This old lawyer is a
Yoruba man, a Nigerian. A West-African. An African. He was once a village
teacher. In the course of time also a village ‘Doctor’. He was a grandson of a
renowned Tiger-dazer. He was a village toughie, so tough that he had the rare
feat of being of very few men who ended up marrying the damsels they had beaten
up in earlier years.
He became an
under-graduate at the University of Lagos. And graduated. He witnessed
nauseating tribal politics in the nascent students’ unionism of the University.
He suffered for his communist/socialist beliefs in the hands of a
‘pro-capitalist’ American don. Albeit for a time. When he made, a seeming
transformation of his maoist’ kijipa to an Uncle Tom kaftan,
the oppressor don relented and our man started “eating the good of the land”.
He later became a staff
and administrator of the very University of Lagos, where his toughness followed
him inexorably. At the university he did his job so well that he risked certain
dismissal because of “too much integrity”. This was a
middle-level officer who was more conscientious, ethical and stricter than the
famous Prefessor Biobaku, the Vice-Chancellor and one Mr. Eke, the Registrar.
Even before his UNILAG
YEARS, his toughness was with him, it caused his exit from the corrupting
environment of the Tax office.
Our man later left
Nigeria on academic quest to the united States of America. The University of
Pittsburgh to be exact.
Back to Nigeria, our
man soon found himself in another job. A job where a colossus ruled and reigned.
A colossus called, Fortune Ebie. Our man’s toughness did not leave him, only
that it was not the stiff toughness of old, but now tensile, bending without
shifting, an adjustment without compromise, a situation management that the
Yorubas proverbalise thus-
Kape were loko Iyawo
Kale ro no
Hailing the lunatic
Mounting a barricade
As the groom, so that
The real groom would
Have access to his
bride.
Our man was as a child
rascally and as a young man intrepid. He applied some confidence tricks
including impersonation to get inside a near convent-school to have a date with
his future wife.
A local man to the
core, our man was interested in his town, local government, and his state. He
played Mafia politics for the betterment of his people. And when the mafia
turned against him, he singularly proved his mettle. Would you know that the
former communist is now, a traditional ruler. Nay a monarchist?
Ladies and gentlemen,
will you kindly join me to greet High Chief Sir Olufemi Daramola, the Okobaigi
himself a senior and highly respected and certainly self-effacing
member of the N.B.A Lagos Branch
(Secretly I wonder what such old fire-brands are doing in the “Jejelayegba”
Branch like the Lagos Bar)
The Okobaigi’s life is
poured out (and certainly not fully so) in his very readable thriller of an
auto-biography, wrongly in view entitled- “DOCTOR ON BICYCLE”
But the little he has
allowed us to know is such a great deal of education, information and
entertainment. Actually by writing this book, Okobaigi Sir Olufemi Daramola has
joined the ranks of the IMORTALS. The old man cannot die
again, even when he changes location from this side of the sky to the other
wing of it. He will die only when his book DOCTOR ON BICYCLE no longer exists.
And this takes me to
the real point of this article- who will again help me persuade my legal titan
of a father, my Daddy 3, Chief G.O.K Ajayi the Odoole of Ife, quality silk, to
do like the Okobaigi and write out the story of his life.
G.O.K Ajayi is simply a
marvel. The little, very little slice I am privileged to know of Chief Ajayi so
much that it will be a huge disaster, indeed a calamity of Boko Haramic
proportions if such a wondrous wonder should enter the sod without the gospel
of his existence on the terra-firma surviving him.
Okobaigi Sir Olufemi
Daramola a perpetual Squibber, thank you very much for the great pains you took
in writing DOCTOR ON BYCLE. However, sir
If you see my Papa ….
Hosanna
Tell am say o Hosanna
I no dey happy Hosanna
Make him write im own
book Hosanna
Den I go dey happy
Hosanna ….
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