Let me begin by revealing that like Professor Douglas Anele of the Department of Philosophy, University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, that I too did not believe in Almighty God until He started speaking with me one-to-one on Tuesday, February 18, 1969, when I was briefly a teacher at Aquinas College, Akure about eight months after I graduated from the University of Ibadan with Bachelor of Arts degree in History. I had to attend services at the chapel of Christ’s School, Ado-Ekiti during my secondary education and the Assembly Hall of Ibadan Grammar School where I did my Higher School Certificate course, because it was compulsory for students to do so. In my three years or sessions at the University of Ibadan (1965 – 68), I don’t think I attended services up to six times and I did so at the Protestant Chapel of Resurrection and Catholic Church on the campus because of my girlfriends, not because I went to worship any God.
So irreligious was I that in 1960 when the Christ’s School Geographic Society was to go on an excursion to Benin City, Sapele, Ugheli and Warri, our British-born principal, Canon Leslie Donald Mason, approved all the other names on the list, with the exception of mine. He said he did so because of my irreverence during services in the chapel and so did not want me to go and disgrace the school in the institutions where we would lodge during the trip. It took pleadings from the teacher who was to lead us and some senior boys before he allowed me to go.
I believe Professor Jide Osuntokun of the Redeemer’s University, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, who was a year my senior and in his final year (in the 1956 – 60 set), and other members of the club alive, may still remember the incident, because it was the first time the principal would do it to a student. Indeed, some of my colleagues, particularly, my classmate at the time, now Dr. Joseph Awopetu (Ph. D Agriculture) of the University of Ilorin, who recently retired, used to call me omo esu, Yoruba words for Devil or Satan’s son.
Although I did not believe in the Heavenly Father, it was ironical that my best subject in the secondary schools I attended was Religious Knowledge (RK) also called Bible Knowledge (BK). In my set, I was the only one who had A1 in the subject in the West African School Certificate Examination. The day He called me the Supreme Being and King of the Universe, introduced Himself with this statement: Adesina, the son of Adedipe, I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob you have read about in the Bible, but whom you do not believe in. I went on my knees and touched the ground with my forehead seven times and apologized for my ignorance and immediately it began to rain. It was when I left the spot where the discussion took place that I found out the downpour was limited to about twenty-five feet to where He spoke with me.
To be continued next Wednesday
So, apart from not persecuting Christians as Apostle Paul did before he converted from paganism (Acts of the Apostles Chapters 8 and 9) or abusing and insulting God and Jesus Christ as Professor Anele does, the story of my disbelieve was like that of the great spiritual man of ancient Biblical times.
To be continued next Wednesday
Mrs Adedipe & Pa Briggs at 90
If he had not gone to glory exactly six months ago, on Friday. November 20, today would have been the 69th birthday of my best friend, High Chief Abiola Anthony Johnson, the Apesin of Lagos. He was Lagos State Commissioner for Commerce and Industry and later Transportation from 1999-2002 in the administration of Governor Bola Tinubu and son of High Chief Joseph Modupe Johnson (JMJ), the Apesin of Lagos and First Republic Minister of Labour and Sports (1956-63), who acted twice as Prime Minister for Sir. Abubarka Tafawa Balewa.
Today, I was to have remembered Biola and another departed dear friend of mine, Ghanaian-born Charlotte Dadah, a vocalist of the Uhuru Highlife Band of Ghana in the 1960s. But I have to shelve writing about them and continuing with the Yoruba/Benin ancestry dispute series to pay tribute to the only surviving of the five wives of my dad who passed on in 1972 at 67, Mrs. Felicia Ajayi Adedipe and Port Harcourt-based High Chief C. Briggs, who were 90 on Sunday, April 10 and last Saturday respectively.
Rivers State –born Pa Briggs was a staff of the Post and Telegraph (P&T), who lived in my father’s house at 21, Egbatedo Street in Osogbo in the 1950s. got to know through a series I wrote on my dad in 2011 that I was the son of his former landlord and called me to say how nice my old man and his first wife were to him and his spouse. He said for the one year his family lived in Osogbo before joining him in Lagos, where he was transferred, that papa did not take any rent from him.
Since then, he has kept in touch with me, while I too call him especially on the occasion of his birthday.
He is the oldest of the four octogenarians who read my column and phone me once in a while. The others are late Pa John Ojidoh, a member of the Nigerian Football Association Board, who died in 2014 in his mid-80s, Pa Benjamin Okolo, a one-time Director of Programmes at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, who is now 89 and Pa Joseph Abiodun Ibiyemi, a Certified and Chartered Accountant and Chartered Secretary and a retired officer at the Federal Audit Department and later Akintola Williams and Co, both in Lagos, who was 87, twenty-one days ago, on March 31.
What is common with Mrs. Adedipe and Messrs Briggs, Okolo and Ibiyemi is their agility, sharp memory, good health, bright sight and clear voice in spite of their very advanced ages. At 89-and-a-half years, my dad’s wife not only travelled from Lagos to Akure, six months ago for the funereal of my mum, who joined the saints triumphant in August at 101, but also danced briefly during the reception. It is my prayer that the four of them will live to the age of 100 in sound condition and without losing their sights, limbs, children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Concluded