We were talking about your relationship with Late Mrs. Olawunmi Fagboyegun yesterday, knowing
fully well that unless two people agree, there is no way they can work together. Ma, what are the things that brought you two together that turns you to life-long friends.
Ehn….. Thank you very much, in 1949, I was a student at St. Mary’s College, Owo and on every Sunday I was one of the students who would go to St. Andrew’s church and teach bible class to girls and women, it was there that I met with Late Mrs. Florence Olawunmi Fagboyegun, it was there we started to be friends.
On the first day we met, we just greeted each other, we read our bible, we discussed about the words of God and the following Sunday, the greeting became more elaborate, there and then we became friends and when I finished my course at St. Mary’s college in 1950 December, I was posted to Anglican Girls School, Ile-Ife to teach, I was at Ile-Ife for one year. By the end of 1951, I was transferred to St. Andrew’s Anglican School, Owo. So, we came back to re-unite again, there and then we became friends, we were becoming closer friends day-by-day, Sunday-by-Sunday. We saw each other on Sundays.
So, in 1954, I was in Owo throughout, then 1954 I got married to my husband who was then a teacher at Imade College, Owo. And three of the teachers were living in a compound, Imade College compound Papa Late Chief Ajase was the principal then, Late Mr A.S Olanusi who was the vice principal, then my husband Chief Femi Dada who was the senior science master. To 3 families we were living in the compound and the Fabgoyegun started their building at Oke-Ogun, opposite Owo, Imade College. So, we made foot path from the Imade College to their house, everything was in the bush as at that time.
That major road was not there then?
The major road, was there but very narrow, not as…..
As big as what we have today..
Yes, so we were passing through the foot path to greet one another, we would plait our hairs for ourselves, we would prepare soup, she’ll send me soup, I’ll send her soup. Especially Okro with bitter leaf. So,
Was that like your favorite or her favorite?
Ehn…. Favorite of the two of us, because she knows, she knew how to cook that soup properly. So, sometimes the mother will come to visit her and she’ll help her to cook as soon as they finish the soup…..then we were bearing our children almost at the same time because the difference between our children, the longest time is two months between our children.
Which means you were close friends, were you like programing each other?
No ooo…. It’s just coming like that naturally. And the husband and my husband they too became friends, they too became closer because of the two of us. At that time, the husband will go to Emure to buy cocoa and palm kernel, he had a Jeep, an old Jeep by that time which they call Jalopy, so they would take it to Emure to buy palm kernel and cocoa nut. My husband had a Volkswagen. So, he would take the Volkswagen car with the Jalopy to Emure and Ife.
So, my husband’s Volkswagen car, the boot is in front, they would open the boot of my husband’s car from the front of the car where the boot was, they would put some kernels or some cocoa. So, after school hours, the Late Rev. Fagboyegun would wait until my husband finished in the school, so they would walk across.
So, they were going together, he would take his Jalopy, Jide will take his car (Jalopy) as it was then called and then Mike would take his Volkswagen along to help Jide. So, the friendship continued. They had been so wonderful, they support people, they supported people, any person that came across them they support him or her morally, seriously too. They had been Christians for quite a long time.
Are they financially given at all?
Well, they were, anybody who needed their support, they would do what they could. You know my husband was living, he was working , I was a teacher, I was working too.
So you never really had any reason to ask for any financial support?
No, we didn’t. So, we continued to like that, so much so that if I used any cloth here, it is the same type of cloth she will make at Mama Ohi’s place on her.
The same day?
Yes, the same day. We officially call Mama Olu and Yeye Ohi then myself Iya Sanmi, because my first son was named by Baba Ajasin and Late Olatewo Olajokin Olowo, they named him Owosanmi. So, the Owo, the name was shortened to Sanmi. So, everybody knew us to, even uptill now, any owo person know us by the name.
In the circle of friends, your husband’s set they were more than two?
Yes, they were more than two but not, they were not in Owo, the only person who was with them at Owo is Mr. Komolafe P.K, a native of Fijare who lived, who I think he settled down in Owo finally. I don’t know if he had gone back to Fijare. So, those three were together.
So, the others were…….
The others were at Ibadan, Akure, like Late Justice Dayo Ogundare; Late Chief Faniyi, Late Mr. Amudipe and others. Those who were coming to spend holidays with Jide. They lived outside Owo but three of us lived in Owo, that Mr. P.K Komolafe was managing PZ Store as at that time.
Naturally, I would expect that, since your husband’s bigger circle of friends, there should be more than, there would be other friends in that your circle as well.
Ehn… No
Just the two of you?
Two of us
So, the wives of the other people never…..?
No, they even, if they come on holidays, just greet the Fagboyeguns’ because they usually stay in my house because they were, most of them were my husband’s classmates at the Government College, Ibadan. And in the University of Ibadan in those days. So, they were classmates, so they were coming to us, they move closer to the Fagboyeguns.
Now beyond that, there would also apart from when you first met, when you discussed words of the bible, there would be other issues that gave the two of you a common attraction, maybe some sufferings of women in their husband’s home or the joy they have there. Was there other things like that?
I think it is God who joined us together, sent us together because she didn’t have any problem, marital problem she didn’t have neither did I have any marital problem. We were just together, just like that. We were just together happily, living happily together, discussing our happiness and challenges at times. In those days, we didn’t have much challenges but even though the men, they were what they are known for, the men will have friends or women friends but it didn’t disturb us.
And those things never even gave you any sleepless nights?
So, we didn’t…….
Just mind raising your own family?
Yes, raising our families, we didn’t have any problem, we didn’t look at that side.
And your experience as a widow?
My experience as a widow, is terrible oh, when my husband died, my in-laws said I was responsible for the death because they has warned him not to marry a princess and that I have, because he was rich, I don’t know what a teacher gets because the salary I was taking when I was taking, came back home I was
giving him everything, even in the school I couldn’t buy a penny worth of groundnut until I gave him every money, when I got home, because I didn’t……
Was he controlling or that was….
Both of us were….
You shared real love
Yes! No problem at all
And so you really felt firsthand this thing they call traditional and fore practices against widows and women?
Well, the…. They couldn’t practice the scraping of hair, sleeping on the bare floor and so on, they couldn’t practice it with me because they were told that no princess gives her life to suffer that sort of treatment, that since I was from a royal family, they couldn’t practice that. They took my…. Because of my husband’s home at Igbara-ode to bury him. I went, they gave me policemen to guide me, as at that time my cousin, he is late now, Late Dr. Akinola Aguda, the Chief Justice as at that time with his official car and official police that escort me, took me to Igbara-odo.
And Mrs. Fagbuyegun was there throughout with you?
Ha…. Am coming on that, he took me to Igbara-odo and when I had to come back, I came in disguise, I used, they had to give me, then my brother Late Prince Adebobaje he was once an Oba and late Dr. Aguda and most of them surrounded me like this. They brought me back in through Ogotun-Ikeji road, they took me back in disguise when they wanted to kill me.
They really meant to?
They really meant to. Mrs. Fagboyegun was always by me, even the day we were going to bury my husband, the black dress which I wore, she wore the same thing. It’s people, the people who knew us as friends that knew that she was not my husband’s wife, she was not the second wife. We wore the same thing, the same gele, the same buba, then she stayed by me. The one year remembrance that we went to at Igbara-odo, she wore the same thing with me. Then that my cousin’s wife Late Mrs. Aguda had to tell her that she should put on a golden, a small chain so that people can people can differentiate her.
Now the very night that my husband died she packed her things and she came to stay with me here. In the middle of the night the telephone rang and she was told that her grandmother died so, she shouted, she cried, I also cried, we both cried. This woman didn’t go home o…. and the mother was the only child of her grandmother and she too but she didn’t go until I ate on the following morning after breakfast, then she left, before 4 o’clock she was back, she was with me throughout.
That was in 197…..
1977, March 10, she was always helpful to people, she was and she was very hard working. Iye Olu could lay her hand on anything that would bring her a kobo.
And I find out that she was a seamstress and that also sells very expensive clothes.
She was a seamstress
Also invested in properties
When we were there, when we were together in our early days she was sewing but she didn’t make it all the time work because she started helping her husband when the husband was seriously involved in this cocoa business and other things, drinks, poultry business. So, she packed sewing, she packed up. The work I know that she did was being the husband’s accountant. She is an accurate accountant. And she would take hold of everything carefully, neatly and successfully. She was a nice woman anyway, although, nobody is perfect.
Right
She might have her shortcomings but the shortcomings were not as glaring as her good work.
One would also expect that, since you two have become close, your children will be that close.
No ooo…. Even though they were classmates, they went to school together even the nursery school, there was, when they were young, I was the one driving them to St. Mary’s College, when I was teaching there. I would take them after taking my own children, would go and collect them, her children, two of them, this judge, Justice Akinlolu, I think she still communicate with some of my children but they are not close friends.
And probably, you were not thinking because when the relationship, they probably would want to marry.
It didn’t even occur to us, I don’t think it occurred. It didn’t occur to me. I think it did not occur to Mama Olu too. We were just living naturally without thinking of anything.
Now, she must have told you some comforting words when you lost your husband in 1977
Ha…… well….
When she lost hers you probably did that, how did it work in the context of seven?
Well, when I lost my husband Rev. Fgboyegun and Mrs. Fagboyegun both of them were comforting me for the first three months that my husband died, Mrs. Fagboyegun was sleeping here even if she went to Owo for her daily work, she would come back here to sleep. So, they did their best, when her husband died too it hit her a lot but I tried to console her even I take my own condition as an example, I used to tell her that you saw me during the time of my, even when we had nothing compared to your own property. He didn’t have anything and with seven children, the seventh child is even my nephew because I had a sister, my only sister who was in England for 14years she died and they snt her only son to me at the age of 2years and my last born and the boy they were 3months older than, my nephew was 3months older than my last son.
So, I trained them together, I looked after the two of them together. When my husband died, people thought that he was from another woman to my…. Because the boy and my own boy they were using the same cloth, they used the same cloth in the burial, we wrote his name in the paper and so on because the father didn’t show up.
Although, he sent the boy with their property with the mother’s properties. We only received it that we should come to the airport to claim the things and up till now the father didn’t show up. Even they had their wedding, they got married in the church but the father went with another girl. So, I told Mama Olu that your seven children it was as if the all heaven had fall-in at that time I never knew I could say through , I said but you are not in that situation. So, you have to take heart but I think part of the, part of her problem, the major part of her problem is the death of her husband.
They were just too close
She didn’t expect it
Finally Ma, you also saw then travails and suffered much property loss and personal attack in Owo in year 2000. How were they able to cope and then the role you also played in comforting them?
It is a terrible thing, I think it was political, that is my own feeling and it was a sort of envy unnecessary undue envy, anyway it was political. But there was a very terrible politics under it. And I didn’t even know, I just felt that morning that let me phone Iya Olu, then I telephoned, then the telephone rang and rang and rang, nobody picked it up, then we have not started using cell phones. So, second time I tried about 4 times that day. What is wrong with these people’s telephone? I phoned some people that I knew that could tell them that I telephoned. Some of their workers, nobody picked up, so I just asked my driver to take me to Owo, that I don’t know what is happening, I have tried Mama Olu and she didn’t phone me, I’ve tried her 4 times.
So, we went, when I got there, I didn’t know what I can say, the whole place was in a disarray. So, somebody told me that they have taken them away but they don’t know where they were, I came back home. But fortunately, I asked my children who lived in Lagos that they should help me find them out in their house at Ik
eja, so they telephoned me that Mama Olu was there but the husband has traveled out for treatment. So, I went there I just, I don’t know what I could say but I shared their unhappiness with them.
The way I could and I came back home. They travelled outside the country. I think they were away for about 2 or 3 months before they came back. So when they came back, they were planning to come and settle here, when they came back, I joined them, I would be there in the morning, come back home in the evening. So, we continued like that until they settled down but it was a great blow, I don’t know. They didn’t get over it until the husband died.
Probably that’s even the ………….
Exactly.
Well Ma, what in vein of the kind of treasure that has been godly, that has been very good that you too enjoyed. What would you tell Nigerians and probably younger people of the would about true friendship?
Well, individual differs, but my suggestion or advice is that if God send someone to anybody or brings two people together, they should try to be faithful to themselves. They should be reliable; they should focus on one friendship, on one friend. Because friendship with two, three, four, five people doesn’t work well but if you have somebody that you’ve studied him, you have known the type of person he is that he stay honest with you and then share your sorrows and happiness together. It is not easy to have a friend because sometimes things fall apart but it may not be a very bad falling apart but everyday is not Christmas and you can not find it easy everyday. My friend and myself we didn’t have any bad or tough time but occasionally we have some gbon-gbon-gbon then after some time now, we just settle it. Nobody has ever settled any quarrel.
Not even your husbands?
No, if I’m annoyed, she would keep her head and if she does anything to me that I don’t like, I’ll call her immediately and tell her. She wouldn’t call me but she’ll keep quiet if she saw that I was annoyed, she’ll keep quiet until we come together but if I’m annoyed with her, I’ll call her and tell her, I could leave Akure here to go and meet her anywhere she was that this is what you’ve done to me and I don’t like it. Then she would say ‘e ma binu’
Thank you very much ma.
Thank you.