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To make President Muhammadu Buhari take me seriously I will act the way I did, in the case of General Abdulsalami Abubakar, military Head of State (Tuesday, June 9, 1998 – Friday, May 28, 1999), when this hereafter series began on December 2, last year. And this is to assert that it would stand against me on the Day of Judgment if in this write – up on Buhari I claim that Almighty God told me something about him when He did not.
I will be 77 on September 4, how many years do I have left on earth to put myself in problem when I am not making money from my hereafter articles? I had written about it at least three times in the last 10 years, how terrifying it was when the Lord was annoyed with me on Saturday, January 13, 2007. This was when three of us pleaded that 13 years were long enough for Him to have fulfilled the promise He made to bless us extraordinarily when He entered into a covenant with us on Sunday, March 19, 1994.
I narrated how the ground where we knelt started cracking with soldier – ants (ijalo in Yoruba) suddenly appearing and biting us. I also told how the Heavenly Father in a stern and thundering voice warned us not to do anything that would make Him to be angry with us again. With this am I one that would be foolish to endanger my hereafter by lying with His name?
Those who were reading my column at the time would remember that I wrote a series every week from November 2010 through a week to the February 2011 election campaigning for General Buhari who was then the candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), the party he led his supporters to form.
With the series I wrote on him some of his admirers were so impressed that they phoned or sent text messages to give me the names and telephone numbers of five men close to Buhari and told me to reach out to them. This was for them to let Buhari know what I was writing about him so that he would do something for me if he won the election.
But because he is dead I will give only the full telephone number of Alhaji Abba Kyari, Buhari’s Chief of Staff from May 2015 until he died last year, but I won’t do so with the other four who are alive. I will only disclose a few figures in their numbers for them to know that I was supplied with the details.
Abba Kyari’s number was 080 – 3619 – 7080, that of Colonel Ahmad Ali who was then the Chief of Staff in the Buhari campaign team is 080 – 366 – 0- – 2, that of Colonel Abdal, the Deputy Chief of Staff is 080 – 37 – – 00 – -. The other two were Buhari’s Personal Assistant, Alhaji Yau’ Shehu Darazo (080 – -1147–) and Lawyer A.Z Bashir who was said to be Buhari’s bosom friend – 080 – 6 – – 61 – – 9.
But I never called any of them because I was not campaigning for Buhari to benefit from doing so. I did it in national interest because I thought he was the President we needed to deal with insurgency, scandalous level of corruption and indiscipline in the country. I felt so because as a General Officer Commanding in the early 1980s he chased Maitatsine Islamic soldiers out of the North – East and declared war on corruption getting many politicians and public officers to be tried and with a good number of them jailed.
In 2010 and 2011 I did not only campaign for Buhari in my column, I also took his electoral fortune to the Heavenly Father to make him win. I was shocked at the Lord’s reply to my request: “Adesina,” He said, “do you know Buhari very well?” I said no that I only brought his matter to Him because I thought he was the best politician in Nigeria that could tackle the nation’s problems effectively.
The Ancient of Days’ next statement was another stunner as He said: “Buhari is not good for Nigeria as he is someone who would divide your country and put you in a worse situation.” Is this not what we have been witnessing since he assumed office in 2015? A situation in which for six years we have been suffering seriously.
What the Lord told me in January 2011 was why I did not write to campaign for Buhari in 2015 and why in 2019 I wrote that all that glitters about him was not gold.
More to come next Wednesday
Chief Bode George’s ancestors were from Abeokuta, not Ute in Ondo State
I believe Ekiti people have seen from my article of last week and accepted that the ancestors of Barrister Babatunde Fasola, the current Minister of Works and Housing, came from Ilesa and not Ado – Ekiti. This is because up till my writing this piece on Monday and when I sent it in yesterday none of them had come out to challenge me.
Neither had anyone in the family of the Minister come out to say their ancestors were from Ado – Ekiti and not Ilesa while nobody in the Fasola family of Mrs. Tanwa Olusi has also not disclaimed that their forebear were from Ado – Ekiti. The only opposing reaction was the Whatsapp message someone sent to me on one Morakinyo Hansen’s position.
The man who claims to be a Lagosian said my article was a beautiful write – up, but to what effect? He then went on to say that he was sure that “the Fasolas did not commission anyone to carry out research on their historical background with a view to determining their roots beyond Isalegangan.” And that he was also sure the Fasola family of Mrs. Olusi in Ado – Ekiti “have not visited Isalegangan to invite their cousins home.”
As stated in my column last week I wrote the article to let the Ekitis know that the Minister’s ancestors were not from Ado – Ekiti. If the two Fasola families and that of Hansen are not Aworis or the descendants of freed slaves resettled in Lagos, I want him to let the world know how members of the three clans are indigenous Lagosians. The truth is that they are immigrants who because of a long stay of about 80 to a century or more years have become Lagosians, especially as they had lost touch with their families in Ilesa and Ado – Ekiti or where the Hansens came from.
Now to the story of Chief Olabode Ibiyinka George, who as a Navy Captain was the Military Governor of Ondo State from July 1988 – September 1990 and whom I have known since 1965 when we lived in the Brazilian Quarters on Lagos Island. He at No 1, Ajele Street and I at 18A, Joseph Street, staying with my uncle Pa John Bankole Adedipe (1891 – 1983), an officer with the Nigeria Railways who after retiring was a teacher at Baptist Academy, Obanikoro, Lagos until 1965.
I met Bode George through Ijebu – Ode – born Colonel Okunola Olufemi Okuromade a.k.a. Omo Okun (Saturday, May 1, 1943 – Friday, May 6, 2005), a nephew of my uncle’s wife who brought him up in their house from about the age of 6. I joined him in living with them from 1964 through 1970. Okun was Bode’s colleague at St. John’s Primary School, Aroloya Street on Lagos Island and at Ijebu – Ode Grammar School, where they had their secondary education.
It was through Okun and another friend of ours, Ijebu – Igbo – born Mr. Ekundayo Okuneye of blessed memory, who also lived at Ajele Street, four buildings away from where Bode was, that I got to know his ancestors were Egbas, who came from Abeokuta to settle on Lagos Island. This was also confirmed last week Wednesday by Chief Ebenezer Babatope (Ebino Topsy), a former Minister of Transportation (November 1993 – February 1995) and a colleague of Bode at the University of Lagos, when I phoned him.
Ebino laughed heartily when I asked him where Bode’s ancestors were from because someone in Lagos said they came from Ute in Ondo State. He said I should phone Bode about the false claim but I declined saying that he should be the one to tell him when this article is published today. I am sure that Bode would be amused reading this piece that anyone would associate him as an indigene of Ondo State when his family is not from there.
I was shocked last year when Dr. Alaba Ajiye from Ute, a town in the Owo area of Ondo State said Bode’s ancestors were from their place. He said an uncle of his whose name he gave as Tunde told him the story and that the family’s original name before his ancestors left Ute was Olabode.
