It is now 14 years that I have been hearing Ekiti people, especially those of Ado – Ekiti, claim that the ancestors of Barrister Babatunde Raji Fashola, the Governor of Lagos State from Tuesday, May 29, 2007 – Thursday, May 28, 2015 and the Minister of Housing and Works in the last six years, came from Ado – Ekiti to settle in Lagos. But my writing on the issue now is a result of an argument in Lagos last week with Mr. Alaba Ajiye from Ondo State who said Fashola’s forebear were from Igbara – Odo, Ekiti and not from Ilesa or Ado – Ekiti.
There are two sets of Yoruba who are genuine Lagosians and these are the indigenous people of Lagos Island, who are the Aworis and those who are the descendants of freed slaves resettled in Lagos after the evil trade in human beings was abolished. And these are people who do not know the town or village in the South – West where their ancestors lived before they were captured and sold into slavery in Brazil, the United States or the West Indies.
They are mostly the Lagosians who bear such Portuguese or other foreign names as Campos, Hilario, Da Silva, Domingo, Santos, Soares, Pedro (Peter), Vera Crus, or Salvadaor (Sabado in Yoruba), Simplice, Shyngle, Martins or Davies.
Any Yoruba man or woman in Lagos whose ancestors were not Awori or freed slaves is someone whose forebear came from another state in the South – West, Kwara or Kogi States in the North-Central part of the country. And they are the majority of the Yoruba in Lagos who call themselves Lagosians and are so regarded by the Yoruba in the other South – West states and by other Nigerians in general.
But the only claim they have to Lagos is that they were born on Lagos Island and in some cases their fathers and grandfathers were also born on the Island. But the irony of their situation is that the ancestors of many of them do not have a family house on Lagos Island. They lived with their wife and children in a rented room, room and parlour or a flat.
There are two Fashola families on Lagos Island and as stated in the headline of this article the ancestors of Fashola, the Minister, came from Ilesa, it is the other Fashola clan that came from Ado – Ekiti. This is the Fashola family of Mrs. Tanwa Olusi, a former Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs in Lagos in the 1970s and a one – time Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Caretaker Committee of the Amuwo-Odofin Local Government about 20 years ago.
The two Fashola families live in the Isalegangan area of Lagos Island but some of those in the Minister’s branch are also found in Princess Street and Onala area of the Island. The indigenous people of Lagos Island and those who lived there in the 1950s, 60s or 70s know that it is the Fasola family of Mrs. Olusi that is from Ado – Ekiti. This is because it was their house that the Egun Ado (Ado – Ekiti masquerades) visited to pay homage during the masquerade festival on Lagos Island, not that of Fashola, the Minister. But what is funny is that till today Ekiti people will say they don’t know Mrs. Olusi’s family as the Fasholas from Ado – Ekiti, but insist that it is that of the Minister they know as the one from Ado – Ekiti.
I have told my Ekiti friends especially my classmates in the 1957 – 61 Christ’s School, Ado – Ekiti set there is a way for them to know the truth and this is for them to get His Royal Majesty Rufus Adejuyigbe, the Ewi of Ado – Ekiti, to reach out to Barrister Raji Fasola that he wants to honour him with a chieftaincy title because his ancestors were from their town. I am sure he would tell the monarch that his forebear were not from the Ado – Ekiti or any town in Ekiti State.
Apart from Raji Fashola’s ancestors the other popular Lagosians whose forebear came from Ilesa are the Braithwaites, Ola Vincents and the Bakares, that is Chief Saliu Bolaji Bakare (S.B Bakare) of Queen’s Drive, Ikoyi. The prominent and wealthy Lagosians from Ekiti were the Dohertys. That is Pa Henry Doherty of Campos Street and his sons Chief Adebayo Doherty, the business magnate of Odunlami Street and Dr. Joseph Akanni Doherty, a Radiographer, of Idumagbo Avenue, all on Lagos Island. Someone even told me that the ancestors of Chief Folarin Coker and Chief Adeyemi – Bero were from Iyin – Ekiti, but I could not confirm this.
Why I can’t stop hereafter advice series
My writing this script came from the advice of an octogenarian reader of this column last week Wednesday who said I had in the last 10 years written a number of times on why Almighty God was angry with late Chief Moshood Abiola (1937 – 98), Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalami Abubakar and that as a result I should discontinue my hereafter advice to them. But as I told him I cannot do as he had suggested for good reasons.
My first reason for writing the series was to prevent the country from breaking up. As a matter of fact, based on what has been happening in President Muhammadu Buhari’s Nigeria in the last six months, the initial title for last week’s column was: Nigeria, Going, Going, Gon with the e in gone left out since the country is yet to break up. But I had to change the headline to: Why Atiku should heed my hereafter advice.
If Buhari does not take steps to change the way he has been handling the country since his re – election in 2019, the country may run into another civil war that may lead to break-up or a bloody revolution like that in the defunct Soviet Union in 1917.
My second reason for writing the series is because if Nigeria does not disintegrate there would be an election in 2023 and if this would be the case, the Lord this year may send me to a politician that will be His candidate for the poll. Consequently, I need to do this so that I can take the photocopies of this series to the person for him to know that if he ignores the message I would convey to him, things would end up for him as was the case with late Chief Moshood Abiola, General Ibrahim Babangida and Oba Olu Falae.
Abiola’s wife, Kudirat, was assassinated in June 1996 while he died in July 1998 four years into his detention. General Babangida’s wife, Maryam, died in December 2009 of a cancerous organ while Oba Falae’s son died in a plane crash in Lagos in October 2013. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would have lost his son who had COVID – 19 last year, if not that the Ancient of Days hearkened to my appeal to spare his life.
I did this because it would have been double tragedy for him given the fact that he lost the presidential election in February 2019. I had to plead with the Lord because Atiku’s wife spent near six million naira to buy three cows and for the daily feeding allowance of N1, 500 she made available to the 61 Muslim clerics who fasted and prayed for 61 days for her husband.
Many people believed he won the election which God told me was manipulated for Buhari to be re – elected but did not give me the details. It is on record that the national Chairman of the Electoral Commission said in 2019 that he regretted he had to postpone the election by one week.
It is essential that I also write this series because Dr. Ore Falomo, the private doctor of Chief Moshood Abiola, died in November 2019. He was the one I was referring those God sent me to as the person they should reach out to for the confirmation that the Lord speaks with me one – to – one.
The Heavenly Father had told Falomo during a spiritual retreat I took him to in Ado – Ekiti in September 1994 that He caused the June 12, 1993 presidential election Abiola won to be cancelled. I wrote about this about four times from 2010 – 19, but he never refuted my story and this is one of the reasons that made people to realize that I speak directly with the Lord.
In truth, it was because of him that Alhaji Atiku after nine months of ignoring the message of the Most High that I conveyed to him in December 2017 responded positively in October 2018. I had in an article in my column stated that God told Falomo He stopped Abiola from being Nigeria’s President in 1994 and it was when for three days he did not come out to deny my story that Atiku told his wife to contact me.