Please we should be careful with our words to avoid attracting curses. I have watched the barrage of attack and counter-attack on the Igbos and Yorubas due to statements credited to Femi Fani Kayode. I have had the opportunity of relating and working with a good number of yorubas and it has been rewarding, true life experience that is contrary to what most people hear about them especially the uninformed. I started my working career in lagos in a firm with more yorubas in the workforce but it was a great fun that inspite of the harsh working conditions we shared good memories together as a programmer i was nicknamed ‘ogbuefi’ by them for always bringing up codes that cracks our hard tasks. I will never forget those moments. I so much believe in destiny, sincerity and hardwork to succeed in this long and difficult journey of life. These features i mimicked from my dad who had his tutelage from the yorubas. The oral history my dad gave me on account of his life for over 15 years or thereabout in far away remote village in Ondo State is so touching. As an orphan without help from any relative, he sojourned to the west in one of the remotest village in search of job as a labourer in a cocoa plantation. According to him that journey of life was not an easy one but contributed to his total transformation. As soon as he was adopted by a family, he discharged his assigned duties with loyalty, diligence and utmost trust, the qualities that bonded him with his host. The pictures he took while young revealed a typical Yoruba mark on his cheek though very faint now. He became fully integrated into his host family that arrangement was on top gear to allow him marry his daughter when he was bitten by a mysterious snake, resulting in an ailment then that defiled all medication. He was ferried home to probably join his ancestors but God was God and he survived it. He told me that his host wept so bitterly and openly when he was to leave for the east and openly said a prayer that he and his descendants will find favour in the hands of the yorubas. I am now a living witness and my dad is still alive and is seeing what that act of prayer is working for us. My dad is a retired senior non academic staff of physics dept in UNN, who manned a section of their workshop for years and left with an impeccable records even though initially he didn’t go beyond primary 3 but updated his academic and professional profile through on-the-job training in carpentry (oh yes! Moses de carpenter as i used to call him because he too is bearing moses) and he is highly gifted in that field and today by all standard is fulfilled according to his own measure of life achievement, he is highly contented, a virtue he leant from the yorubas. It was a Yoruba man, the Director of examinations and academic planning of my institution who identified me a year after my employment and recommended me to the management and i was given a commendation letter for selfless service. A Yoruba woman then as the dean of my school was instrumental to my going immediately for higher studies just the same year my appointment was confirmed. Another yoruba man who is even my friend here on facebook took over from her as the dean and was more like a father to me, he even put more pressure on me not to relent in pursuit of higher degrees. Yorubas defiled all ‘odds’ to ensure i had my higher degree thesis defense despite initial resistance from the then seminar coordinator on the ground probably that it was delivered at the minimum duration for the programme contrary to their tradition over there then. It was that same research that brought me to stardom as an international scholar, winning sponsorship and subsequent induction into notable international institute in my field and association in the USA. When you taste a good soup, you will lick its drop even to you elbow. In the quest for excellence and divinely too i followed my then supervisor to far away ondo state the same place my fathers’ story started, a yoruba professor not looking at my background or tribe chose only me from the army of applicants (with yorubas too) wanting to be supervised by him. My work became a departmental affair as everybody was contributing ideas that reshaped the research and its contribution to knowledge. The array of intellectuals with intimidating credentials is enough to scare anybody and i must confess i almost backed out but the whole thing is history because their hard disposition and critical analysis of every issue (those guys are highly thorough on all aspects) stands out. In all, this journey has undoubtedly reshaped my life forever, as i was indeed groomed and the work attracted another grant award from USA. Still a Yoruba professor in the far away USA saw my published research work and recommended me to his university for official invitation and sponsorship to be a guest speaker/lecturer in their president’s (vice-chancellor) annual seminar series. A ground-breaking experience that i believe only top government officials have enjoyed in the US. The experience attracted commendation letters and mementos/gifts awards too. Most revealing still is that a Yoruba man and an exceptional Nigerian per say, we both boarded the same flight on my first trip, just in the course of our conversation found out my mission to the states, invited me to his home and promised to host a party in my honour when a whole igbo association in orlando that i sent a mail asking for direction failed to help out even when receipt of such mail was acknowledged by one of them. I ran back to Nigeria because of the presidential election to be with my family and also not to stress that my friend, only for him to trace me through my email and made a promise that he has kept till date, that his home will continue to be an abode for me any time i visit the US. If a Yoruba man i have never met before can for over a month provide me with shelter, food and so on in far away country, even send items to my dad he has never met assuring him of being his adopted son and others too numerous to mention, then i would be very proud to say i love the yorubas, the fact that all these brotherly treatments were given to me without lobbying goes to show that they admire merit. In appreciation, i named my last son David Aderemi Kosisochukwu (DAK) after my Yoruba friends who coincidentally bear the same name (Aderemi). It is my ardent prayer as well that God will help my sons get good wives from Yoruba land when they grow up so that the bond will continue to grow. The yorubas are caring (but meticulous), passionate, sophisticated people who love merit and detest insincerity and a true Yoruba man is contented in life. Just like when one comes across a true Hausa-Fulani person you will see morality personified. I am grateful to God for these wonderful experiences and wish others will have the opportunity of knowing others outside their tribes. Now that my teacher (even now bcs i learn history from him always) Dr. Tony Nwaezeigwe a historian per excellence has exposed Abdullatif Fani Femi Kayode’s ancestry, in think it will be fair enough for Fashiola to deport him out of Nigeria to sierra Leone before he import their war-like life style into Yoruba land. Let those virtues which define us as a people not erode our generation. Nigeria belongs to all of us and as facts are emerging now, it is only the non true Nigerians that are sowing seeds of discord among us genuine Nigerians. Let us all sheath our swords and embrace total peace. Shalom!
Posted on: Sun, 25 Aug 2013 08:32:50 +0000
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