Governor Babatunde Fashola is already 50 years old. He speaks candidly
for the first time on the journey so far and how he got to where he is
today. This is a must read! Enjoy:
It's not like any of the
interviews he had granted in the past. For two hours he held a select
group of editors spellbound and reeling in laughter as he spoke about
his hatred for educated, love for soccer and the cinema until his father
whipped him into line with a threat to make him a roadside mechanic’s
apprentice.
Let’s go down memory lane with Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola as he clocks 50 years.
We will start by saying congratulations” because in a number of days, you will be 50. So, what are your reflections at 50?
Nobody
knows what day he was born; so I am going to take the question on
reflection from perhaps the time some consciousness began to form in my
mind about the future. In that sense, the kind of country I had so much
faith in really has not materialized. So, it’s an anniversary of mixed
blessings for me. If you like, it’s positive in the sense that there is
life.
Also, in many respects, some of the things I wanted
personally for myself, maybe in terms of career, have largely
materialized, although like in my profession, I still believe that there
is an unfinished business there. But, when I look back, I’ll say there
were some decisions I took as a young person, the opportunity to study
abroad that I rejected because I felt that I could never be all I could
be in a land where I was not a citizen. That was one reason.
I
look at the decisions that presented themselves when I left the
university and close to half of my colleagues that we graduated, left
Nigeria out of frustration. I was one of the few who said, “No, I think
that the problems of this nation will be solved and this is where my
best opportunities lie.” In that sense again, that opportunity has not
materialized. I see so much that we can do but are still undone. So,
it’s a season of mixed blessings for me. Personally, I can’t say that is
the kind of fulfillment that I desired.
You warned everybody off a loud birthday celebration, what explains that decision?
Well,
my birthday has always been a private thing. But in the last few
months, there has been, for want of a better expression, building
excitement; people planning all sorts of things, committees being set up
and I said, “No, you don’t do this to me, not this time.” For me, I
think my best birthday was at 10. I remember it was the last birthday
that my mum organized. I celebrated every birthday, cut a cake and I
still think I can find some old pictures. I remember I wore a French
suit.
From there, I think she focused more on my younger ones
because I was already in secondary school. So, the transition was
complete. No more children’s birthdays for me from then on.
So,
in that sense, the next birthday that I remember was when I was 18 and I
did that myself. I saved money for about six months and I went partying
with my friends and I really enjoyed myself. The next one I remember
was 21 and I was in the university then. It was my friends and I on
campus and as difficult as it was then, because there was no telephone,
my mum made it a sense of duty to ensure that I got a birthday card. I
still keep it till today. It was a very touching birthday card and after
that, there were really no birthdays in that sense.
When I got
married, on my birthdays I get home early. If it’s a working day, we
don’t cook, we order food, people come in – my parents, siblings come –
each one at his own time and really by 7 or 8 pm, I leave them in the
house with my wife and I am gone; maybe to go and play snooker or tennis
at the club. So, there was no ceremony around it. I am not a ceremony
person. I don’t like those formalities and I remember that when I was
Chief of Staff, I turned 40 and my friends said, “No it’s a lie; we are
going to have a party” and I said, “No, if you do it I am going to run
away.” Someone suggested Sunny Ade because they know I like him. They
said they were going to bring him and I said, that’s the one that would
make me run away; but in the event, I remember that we actually printed
an invitation card. How they got me to do it, I can’t quite say. What I
remember was that I had to wake up very early and I said, “this
shouldn’t be; this is my birthday, I should be sleeping.”
But as
early as 7am, we’d started prayers and from there, it was breakfast
though I must confess that it was a day that I enjoyed. I had so many
people around me; the governor, the Chief Judge and the Speaker came;
everybody was there. But the party went on beyond my birthday because at
3am the following day, we were still there. So, I was living in another
person’s day and I said, “No, this is not how it is supposed to be.” I
remember that in the course of shaking everybody’s hands, you know,
going from table to table, I think somebody had conjunctivitis and I
picked it. When I woke up in the morning, I couldn’t open my eyes. But, I
think the fun I had the day before, more than compensated for the
discomfort. I had to send for my optometrist because it was very
painful. This time, with all the plans going on, I said, ‘no’, that if
this is my day, then those who really love me should allow me to do it
my way. It didn’t cost me that much also to receive my visitors. I
funded my 40th birthday by myself. I am not quite sure I can’t do the
same now.
How do you mean?
As governor? No. I am not
even sure that I want to spend that kind of money on a party. If we
can’t eat small rice and chicken in the house and I don’t even know if I
want to dress up in a formal sense. I just want to feel free, see the
people I want to see and if there is something going on, on television, I
want to watch, instead of, ‘Oh, come and say hello to this person or
that person.’ I am sure I am not mentally prepared for that and I don’t
want to offend people. The idea that probably, I will have a birthday at
taxpayers’ expense is something that doesn’t sit quite well with me and
it’s only for 24 hours anyway.
So, what exactly is your plan for this birthday?
A very quiet and simple day.
It
will be nice to have my friends around and they know themselves. So, if
they get here, they know how to get me but I don’t think that I want to
cling to things that are not real. I try as much as possible to keep my
feet firmly on the ground because there are two people here – there is
Tunde Fashola, and there is the Governor of Lagos State. There are many
people who want to celebrate the birthday of the Governor of Lagos, and
next year and in 2015, I will be left to carry on with my birthday. So,
let me get used to that now. That’s what I have tried to do since I took
office. The other argument may sound strange but really, we are as it
were, inheritors of the joy we did not experience and on the day a child
is born, he doesn’t know what is going on. The only people who
celebrate that day are the parents. Then, they invest in the anniversary
of the day and it becomes a cross for life.
The way you are talking, you don’t seem to like to celebrate anything.
No,
you see, the idea is, I celebrate every day I am alive. Every morning
when I wake up, I pray. I sing to God every morning but even sometimes,
people who live in the house really don’t know that I sing. I sing
inside me, in happiness. For me, every day that you live is a
celebration; so, it can’t be one day.
Let’s hear what you want to sing
Ah!
(general laughter), I said that I commune with my maker. I will tell
you about that later. You want to break into that? That’s the sanctum
santorium , the inner inner.
We can’t talk about the present
without talking about the past. Let’s go down memory lane. What was
childhood like for Babatunde Fashola?
Sure, a lot of fun. I grew
up in Surulere. I lived in Surulere all my life. The first time I am
living on the island was when I moved in here [as Governor]. So, it was
fun; I did everything that young people do. My grandmother used to trade
at Oyingbo market. I remember that every Tuesday was the market day;
so, I would wake up with her at 5am, help her tie the pots and pans with
my tiny hands. She used to sell Tower Aluminum pots and pans. She
believed that my six digits were signs of prosperity; so, she would tell
me to put my hands on them. At the end of the market day when she came
back, I would be the one to count her money. She was not very literate
but she could count her money in pound. When we migrated to naira, it
became a problem; so I had to do the multiplication of the number of
pounds to get the naira for her, but I always got a reward. I got bags
of chocolate and Nicco biscuits. Of course, it meant that on Wednesday
morning, I would be a hero in class, sharing my biscuits.
Those
were great memories. We flew kites; on Sundays, we went to church, St
Jude’s Church in Ebutte-Metta, and after church, we looked forward to
Uncle Ben’s rice and chicken. Of course, those of you who lived in that
era will remember the perpetual fight over Fanta; who was going to get
the bottle. We had to share a bottle; maybe, two or three of you and
there was a feeling that the person who had the bottle had more content.
So, that was it – I did all the regular things, played street soccer.
I
played truant in school a lot and I didn’t like school because there
were too many interesting things to do –play football and go to the
cinema. My mum used to take us to cinema; that was when cinema was
popular. The one at Onipanu, on Ikorodu Road, Metro Cinema was where I
first saw James Bond’s Gold Finger. She took us to the cinema on the
last Sunday of every month. That was the kind of childhood I had and we
lived in regular middle class home. My mum is a nurse and my dad a
journalist. I also remember that my affinity for Juju music came from my
grand-parents because my grandfather used to buy Sunny Ade’s records.
We had a Grundig player and that was where I learnt all Sunny Ade’s
music. It was always blaring and I learnt how to change the records. I
still draw a lot of inspiration from the deep philosophy in those songs.
There is a lot of rich philosophy if you bother to listen to the lyrics
rather than the music. You will see their stories of tribulations and
success and if you look at them now and listen to their songs, you will
see that every success story is founded on adversity. They faced their
own adversities. Obey was once accused of carrying drugs. They had their
bitter rivalries. He was accused of supporting criminals when he sang
for a notorious armed robber and he quickly had to do ‘E maf’oju buruku
wo onileesi….’ and all of those things. Of course, there were supposed
feuds, that helped to bring more converts and those were the building
blocks of my childhood.
I didn’t see the civil war in but my
memories of the war have summed up in a word, ‘Moto gagara.’ I will tell
you the story of Moto gagara. I must have been around four years old
when the war broke out and our brothers from the east were moving back
home and in big trucks. For a four-year-old, the sound of those trucks
was frightening. So, any time I saw them, I always wanted to go out and
play and my grandmother would say, “Stay indoors.” So, the only thing
that kept me in was the sound of those trucks; I would rush back into
the house. So, any time I wanted to go out, she would say, ‘don’t go
out, Moto gagara …,’ and I would scamper. Post war was the
reconstruction of Lagos and many parts of Nigeria; so riding through the
streets of Surulere, seeing the stadium being built, National Theatre –
the sand filling that took place from Iponri; we rode bicycles through
all those places; through Badagry Expressway.
I remember Yinka
Folawiyo was the main supplier of cement to the site then and all of
these, l did riding bicycle. I remember going with my grandmother to her
house in Oshodi to collect her rent. She had a lawyer who managed her
property in Oshodi and I recall that after every visit, she always
complained that the lawyer had cheated her and the final word always was
my promise to her that I would be a lawyer so that I would manage the
property for her for free. And unfortunately, that happened only after
she died. Of course, I took over the property; then my younger brother
who is also a lawyer took it over from me and we still manage it. We are
trying to renovate it now but that gave me a very strong knowledge of
Oshodi because we used to walk through all those places and I knew how
it was as a child then. It gave me a good knowledge. My aunt lived in
Bariga, so I would take a bus from Oshodi to Bariga and then from Bariga
to Akoka.
Your mother was a nurse, your dad a journalist, how did you end being a lawyer, instead of in the sciences or in journalism?
Well,
I think that our parents are the mirror through which we see life. So,
maybe somewhere down the line, my grandmother’s exhortation struck a
chord but more importantly was the fact that I was very horrible with
mathematics. Or perhaps not horrible; let me explain it. The primary
school I went to used to do arithmetic; then in 1972 or 1973, Nigeria
turned decimal. So, some schools started doing mathematics. We remained
with arithmetic because we were then getting ready for common entrance
and I think the school thought that it would be difficult to change us.
So,
I think they got the National Common Entrance body then to set two sets
of questions. In the front was mathematics and then there was a
footnote that if you did arithmetic in school, turn to the next page.
But even at that, I just managed to score about 50 or 60 to pass
arithmetic. So, by the time I got to form one, it was straight
mathematics. I remember it was an American who taught us mathematics and
I just couldn’t hear what he said in class. First, because of the
accent, secondly all the signs on the board were new. So, I just stopped
going to mathematics class. I didn’t stop initially, I just sat down
there; I just found something else to distract myself until he left the
class. But my Physics, Biology and Chemistry were quite good. I was
taught by two Indians, Mr & Mrs Matthews. Mr Matthews taught Physics
and Chemistry; Mrs Matthews taught us Biology and I desired at that
time to be a doctor.
I wanted to be a surgeon and I was very good
in Biology. I am still conversant with it. I am just enamoured by
nature but in form three, going into form four, we were going to choose
subjects and they called my parents and said, look, this man’s Biology
is good, in chemistry, he doesn’t solve any equation, he just answers
the theory questions and leaves the rest blank and that he has to
withdraw from the science class and move to the arts class. I said well,
I was ready to do that; there was no point arguing but that they would
allow me to keep my Biology and they agreed. Then, I focused more on
history, bible knowledge, literature, geography and by the time, it was
all done, the only professional course I could do without mathematics
was law. So, that’s it but it’s not something I didn’t want to do.
In
a sense, there was a little bit of a mix. I enjoyed every day I spent
in the law class. And I think that I am better for it because in the
course of my practice, it has enabled me to know a lot more about other
disciplines because you are a client to doctors, to patients who sue
doctors, to engineers and to people claiming compensation for building
damage. So, you have to know quantity survey, engineering. There are
areas of life that you never read about but you have to learn by force
once a client comes in, otherwise, you give up the brief and the money.
Tell
us again the story of how you missed travelling abroad with your
siblings because your school grades didn’t meet your father’s
expectation.
At that time, around 1976/77, my father decided
apparently that part of the education of his children was to travel
abroad. For us, it was fun; for him, it was education. We didn’t know
that and we used to think he was a rich man. It was much later that we
realised that he borrowed money to send us on those trips but the
qualification always was that you must be in the top five in your class.
I was always the one who didn’t make it. So, they dropped me twice. For
me, school was too much of a problem. There was football to be played
and I didn’t learn how to study until I was in A’ Levels class.
Sometimes, I didn’t go to class and just two days before exams, I would
come in and ask; what did you people do? And I would look at somebody’s
note and read to just get the minimum pass.
At what point did you change this attitude of hating school?
When
I failed School Certificate (general laughter). I wrote school
certificate when I was 14 and half. So, I just didn’t understand what
the big deal about this WAEC exam was. Why is everybody reading when we
should be playing? I found out that all my playmates had left me behind
and I didn’t even know what to read. So, I just went into the exams,
wrote what I knew, passed biology and the rest were P7, P8 and of course
mathematics stood out, F9. When the result came; my dad and I went to
the school and the teachers were congratulating my dad. They said, this
boy didn’t come to school. My dad said he was no longer paying for exams
again. He told me that he had booked an apprenticeship for me with his
mechanic, so I broke down in tears. He said I should go and think about
it, discuss with my mum and come back to him to decide what I was going
to do. One week after, I went to see him and said well, I still want to
go to school. And he said the mechanic was waiting. I think it was that
shock treatment that changed my attitude. I went on to write the exam
again and I passed. Then, I got into A’ Levels class and it was very
good in the first year and everybody. My dad said that it must have been
because I hadn’t discovered the football field there. In a sense, it
was true; by the end of first year, I got into the football team in
Igbobi College and the grades just started dropping.
I tell
everybody who cares to listen; I am a product of many chances and that’s
why I give a second, third and fourth chances to everybody who is
serious; those are the messages for me. I also acknowledge observably
that my parents own the credit for what I have become; they just didn’t
give up. I don’t think that any parent should give up on any child. By
the time I entered the university, all of the freedom I wanted was an
anticlimax. There was nobody to tell me to go and study. By the first
week in the university, I was the one waking others up to go and study. I
don’t know how that consolation came and I was able, through the
university, to still combine football and tennis with my academic work.
What
I simply did was that by 6am, I was up to do my exercise. I used to jog
in the morning. By 8am, I would be in class till 4pm and by 4pm, I was
in the sports complex till 7pm. By 7pm, I was cleaning up; 8pm, I ate
dinner and between 8pm and 9pm, I studied. I studied one hour every day
till I left the university and it worked. So, I was always ready for
exams long before it came. It was the same thing I did in the law
school. I played tennis throughout law school exams everyday and it
didn’t affect my grade. Well, maybe it could have been better but I left
the school with a 2:2 and I left the law school with a 2.2. I think
that is enough effort really. My dad wanted me to do masters but those
were his plans. My own plans had become different and I was not going to
argue with him. He collected the form, I filled it and I submitted it
late.
Yes, I was tired of school; I had become a lawyer. I didn’t
need masters; I wanted to practice. I didn’t want to be a company
secretary where I would need a higher degree to get promotion. I knew
what kind of law I wanted, to be in the courtroom. I didn’t need a
masters degree to do that.
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