Police tell captors they should have killed this suspect once and for all

The man was a suspect. He was apprehended at a robbery scene by residents. Like law abiding citizens which they are they took him to a police station. There, they received the shock of their lives. “You should have killed him”, they were told by those expected to protect him. Why?

Residents of Jubril Liasu, Ayo- Ola Edun and Igbalajobi streets in Agbado Crossing, a suburb in the outskirts of Ogun State regretted not killing one of the robbers they caught at the scene of robbery when some angry police officers unofficially told them they should have killed the culprit themselves instead of handing him over to the police. Gbenga David was allegedly one of the armed robbers who recently stormed the area and robbed about 16 houses at a go.

Some of the affected residents who spoke with Saturday Mirror, said that the about 20 fully armed bandits, had a field day that fateful day, plundering their houses and dispossessing them of their money and other valuables amidst severe beating. Pa Misbaudeen Badmus, one of the victims who doubles as the Seriki Adinni of the local mosque in the locality shivered with rage as he narrated how the dare devil marauders forced open the door to his sitting room and hacked down the door leading to his room to gain entrance to the inner recesses of his apartment.

He said: “I was woken up from my sleep when one of them shouted at me with a command tone ‘Where is your money!’ First, I thought it was a dream but the reality of the whole scenario dawned on me when I heard the voice again. “I told them there was no money. They asked for my handsets but before I could say anything one of them saw the set where I was charging it, disconnected it from the electric socket and put it in his pocket.

“They also asked for my money, which I told them again that I did not have. Then, one of them told his colleagues that I was stubborn, that they should deal with me with all seriousness. “It was then I realised that there was an insider among the robbers, probably one of them that was covering his face. While this was going on, they split themselves into three groups; one group was with me while the other two went to my wife’s, children’s and other tenants’ rooms within the building.

“They spent about 30 minutes with me but before they left me they made away with my trousers which I wore to work the previous day. It contained my ID cards and other valuable documents. “When they left me, I went outside the house probably to seek assistance from other people within the locality. I saw one of the robbers in front of my house hiding behind the kerosene tank of my wife but I could not strike him because I was not armed. I did not expect to meet any of their members outside the house. “I left where he was because he did not see me.

Then I tried to seek help from others within the area but I later found out that other houses were being robbed simultaneously. I came back home to plead on behalf of my family and other tenants, so that more damage would not be done to them after they might have collected the little they could get from them. “They left thereafter and moved on to other houses where they believed they could get more loot,” he recounted.

Chief Ayo Ola Edun’s house was also visited. Edun is the chairman of the area’s Community Development Association and his name is used to name one of the streets under siege. It was gathered that the armed bandits robbed about six rooms in the building and made away with large sums of money and other valuables like wristwatches, handsets and trinkets. In their characteristic manner, they continued with the operations by moving to the house of a man identified as Baba Ijebu.

The robbers, according to eye witnesses, forced the main entrance door open by hacking it down and moving directly to their victim’s room where they robbed him of his handsets, those of his wife and daughter and made straight to one of his son’s (Jeleel’s) room. The bandits however met a little resistance from him as the young man refused to open the door.

They were said to have threatened the man with gun but their seeming intrepid victim stood his ground until axe was used to force open the lower part of the door through which they gained entrance into his room. On entering his room, they made straight for his handsets but they were able to get one because other sets fell behind the chair.

“They asked for money and I told them that I had none. They also demanded for the key of my motorcycle, but I told them the key was not with me. I told them it’s with someone in the third street and they so desired the okada that they wanted me to lead me them to the place to collect the key. But sensing that it was dangerous to do so, they hurriedly left our house with their loot at 2:30am,” he said.

He said Hammed, his younger brother, too was not spared as they collected his handsets and some amount of money. They also asked him for the key of his motorcycle, which he gave them. “But when they found that the motorcycle (Jincheng) is not the type that would quickly attract buyers they returned the key to him but continued with their operation in the house until they made sure they robbed all the tenants,” he added.

But David, believed to be one of the bandits who terrorized the residents, actually did not meet his waterloo until two weeks after when he led another gang to rob the people in the neighbourhood. He and his gang members however met resistance from the aggrieved youths of the area, who apprehended him while trying to escape.

Though his other colleagues escaped, luck ran out of him as, according to residents, he was arrested when trying to scale the fence to another street. He was brought to the street square where he was questioned on how he got himself into the mess. According to him, he is “a phone accessory seller at Rafco area of Agbado Crossing, Ogun State.” David also denied being a thief as he insisted that he had been mistaken as one.

“I am not a thief. It was when the police are raiding the market to rid the place of hoodlums that I ran away from the market around 1:30am. That was how I ran to this neighbourhood because one of the policemen knew me and I didn’t want him to see me that night. That is why I ran away,” David said.

Residents alleged that he had once been arrested and jailed for robbery. “One of the policemen knew me and he said I am a thief but I am not, though I had just returned from cell in Ibara. I did not steal then. I fought with one of my father’s tenants, wounded him and I was taken to court and subsequently jailed in 2008.”

When asked further why he didn’t go back to his parents, he could not give a definite answer which makes people around to believe that he was truly an armed robber as he was not coordinated in his response. He was subsequently taken to the police station by the landlords and some youths in the area.

“When we took him to the station, some of the officers on duty were able to recognise him as an ex-convict. Some of them instantly became angry and said we should have killed him once and for all instead of bringing him to the police station,” a landlord, who preferred anonymity, said.

Sex-crazed, depraved and carefree: The world of Molue riders

In Lagos, there exists a brand of commercial bus called Molue. It is practically peculiar to the megacity. A ride on it is jolly, funky and sometimes kinky. JIBOLA OYEKUNLE explores this weird but fun way of commuting.

Scene 1: The long, rickety, yellow bus coughs and puffs laboriously as it trudges sluggishly on the asphalt coated road that connects Abule Egba to Oshodi in the megacity of Lagos. The dark diesel infested smoke that trails after it also seeps into the nostrils and eyes of practically all its occupants making some of them to scowl albeit unconsciously.

On the narrow stretch that partitions the rows of seats practically busting at the seams with occupants stands another mass of people who outnumbers those sitting down.The occupants of the bus wear different expressions and are engaged in one activity or another. Just as they gain entry, some men struggle to stand behind female passengers.

Eventually, one of them succeeds in standing behind a female passenger. After some time he begins to press his himself hard against her backside and continues to press even harder as the bus sways from side to side. Many of the other occupants now focus on them watching bemusedly through their teary eyes.

Those who expect the woman to rebuff the unsolicited amorous overtures from the ‘gentleman’ are disappointed as she looks the other way feigning ignorance of the situation. But as soon as she observes more roving eyes of other passengers she immediately mumbles words of protests, asking the woman in front of her to shift forward.

But it soon becomes obvious that the duo are enjoying the game when neither of them chooses to take a seat which has become vacant, following the exit of one of the passengers on the seats.They both remain standing until another man takes over the vacant seat, while they continue their smooching.

In no time some wetness of sorts appears on the man’s crotch. Watchers of the erotic scene? Some giggle, others hiss and a few others who found the drama hilarious, burst into laughter. Welcome to the Molue, Lagos’ mass transit bus to the masses. Among other commercial vehicles, it has been found to be the masses’ choice especially because of its affordable fares.

For this reason, it is not uncommon to see a Molue carrying more than the required number of passengers with those standing almost often outnumbering those sitting.

It was this particular oddity that the late Afrobeat maestro, Fela Anikulapo Kuti tried to capture when he sang “49 sitting, 99 standing” in one of his hit tracks, “Shuffering and Shmiling”. Recent findings by Saturday Mirror have however revealed that the affordable nature of the fare is not the only reason why many prefer to board the often worn-out but rugged vehicle.

A number of the passengers have been found to savour the fun offered by the peculiar composition of the passengers. Checks have revealed that such degree of cooperation the man in the above episode enjoyed with his female partner is a regular experience among passengers who indulge in unruly sexual acts while standing on board of the molue.

The above scenario was replicated in another trip from Obalende to Oshodi, in which male and female passengers were seen savouring mutually beneficial romance in different manners and styles to the puzzlement of the watching co-passengers.

Particularly astonishing was when a young guy and another young lady were seen standing face-to-face with each other. The duo, hiding under the guise of the congestion in the bus, worsened by the ceaseless swerving of the vehicle, obviously snuggled in the manners of two lovers embarking on pre-sexual adventure.

A new dimension was added when another man, who must have been moved by this passionate display, moved closer to the lady and pressed his manhood against her from the back. But in what looked like a suggestion that she was not a free for all, the lady disengaged from the new entrant and further tilted towards the man in front of her.

When she realized that the man behind her was proving unyielding she practically shielded her buttocks against him using one of her hands.Having been moved by the sight of others enjoying escalating sexual pleasure with their various partners and determined not to be left behind, another male passenger decided to try his luck with another female occupant of the bus. The man made surreptitious moves to smooch a woman standing in front of him.

Like others, he pressed himself against her. But she was obviously not ready to welcome the unsolicited overtures. After a failed effort to resist the man, she looked back and gave him a warning look. But he persisted. Suddenly, the woman turned round and gave him a slap. This instantly drew everybody’s attention.

Surprisingly, the man did not retaliate; he gallantly endured the embarrassment even as passengers who were closely watching the drama burst into laughter. “It served him right,” one of the female passengers remarked. Another retorted: “He is an animal. These stupid men think it is every woman that is as loose as those that are giving them audience.I wonder why some men just can’t control themselves even in a public bus.

If the woman had not slapped him, he would have continued pressing himself against her. Nonsense!” For some of the married and few single women who were mostly traders, it was gossip galore as they delved into discussions, in the course of which they carelessly let out their best-kept family secrets. One of the women who sat behind this reporter was heard telling her colleague how her husband abandoned her and the children and eloped with his lover. Narrating her plight to her friend, she said: “Men are not reliable at all. Any woman who relies on them is doomed. Can you believe that Baba Taoheed whom I married when he was nobody has abandoned me and the children to stay with another woman?Today, I can say that I am the brain behind his success because I was the one who established him. I gave him the money, which he used to start his business. Before he met his current lover, he was having an affair with a woman on our street.

“This woman knows me and greets me whenever we meet and I never suspected there was something between her and my husband until one day when her fiancé caught the two of them and disgraced them. I was in the market when someone came to inform me that a young man was harassing my husband for snatching his wife to be.I found it difficult to believe the gist in the first place because never in my wildest imagination had I thought that my husband would ever cheat on me. But to my greatest surprise, I got to the scene only to confirm what I had been told.

“My husband could not even talk. He was dumbfounded when I asked him if the accusation against him was true. It was a shock to me when I found out that the woman in question was the same that always greeted and respected me.”

As she was narrating her plight, another who was not involved in the discussion and probably waiting for such opportunity to ventilate her feelings took over from her. “I believe men are the same. Your own case is even better. My husband who calls himself a pastor has been busy sleeping around with different women.The worst he did lately was having an affair with my younger sister. Before I caught the two pants down in our matrimonial bedroom, a neighbour had earlier raised a suspicion that she noticed that something was going on between my husband and my sister.

“She had caught the two of them sitting down together in a questionable manner the day she barged into our living room to ask after me and she drew my attention to it when I came back from the market that day but I never believed her until I caught them. “When I reported him to his parents, I was surprised that all they could say was to tell me to be calm.They cautioned me not to pick up quarrels over the incident as it could ruin my marriage. It was the same advice my parents gave me. The experience has remained a sore in my mind. Since then I have taken my mind away from and concentrated on my children and my business,” she said.

In another trip, it was a case of pilfering. The comic scene saw a male pickpocket stealthily removing a cell phone from a female passenger’s bag. But luck ran against him as another passenger, who was quick to detect his act, raised the alarm.This drew the attention of the victim and other passengers. In an attempt to wriggle out of the situation, the smart crook immediately pulled a defence, claiming that he was merely helping the lady to pick the phone. Not all passengers bought his lie.

A few of them descended on him with many punches and slaps. It took pleas from some compassionate co-passengers to save him from further torture. For fear of further attacks, the culprit alighted from the bus at Iyana Oworo, a few bus stops away from Oshodi, which was supposed to be his final destination. Another common scene in this copy of a badly scripted Nollywood comedy film which travelling in molue could be likened to is the theatricals of their drivers, conductors and even the passengers.

They all at different periods of any journey act an unscripted drama. Such was the situation when our reporter boarded one from Iyana Ipaja to Oshodi recently. Immediately the bus took off from the park, the driver left no one in doubt that he was capable of being the lead actor; he rammed into the road without paying attention to the safety of other road users. He simply intimidated them to vacate the facility and his weapons were the noisy horn of his vehicle and poisonous smoke emitted by its broken exhaust pipe. His recklessness, however, earned him curses and protests from the passengers.

The conductor on his part had a running battle collecting fares from some of the passengers who were unwilling to pay. There were times he had to resort to violent and aggressive means to get them to pay. These included snatching their personal belongings, such as shoes or sandals and giving them conditions to pay or forfeit the confiscated items.

Church abandoned me when my mariage failed -- Kenny St Brown

She set the rule even before the commencement of the interview. Looking quite robust, relaxed and remarkably attractive than few years ago when she was battling with emotional trauma caused by her broken marriage, gospel act, Kenny St Brown insists she would not take any question relating to her crashed marriage. Holed up in her cosy, sparsely furnished Lagos apartment for sometime now, the sultry gospel sensation appears determined to rid her once heavy heart of thoughts regarding her failed marriage with fellow musician, Eddy Montana.
Yet she savours the exciting company of her two lovely kids, whose framed picture on the center table smiles at you as you wait in her sitting room. “We can talk about anything, but please don't ask me about my marriage,” she warned as she sat gently on a plastic chair under a mango tree directly opposite her apartment.
But more importantly, she would love to speak about her latest album, 'Turn Around', especially the significant impact it made in the music career of the late hip hop star, Dagrin, who featured in one of the twelve songs in the album.
According to her, Dagrin's meteoric rise to fame before and after his death was largely influenced by the song. “Turn Around is a connection of powerful prayer points from A to Z. It was produced at the time Dagrin was looking for prominence and all his prayers in that song were answered. In the song, he asked God for fame, he asked for money and wanted to be a widely celebrated rapper.
''All his requests were granted as he soon had money and became a celebrated rapper. Unfortunately, he did not ask for long life, he did not ask God for safety. If he did, I believe he would have lived longer. After his death God revealed this to me and I went back to the song and realised it was true.”

LOVE LIFE
It is not what I would like to talk about. Right now, I'm in love with my career. I don't even think about it. It doesn't even come up in my prayer points. Maybe because of what I suffered in the past. It wasn't funny. I found my career totally threatened. Even my church that was supposed to be my succour compounded my problem. They removed me from the list of artists and told members to stop inviting me to events. I went to events and found my name totally absent and when I asked the people in charge, they would say it was the church that asked them to do so. It was so bad that at a point I considered going into business. But God spoke to me. He said, 'I'm the one who called you to church from the world. If the church has rejected you, the radio and TV will accept you.' Gradually, I started putting myself together and I thank God who has given me a turn around.

SHIFT TO CLUB, PARTY SONGS
I have rebranded from doing the typical church praise and worship gospel songs to more contemporary club compliant, party acceptable songs. It is like a total revolution for me. It is a rebranding in terms of content, style and target audience. You don't expect me to do 'you are worthy worthy' I did 11 years ago because it can no longer satisfy the audience of today. It is necessary to do this in order to meet the current demands of the Nigeria music market.

DELAY ALBUM RELEASE
It took time for me to release the last album because my own kind of music is very peculiar. I deal with real life situations, real experiences, real circumstances and all that. I'm not like some artists that will find somebody to write for them and then use their image to present it to the world. My work is a creative work in which I am conditioned to meet strict conditions in terms of content theme and messages that must be delivered the way music is being delivered now. There is a compelling need to create content for radio and TV where, at a time, there was no representation for the gospel so there is a vacuum to be filled with contemporary gospel songs. So, all this is responsible for the delay because if you look at Turn Around, you will agree with me that there is flow, emotional connection and fluidity from the first track to the last.

LATE DAGRIN
Actually it was Sheyma, the producer of 'Turn Around' that brought us together. But I would say it was destiny that brought us together. Though the first time I encountered him was two years earlier when I conducted a talent hunt, in which he made a semi final. But destiny later broug us together because it was at the time I wanted a turn around in my career and he too was looking for prominence. At that time he was always with Sheyma to feature in the albums of some of the notable artists he was producing then. At first I was wondering what contribution would someone like Dagrin make to my kind of music. But I was shocked when he started delivering his songs. He even had more prayer points than me. It was then I knew that the boy really believed in God. He believed that it was only God who could do it for him and God answered all his prayers. Turn Around video came out before he released Pon Pon. It was all his wishes in Turn Around that were eventually granted even though he had a death wish hanging on him which reflects in his 'If I die'. But he touched more lives after death than when he was alive.

FAMILY INFLUENCE
My elder brother, Keke is into entertainment journalism while I'm a gospel singer. We all have our individual calling within entertainment. I would say my music talent comes from my mother’s lineage because I can remember my mum's elder brother was a DJ back in Ago Iwoye, our home town. He was always busy from Monday to Monday and we were following him to naming, wedding and burial ceremonies in Ago Iwoye in the 60s, 70s till 80s. My mother has a very strong voice. My sister Moji Dokpesi has a good soprano voice. My father was an educationist and an evangelist. So I would say the gospel part of me is from my father.

ADVICE TO SINGLE LADIES
Don't get too desperate for marriage no matter the situation you find yourself because it can make men take you for granted. You don't even have to make it prominent on your prayer points because the more you do so, the more desperate you become and this can put men off. Just be calm and always make yourself attractive to men in terms of character, physical appearance and your general conducts. It is better for a man to get desperate that for a woman to get desperate.

How condoms saved me from hit of meltdown, says this Lagos petty trader

Even without any statistics to back his claim Yusuf Musa, 31, will dismiss an assumption that the sexual activities of an average Nigerian may have decreased as a result of the global economic meltdown. For the Lagos-based petty trader the reverse is the case. His recent experience, he told me, is enough to make him conclude that in spite of the economic crisis, people now have sex more regularly than the pre-crisis era as his Gold Circle condoms now enjoy more patronage than before.

Musa, who hails from Kastina State, said he relocated to Lagos only a year ago in search of a greener pasture. “I came to Lagos early last year in search of a better means of livelihood,” he stated. His decision to relocate to Lagos was triggered by the impression that it is easier to make money in Lagos than in his state. But Musa soon realised that life in Lagos, like in many other places, is not a bed of roses as he had been made to believe. “I didn’t find it as easy as I had thought when I first got to Lagos. The first challenge I faced was where to live. Even many of my brothers from the north who have been here for a long time are still homeless,” he stated.

He however got an assistance from a fellow Malam who was a security man, given a house of his own by his boss. “I squatted with him for about two months while I was searching for a place where I could start my own business. At that time I had on me some money, which I had kept to start my own business. Within the first two months, I was actually assisting my friend and his boss was impressed. He was the one who helped to secure a place near his second house in Shasha area where I am at the moment,” he recalled.

Musa’s shop, a kiosk erected near a residential building in Alimosho local government area of Lagos State, contains an assortment of goods sold in units to people in the neighbourhood. Although he has a lot of competitors around him, Musa seems to have devised a remarkable strategy that is fast placing him on the edge of the rive competition.

According to him, the magic formula crept into his head only in December last year when he observed that his condoms were beginning to enjoy more patronage than the early months when he could hardly sell off the contents in a packet in two days. He now spends a large chunk of his capital on condoms which bring him a quicker and more huge profit than the other goods which attracts very unimpressively low patronage.

“A packet of Gold Circle contains 40 packs and each pack has four units in it. When I came here in March last year I remember that the demand for condoms was very low. But by December last year I began to notice that the demand for condoms was fast on the rise. I started by selling one packet in a day. Gradually, the demand increased. Sometimes people came and got disappointed because the only packet I got had been sold out. That was why I decided to have enough in the store to avoid disappointing my customers,” he explained.

A pack of condom, in most places, is sold for N30. But at Musa’s store you can get it for as low as N25 –– a price that he claimed has put him ahead of his competitors who cannot sell below the general price. “The cost price for each pack is N20, so if I sell it for N25 it means I have a profit of N5. But many of my colleagues believe that N5 is too small so they sell a pack for N30. But people come to me because my own price is cheaper. By January 2009, the demand had increased tremendously. I now began to sell at least two packets in a day, taking home N400 profit on condoms alone,” he enthused.

Interestingly, his sales have increased in recent times as the Aboki now boasts of selling more than three packets of condoms every day. His claim is evident in the outlook of his store. At the edge of a wooden bench lies a heap of packets of Gold Circle condoms while one of them is left on display at the inner wall of the kiosk. Musa believes that for him to be experiencing this kind of fortune at the time many businesses are crashing, the economic melt down may have forced many to take solace in sexual intercourse.

“I believe that it is the economic melt down that is making people, especially the married couples, to engage in sex more frequently than before. Since the crisis began, many businesses have suffered and some have lost their jobs as a result of that. For instance, a man who used to go out very early in the morning and come back late at night is now jobless and as such has more time to spend with his wife and more time to have sex. But obviously they don’t want pregnancy, so they go for condoms. Apart from this, I think generally, married couples now prefer condom to avoid mistake of unwanted pregnancies in the wake of economic crisis,” he reasoned.

But his customers are not limited to married couples. How would he then explain his single-customers’ increased patronage of his condoms in spite of the crisis? Hear him: “To be honest to you, the singles patronize me more than the married couples. I am still of the belief that the crisis is largely responsible. Most of the young men now prefer to spend a little amount of money on a prostitute than spending so much to maintain their girlfriends. Even all these yahoo boys are no longer getting as much as they used to get from their mongers because the crisis is a worldwide thing. So, there is no much to spend on their girlfriends. You know in sleeping with prostitutes, they have to use condoms.”

Gold Circle, the only United Nation-recognized brand of condoms world wide, is circulated in Nigeria by the Society for Family Health (SFH), the Federal Ministry of Health and sometimes, the United Nation funds for Population Control (UNFPA). Although it has often had to compete with a few other brands, it enjoys a high level of patronage in the Nigeria market –– an advantage generally credited to its affordability. A recent statistics released by the research unit of the Society for Family Health says it controls more than 80 percent of the market and that the figure has even increased in recent times.

A report showed that well over 180,000,000 units of Gold Circle condoms were circulated by SFH alone in 2008, in addition to those released by the other two bodies, which is often more than the amount released by their sister authorized body.

Not many were bold enough to talk about their recent sexual lives, but a married woman resident in Sahsha area appeared to be confirming Musa’s point of view by maintaining that she now enjoyed her husband in this time of crisis more than ever before. “My husband is an engineer. He used to be very busy because he had many contracts from companies. Now he receives less works from companies probably because of the economic crisis. This makes him to spend more time with me at home and make love to me,” she explained.

Asked if the increase in love-making has translated to more demand for condoms and she laughed. “You are very funny. Of course we use condoms whenever we have to make love during my ovulation period because we already have four children and we don’t want more than that. Well, it is my husband that buys the condoms and it is Gold Circle we use. I don’t know how many he buys these days but I know he now has more time to make love to me,” she said.

 

Written by Jibola Oyekunle.

As monarch I talk a lot & get embarrassed everyday

Getting to meet His Royal Highness, Oba Kabiru Alani Kolawole Agbabiaka, the Osolo of Isolo is not at all a gruelling task. The burly monarch, who sits atop the sprawling city, is, no doubt, one of the most accessible traditional rulers in Nigeria. The ancient community, a popular suburb in Lagos, is an easy area to locate. From anywhere in Lagos, you can find your way to Osolo palace. A simple request and you would be ushered into the interior because this Oba is available to everyone. It is a simply furnished interior with different types of royal artefacts adorning the walls of the expansive room.
His Highness, an imposing figure, looked smart in his royal chair. For the first 15 minutes when this reporter stepped into the palace, he was busy talking to different people who had come with different problems. “This is the way I talk every day,” he said at the commencement of this interview. But according to him, endless talking was not the only problem he has learnt to cope with since five years ago, when he came to the throne. The 50-year-old monarch has also learnt to be more generous in his spending as people would not stop bringing their financial problems for him to solve.
The worst of his daily experience, he said, is the unavoidable embarrassment he gets from his subject. But all these, he believes, are parts of the challenges that come with leadership, especially the position of a traditional ruler. So far, it has taken the mixture of diplomacy, wisdom and the grace of God for him to cope with the challenges.
The throne
You have to be thankful to God for every position you find yourself in life. As a traditional ruler, you are responsible for everything in your domain. As such you have to be very careful. You have to know what you are doing. You must always look back and remember the people that stood by you. You must remember your people all the time. You must also remember the government. Any one who does not know all these, it is imperative for him to open his eyes and learn them. So many things are involved in being an Oba. It is not something that is easy at all. But if God is with you, the people are with you and you are also with yourself and you know what you are doing, you will not have any problem at all. As a monarch, you deal with different kinds of people, many of whom are betrayers, liars, who would see black and tell you that it is white; they create trouble for you so that they can continue to eat from there. These are the kinds of people we deal with on daily basis. These people are like a leopard who can never change its skin. There is nothing you can do to change them. You just have to manage them. You have to apply wisdom and diplomacy in dealing with them. You tell them the truth and sometimes lie to them when necessary. Sometimes you flare up and let them know that you are angry so that you make them to know that you see some of the things they think that you are not seeing. It is not every thing that you take. I have seen so many things both before and after I was crowned. I receive challenges in from different angles, from my wives, my children and among my people in general. But I have also learned from those challenges. Sometimes you have to listen and pretend as if you don’t know anything. Some people would tell you rubbish while some would give you words of wisdom. You become wiser by the time you combine different ideas with your own.
The Isolo town
I am ruling over a town where we have many educated people and many wise people. There is a clear difference between being educated and being wise. Some people would bring up ideas based on their education. These ideas sometimes clash with wisdom. This has been the usual scenario here and it has always caused a lot of misunderstanding. But I don’t really see this as strange because any town that wants to prosper, there must be misunderstanding. It is now left for you as the leader to apply diplomacy in any situation. The position of an Oba is a school on its own, a place where you learn so many things.

Pre-throne sign
I can’t remember seeing any sign that I was going to get to this position. If you find out, most people that see signs of great things don’t end up achieving those things. I never even imagined it not to talk of seeing any sign. Although I met some people who prophesised that I was going to a high place, I never at any time thought of the position of an Oba.


Contest for Oba
There were six of in the list, contesting for this seat. Everybody was doing everything to get to the position. There is nobody that does not want a good thing. I had a lot of threats from people. This did not come to me as a surprise because I have always known that vying for a position like this entails such kinds of challenges. Naturally I am a fearless person. You can never intimidate me with any kind of threat because I am always prepared and your threat would not move me until you come openly to confront me. It is then that I will know that you mean business. My opponents’ supporters are not even the ones that bothered me. There were people who pretended to be my supporters only for me to find out later that they were looking for my downfall. These are the kind of people one should fear most in a situation like that. I had a handful of them but in the end God’s will prevailed. While I credit my victory to God, I must say that I had good supporters and I also had a good reputation in the community. But by and large, I credit my victory to God Almighty.
Pre-throne position
I was a businessman. At the time I was called to contest for the throne, I was the head of Okota royal family. When the throne was vacant, people think I should come out because I come from the next ruling family. It was my people that said I should come out and contest, it wasn’t my decision. But there were some among these people who still came out to contest later.
Daily experience
I talk a lot and I spend much every day. You can see since you entered here I have been talking and giving people money, yet money is not coming in. I also get embarrassed every day and it comes in different ways. Let me give you an instance. You give money to somebody to help you do something and he comes back to tell you that armed robbers have collected the money from him only for you to see him enjoying himself around with the money. By the time he finishes spending the money, you still see him here and there is nothing you can do. He would even come to ask you for another favour. Is that not an embarrassment? We also have an instance where someone would steal something in the palace and when you need that thing badly, he would be the one to lead the search team looking for what he knows could not be found. Later, you will see him using that thing under your very nose. You are embarrassed and as a leader, you must not overreact. You have to learn to tolerate things like this because you can’t stop it. It happens everyday.
If I were not here
If I were not an Oba, I would be doing my business enjoying my life and my privacy. You see as a monarch, you attend to people’s problem every now and then. It is only on few occasions when I feel like relaxing that I restrict people’s visit to the palace otherwise they would never stop coming. One thing I have learnt is that you must consider yourself first in everything you do before you consider any other person. But if you put other’s problem on your head and forget yourself, you would die early and the same people would blame you.
Hobby
I am a socialite. I love going to parties. I attend events. I am also very romantic. I have five wives and they are all happy because they all enjoy my attention. Though I now spend more time attending to people all my wives understand. As a monarch, I can marry as many wives as possible, even though I’m a Muslim. Quran does not say that we should not marry more than four wives. And aside from that, the case of an Oba is always different. As we have seen in the Bible and Quaran, God gave monarchs power to marry as many wives as possible. Look at Solomon and David. They have many wives and many concubines.

Story by Jibola Oyekunle.

Mrs Jelilat Okikiola Lasaki, Proprietress Jelly-Las schools Lagos:

My husband can’t marry a second wife ‘cos I’m not careless with him


In her days as a spinster she was a belle. Even as a grandmother with over three-decade marriage experience, Mrs Okikiola Lasaki, Proprietress of Jelly-Las Schools has lost none of her tempting youthful allure. “Don’t be deceived by my look, I am already close to 60,” she enthused. Her charming look, she said, is a gift from God. “I can’t say there is a particular thing I do that is making me look this young. I believe it is God’s grace.”
The Ondo State-born Amazon may not need an extra exercise to keep her body fit as she has got enough on her laps that keeps her body warm. As if the work of running the school is not enough, she has recently taken up another responsibility. She is now a president of OMEP, an association for early childhood education.
Her very busy schedule, she told National LIFE, was the key reason why it took her about three weeks to respond for this interview. “I am very busy these days because of my new responsibility as OMEP President. OMEP is a French acronym. It is an international association for early childhood education.
“It is an association that involves travelling from one country to another. We travel every year to different countries for our yearly conference. This year’s conference is going to take place in Lagos during the first week of August. Our conference is a very big event that attracts members from different parts of the world. So, there is a lot of preparation to be made before the time. This is why I couldn’t respond to you in time,” she explained.
Mid-way to the interview, it became clear that her excuse might not be far from being genuine as she had to pause many times to attend to her workers on several official matters. “You can see what I just said,” she said as she collected a document from one of her staff for endorsement. A moment later, it was another necessary interruption that lasted for more than 15 minutes. Not until she put the last dot on a cheque before she could continue with the interview. “I have to quickly discharge all of them to allow us enjoy this interview,” she quipped.
But in spite of those interruptions, the boss of Jelly-Las schools, a leading Lagos children school, was a journalists’ delight. She was indeed in her elements as she took National LIFE down memory lane, recalling her intriguing early life and marriage experiences, how she started the school, among other things.

Father’s Pet
I am from the popular Akinkugbe family in Ondo State. Growing up in Ondo then was very exciting because I enjoyed an uncommon love from my father. I was his pet because I was very gentle. He loved me a lot. When I was a child, he loved me so much that he was always carrying me about. Any time my elder sisters and I did something wrong, he would beat all of them but spare me.
Dreams
My regular dream when I was young was to grow up and help people. I like caring for people. I thought I was going to become a nurse so as to get my dreams realised. But even now I am happy that I ended up in a position to take care of children.
Working with Nigeria Airways
My first job was with the Nigeria Airways. I worked in so many departments before retiring. I worked in computer department. I worked in Account, credit control and so on. I was transferred to these departments because of the trust the management had in me.
Jelly Las
Like I said early, I love taking care of people. That was part of the reason why I started this school 23 years ago. My sister whom I live with in Lagos here also influenced me. She was a teacher and she always gave me her students’ scripts to mark. I enjoyed doing this a lot and that was part of what influenced my decision to start my own school. I started the school with my last daughter, Yeside.
The challenge
The beginning was very challenging because I needed to convince people to bring their children. Many parents would not even pay you a dime, yet one must not give up or send the pupils back to their parents. My priority then was to get as many pupils as possible to keep the school going. But with God and the support of my husband, I was able to weather the storm. Other challenges have cropped up since the school’s establishment. For instance, there has always been need to get quality teachers who have to be well paid. But because we are being constrained by the location because no matter how much you pay on equipping the school with modern education facilities you cannot charge the kind of school fees that schools in Ikoyi, Lekki or Victoria Island will charge, even though we offer the same quality of services. Some of them are not even doing as much as we are doing here. In addition to this, the global economic melt-down is also affecting the school. Many parents have lost their job and because of that they would not pay their children’s school fees in time. These are some of the challenges.
Dream for school
My dream is to make Jelly-Las a world-class school with branches spread all over the world. I also want to see products of my school getting to the top of their careers and making histories, and getting known across corners of the world. That is my dream for this school and I know we will get there.
Meeting hubby
I met my husband while I was working in Nigeria Airways. He was a custom’s officer serving with the airways. That was how we met and when he started wooing me, I took my time to observe him. In our days, men were willing to marry you and there were many of them then, unlike now when women are begging men to marry them. I was very sure that he was the right person for me before I accepted him. He was so different among all the men I knew then. He was simple, loving and very nice. These were the things that made to fall in love with him and I never regret choosing him. We courted for about a year before we finally decided to settle down.
Courtship
It was a sizzling courtship, which lasted for almost a year. After I came into his life, I did not give other women a chance to distract him. Even when he got a transfer, I was always there with him.
Muslim/Christian marriage
My coming from a Christian background did not affect my decision to marry my husband. My parents did not raise any objection either since they knew I love him. I have accepted everything about my husband. To me, religion should not be a barrier to marriage so long as you are not married to a pagan. Once both of you are genuinely in love, the rest could be taken care of.
Fear of second wife
I had no such feeling or fear because I knew the kind of person I was getting married to. I knew he loved me and having realised this, I gave him all my love in return and was careless with him. He would not even think of a second wife because I was not careless with him at all. Like I told you, even after marriage I tried to be around him all the time. I was policing him. While I was working in the airways, travelling by air was very easy for me. My husband as an officer was always on transfer. I was always with him. I would travel to see him without even notifying him. By weekend like this, I would carry the children and drop them with him and come back to Lagos. So, he too was always careful with his movement. The issue of second wife is not only peculiar to Muslims, even some Christians too marry more than one wife. So, it is not about the religion, it is about the person.


Honeymoon
We did not have any honeymoon maybe because it was not in vogue during our time. After the wedding ceremony we went back to our works and everything went on as usual.
What they share in common
Simplicity. That is one feature that I can confidently say that we share in common. My husband is a very simple man. He does not like trouble and anything that involves trouble. I am also a very simple person, so both of us are the same in that area. Another thing that we share in common is the love for children. We both demonstrate a very strong love for and commitment to our children. When t comes to taking care of children, my husband is even better than me. If a child is crying in my hand and my husband takes him or her, that child will stop crying and take all the food. He knows how to pet a child a lot.
Difference
The difference between us is that he doesn’t like too much stress like what I encounter every day here. He likes living a life devoid of trouble. I am the only one that has a knack for this entrepreneur thing.
First few years of marriage
I did not have any unpleasant experience in my first few years of marriage because of the kind of husband that I have. He is very caring. He was always ready to assist me. He would even take care of the baby on my behalf. He was always assisting me in everything and he did not give trouble. His family too did not give me trouble.
Achievements
I thank God for my life. To establish a school of this size is not easy but I am happy for the grace of God. The school, with the big size and the standard, is a success story. I have also been able to do the basic things that a woman is expected to do in life. I am happily married with lovely children and grand children. I thank God for my life and my good health.

Story by JIBOLA OYEKUNLE