually when a policeman`s wife dies, she is victimised and denied her rights as an officer’s wife. So speaking out now will solve a whole lot of problems and right now I have a lot of friends that are ready to put in their money, voice and good will to stop the ills meted on the police officers wives and their children.”

On the workings of the foundation, he said, “We are just setting out with a foundational prayer today and after this we will bring in structures and then employ the appropriate people to run the organisation.”

The foundation, he emphasised, would focus on children of paramilitary, police and army whose children are deprived of their rights and privileges.