No Regrets Having Only Boys… They will in Turn Bear Girl-Children
Because of hardship. I lost my father at an early age. We were eight children in the family; catering for the family was left on the shoulders of my mother who was a cleaner. She could not meet the needs of everyone. We gained our independence early in or
It has been 15 year since your father was murdered. Do you think you can still get justice?
I trust that we will sooner or later once we have a sensible and responsible government that must attend to resolving my father’s murder and all the unresolved murders. It gives a sense of responsibility to the government and for those who did it, their conscience will continue to deal with them for the rest of their lives. As a family, we have always maintained the fact that the wrath of God will deal with the perpetrators. But it will be good to get justice on earth because they are walking the streets.
What are the things people don’t know about your father?
He loved dodo. He was a prolific writer. He loved to drive himself. He was humble. He loved his children to a fault. I remember on the first of October 1979, after the swearing in as governor of Oyo State at the Liberty Stadium, the two of us just drove home. And for the first three months we were still living in our house in Ososami until the security personnel advised that he should move to the Government House in Agodi. He was a man of the people and that is what was incomprehensible that some people would come to his private home and kill him. My father loved to celebrate people if he knows your birthday he will call you.
Growing up, how much of an impact did your father’s status in the society have on you?
I was 12 and half years old when he became governor and we were just a happy family. My mother was a judge and my father was a governor and a well-known politician. So we were just normal kids. He had a lovely Honda Prelude and he would drive himself around and would even go and inspect projects by himself. Everybody knew his plate number, OY 1AF, his personal car as governor and people would be hailing him ‘Uncle Bola.’ I have always been conscious of who I was because position of leadership is transient. As said earlier, we lived in our private home in Ososami. My mother had an official quarters in Kobiowu Crescent at Iyaganku and later moved to the Government House. I was moved to a boarding house in England. And we would come home during holidays but we would still go back to our old neighbourhood. My mother didn’t quit her job to become ‘First Lady’ because she was still going to court. She was powerful but humble as a judge. We were level headed and never got carried away.
You mean your teachers did not treat you differently?
No. Because we didn’t want it. We were just regular students in class and all our friends were still coming to the Government House and we would play soccer together.
Then as you grow older how many girls wanted to date you?
I beg o! I wasn’t interested in that. Yes. I had female companions. But when I was ready to settle down, I married one of the most intelligent, beautiful and smart women you can ever imagine. My wife, Oyinda, is a lawyer and mother of my three boys.
Was there a time you incurred your father’s wrath?
Not really. I remember I started driving at the age of nine. I have a brother who was a tough guy. He was five years older. My maternal aunty always encouraged me to learn so I was watching how he drives. When I was about 13, the late Alhaji Arisekola Alao just bought his Benz 450 SL and brought it to the Government House to say hello to my father. But my father wasn’t at home. He said Muyiwa, can you drive? I said yes, I can Alhaji. I got into the car and as we were driving out of the Government House my father was coming home for lunch. The rider came and when I saw him I just froze. I released the seat of the car backward as soon as his car passed I jumped out of the car and ran upstairs. I thought he didn’t see me since he didn’t say a word. For two weeks, he kept mum over the matter. We used to have fellowship every month at the Chapel and a lot of family members used to come around. I was coming down the stairs when he said ‘Hope you are not driving this evening?’ It was worse than being spanked. I said ‘no dad.’ I just went straight back to bed. That was the kind of trouble I got into.
Who were you closer to between your father and mother and why?
Both of them were special. My father was very liberal. If you wanted to take a decision he would ask you whether that was what you wanted. I was closer to him after I lost my elder brother. He would address me as ‘Muyiwa, my beloved.’ There was a special bond between us. Though, I was abroad at a time and he encouraged me to come back home. I eventually returned to Nigeria in 1999. Then he was heavily involved in politics and had to hold forth at home. I was my mother’s hand bag as she was always carrying me around as a child. And after my father’s demise, I left my house and moved my family to live with my mum. We lived with her until she died.
What is your greatest fear?
I am overly protective of my three boys and in terms of fear I am not fearful of anything. What is anyone fearful of? Well, sometimes people are afraid of death (though it is inevitable). We will all go one day but I don’t want to die young.
You have three boys. Do you regret not having a female child?
I have no regrets and my wife loves it that way because she is special and everyone dots over her. I am sure even if I had a daughter there would be competition (laughs). I don’t have any regret because God has blessed me with three prosperous nations. They will go and bring the lovely girls.
As an architect, what were your biggest and interesting projects?
Between 2000 and 2011, I actually carved a niche for myself in terms of assisting financial institutions to rebrand and give them different outlooks. We did a lot of projects with the old National Bank, now Chartered Bank, Stanbic IBTC and also worked with Ecobank nationwide. There were some flagships we did in Lagos. We also did some residential facilities. My present house was carved out of rocks. But the most interesting one I did before I came home was MacDonald’s Restaurant in Baltimore. I used to be a corporate architect for Mac Donald’s Corporation. There is a children museum and it was a special project because it is a restaurant in Children’s Museum. In partnership with Disney, we brought in some children savvy equipment. It was a restaurant but didn’t look like one.
Should Nigerians watch out for you in 2019?
We all have a responsibility to play our own part. So not only myself, Nigeria should watch out for all of us.