Olufunmilayo is one of the children of the leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, Chief Reuben Fasoranti. She talks about her father with PETER DADA
How many are the children of Chief Fasoranti?
We were five. My late sister, Bunmi, was the first child. I am the second. Funke is the third and we have twins, Taiwo and Kehinde.
How would you describe your father?
My father is kind, God-fearing and a strict disciplinarian. He is also very neat and conservative. He is an early riser. When were younger, we could hear his radio tuned to the BBC as early as 5am. Whenever he woke up, he went to the bathroom. He would have prayed because we always heard him pray for everybody. We would later gather for family prayers.
He neither drinks nor smokes. He takes only water. He doesn’t eat outside too. Probably, if he had to embark on a long journey, he would ask his driver to buy him biscuits and water. I have not seen him take soft drinks. He could have taken them when he was younger.
He doesn’t womanise to the best of our knowledge. Our mother passed on in 1991 and he has not remarried. We don’t know if he has girlfriends but we don’t see them. That shows the level of his discipline. He also doesn’t joke with his religious life. He attends church services and belongs to various organisations in the church. He is a member of Anglican Church of St. David in Ijomu, Akure, Ondo State. He is committed to the development of the church.
Why didn’t your father remarry?
We knew them as very close friends. Even when we were young and they had disagreements, we wouldn’t know. We would just be asking one another if they were fighting because they would pray and eat together and exchanged pleasantries.
We asked him why he didn’t remarry and he told us that he had a pattern of life and wouldn’t want anything to affect us and the structure he put in place. Some people believed that it was because of the death of his wife that he didn’t want to be governor at the time but I don’t think so. He is a very private person even to us his children. They loved each other so much.
How did his political life affect the family?
It didn’t affect us much because we grew up in politics. We once asked him what politics was and he said it means taking care of people. We asked about contesting elective post and he said never, that he had his first shot then during the Action Group. He wanted to be a councillor then and he won landslide and everybody knew. When the results were announced, they said he lost and that pissed him off being a young guy venturing into politics and everybody knew he won. It was like counting the votes in your presence and you got thousand votes and your opponent had 10 or about 20 votes. But when the results were announced, things changed.
He came in from England at the time after his studies. Over there, there is transparency. When he returned home, he got a different thing and that jolted him. His type of politics is without bitterness. He is an Awoist and he will never bend.
Does he encourage any of his children to join politics?
Not really! He has his reservations about politics; though one of my younger brothers is planning to join politics. He is trying to join a political family but my father’s concern is about the continuity of his legacy. He doesn’t want everything to die with him like that.
What did he say when your brother informed him of his intention to join politics?
My brother did not tell him, but my father already saw some of his moves in the house that indicated that some political things were on going. My father is not really excited about politics these days; he just counsels politicians. But he wouldn’t contest any elective positions.
What does he tell politicians who consult him?
He does tell them to go and align with their people at the grass roots. He would say even if you want to contest presidency or Senate, you still need to go to the grass roots. He believes so much in that.
There was a time he was made a commissioner in Ondo State. How would you rate his performance at the time?
I was in the United States of America then but I used to come home on holidays. He lived in his house and never moved to the government quarters. What I noticed then whenever I came home was that the official vehicle that took him to work came at 7am; returned at 3.30pm after their exco meeting.
The driver would later return the vehicle to the office. I told him that the official car should be in his care at home but he said it was only for official duty. That is not happening now because once a public office holder gets an official car, it belongs to him or her. He refused to move to the government quarters even during the coup. The soldiers came to the house searching everywhere to see whether they would see any government property in the compound. They left when they couldn’t find anything incriminating in the house. He and his colleagues were later detained though.
How did his family cope when he was detained?
Our mother was not around then. It was tough at the time because he wasn’t the only person that was detained. Chiefs Adekunle Ajasin, Olabisi Onabanjo and all those in government then were detained.
My father was first put in Owo prison; later, he was moved to Ado Ekiti. We resigned to fate then because there was nothing we could do because Muhammadu Buhari was in government at the time. Everybody was in fear because we never knew what would happen.
Even whenever anybody was arrested, the family wouldn’t know where the person was being taken to. The only thing that affected us much then was my sister’s death. She died at the time my father was in detention. I was the only one with her in the hospital in England. The news of her death was broken to him when he was in detention. They sent for him to be brought home to tell him what happened. The news affected him and after few hours, the soldiers who brought him, took him back to the prison. He returned same day. It affected us a lot. My mother was worried because she lost her first daughter and her husband was in detention. It was painful but we thank God.
Is that experience responsible for his thoughts about Nigeria?
No, but he never believes in military regime and in this democracy as well. He talks about regional government and restructuring. He believes they are the only ways to solve the country’s problems. The system has collapsed — security, education, economy, everything. When we were growing up, electricity was regular. We were using water from water corporation. There was no borehole. In fact, we had a water booster station in front of our house then and once they pumped water from the dam there, we would have water.
My parents would travel and left us in the house. We only locked the room and slept soundly at night. There was no fear. But now, if you don’t have a big wall or a fence, you cannot sleep in your house. The economy has now gone down.
What does he tell you about Nigeria?
He said they had done their best for the country and only hope that things would get better one day. He is really upset about the state of education in the country. He is bothered that the government is not doing anything about the quality and qualification of teachers.
How did he discipline any of his children who acted up?
He never used the cane on us. He doesn’t believe in the use of cane. His body language ensured we knew what he wanted us to do. I can remember that my younger sister was the most troublesome among us. She would abuse all of us and doesn’t like doing house work. My father would call her and say, “Do you think your sister should be sweeping when you are around?”
My mother could beat us with anything. She didn’t spare us but dad would say, “Don’t kill them.” My father believes that when you start using the cane on children, they will be afraid and there will be no trust. He says the children will not have confidence in themselves. He would rather say children should be told what they did wrong and why they must not do so again.
He was a principal and a teacher. Whenever we were on holiday, he would have arranged teachers to teach us various subjects. There was no time to play. We must be reading novels or doing assignments. He gave us the Bible to read Psalms so that we would know the verses. He encouraged us to write legibly by training our wrists. Now, students spend time more on the phone browsing and on Facebook.
Did he establish a school, being a retired principal?
No. Actually, the school was founded by my late mother in 1967. My mother was an education officer and my father was at Iju/Itaogbolu in the Akure North Local Government Area of Ondo State. He founded Anglican Grammar School there. We were very young then. As an education officer, my mother had to travel all over the Western Region. She was an inspector of education. She was transferred to Ilesa, Osogbo, Benin, Auchi and to many other places. She drove herself during the journeys and that was in the 60s.
We were young and the travelling started affecting us and my father told her to resign from that Federal Government job because as a government worker, she could be transferred anytime. She then went to Iju/Itaogbolu to stay with my father. Later, she started working at the College of Education in Ikere (now in Ekiti State). My father said for her to be able to stay with us and take good care of us, she had to move to Akure. That was how the idea of having a school began.
The Muhammadu Buhari regime incarcerated your father in 1984. Now, Buhari is the country’s President again. Has your father forgiven him?
My father can never support Buhari. There was a story in 2015 when Goodluck Jonathan came to pay him and other Afenifere members a visit. They started talking about restructuring the country and later it was rumoured that my father collected N500m from Jonathan to support his re-election.
It was to blackmail the Afenifere members then. But my father can never support Buhari. First, he is an Awoist to the core. Second, his experience in the hands of the Buhari regime in 1984, when he was incarcerated for doing nothing, is still fresh in his memory. It was during the time that he lost his first daughter. Many of his colleagues died as a result of pains they went through in detention. Though we are not members of the Peoples Democratic Party, but none of us voted for Buhari in 2015.
What is his take about the current administration?
He is not happy the way things are going in this country, particularly about security. What is a herder doing with AK 47 rifle? Is it to protect his cows or himself? Look at what happened in Benue, Taraba and other places and it could be anywhere. That has been worrying my father. He talks about it every day. Look at the schoolgirls abducted in Dapchi, Yobe State. The government has not done anything tangible about it. In the last Afenifere meeting, that was what they discussed extensively. My father is not happy about how this administration is running Nigeria. He talks about it every time.
What are his hobbies?
He loves music, especially gospel music. He played the piano and loves the Anglican hymns. He loves reading a lot. He also loves education and that is his life. He believes there is no child that cannot make it to the top through education. He enjoys novels and religious magazines.
Does he like sports?
Yes, he likes sports. He played lawn tennis when he was younger. He likes and enjoys watching football even though he did not play it.
Does he have any favourite club?
No, he doesn’t have any favourite club; he only enjoys watching football matches.
What is his favourite food?
He likes fried plantain and pounded yam.
Has he given any instructions on how he should be buried when he passes on?
We already have instructions around that. You know we won’t know anything about his Will but all his children are very close. We carry ourselves along in anything we do.
At 92, what can you say about his activities?
My father’s brain is still sharp. There is nothing he does not know. He may pretend he does not know it, but when he talks about it, you will be surprised. If he sees you and he forgets your name, you only need to tell him your name and he will tell you where and how he knows you.
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