Many people don’t know that the comedian, late Moses Adejumo, popularly called Baba Sala, has many brilliant and successful children who are doing well in the different fields of endeavor that they chose to go in.
One of them is Oyindamola Adejumo-Ayibiowu. She is a brilliant lady. She is a senior manager at Federal Inland Revenue Service. She also sings Gospel music.
A few days after the death of Baba Sala, she sat down with City People Publisher, SEYE KEHINDE, to talk about what she will miss about her late dad. Below are excerpts of the interview.
Let me start by asking you to introduce yourself.
I am Dr. Mrs. Oyindamola Adejumo. I am one of the daughters of Moses Olaiya Adejumo. We are many. I am a professional. I am also a gospel artiste.
How did you take the death of your dad?
When I was called that Sunday night, at past 10pm. I was in Lagos doing family prayers. I just said Glory to God, because there has been so many death scams. I like death scams because it prepares your mind for both the person and the family members. It enables you run checks and you will ask yourself questions like have I been close to my dad? Have I done what I should do as a child? For the person who was rumoured to be dead and who did die, he too can reflect on life. Am I ready to meet my God? We had enough of that. My dad is a blessed man. And I have a blessed family. I say glory to God. I thank God for a life well spent.
Tell us about his last days….
His last days were very, very quiet.
He called me about 3 days before that time and I will say that in the last one year, the main communication between me and my father has been prayers. Whenever he called, it’s prayers all the way. He would bless and bless. In the last 2 years the conversation has not be more than that, blessing his children, asking after their welfare and inviting them to church programme. Till he died he kept going to church.
What are the fond memories you will have about him?
So many. My father is an inventor. God is a creator. My father is an inventor of languages, proverbs, terms. He coined his own words. He is funny. I am an academic person. I write everyday. I have over 1,000 people that read my work everyday. He has an ability to create and invent. These are the things I learnt from him; the funny way he says things. He loves children. He shows it. One of my sisters is so brilliant. She is a top lecturer in one of the top Universities in Nigeria. Her name is Moni. She is a medical practitioner. But she lectures at OAU.
She is so brilliant. I have lovely memories of him. My father is brilliant too. He is smart. He is smart for God. As my father was turning 70 he kept apologizing to everybody, whether he is right or wrong does not matter. Portraying to his ex-wife was nothing to him. That was smartness.
How did your dad take all those death scams?
My father was not bothered, nothing shocks him. Last year, when I read on social media that Baba Sala is dead, I was in South Africa. I was so scared. It was around 4am (South Africa time). I waited till 7am and I called. He said ‘Pele Omo mi, mi ti kuu ooo.
I relaxed! And he still lived over a year after that scam. He has a good heart. That is why he didn’t die young.
What is the difference between Moses Adejumo and Baba Sala?
The 2 personalities are different. Baba Sala is a man on the stage. He is a man of amusement. He is a man who doesn’t even mean what he says.
Adejumo is a family man, a family head. He is a realistic man. He is a man in church. He is a man who fasts. I grew up to know my father doing 30 days fasting just breaking it with fruits. The truth is that my father is sometimes lost between the two.
Naturally, does he make people laugh?
Yes. That’s why I said sometimes, he is lost between the 2.
He is a comedian. He is gifted. My father can just create a story. He likes to tell stories. Even in Church, he tells stories. He likes to create funny stories. My dad is a funny man. If you are with him you can’t help but laugh. Talent to him is in-born.
Being funny is second nature to him. He has a way of doing serious things and you would think he is doing comedy. You need to understand him enough not to be angry with him.
Will you say Nigeria and our society has been fair to him?
I don’t want to join people who said they are not fair to him. I won’t join them. I think Nigeria has been fair to my dad within our available resources. Nigeria is Nigeria. Based on our level of development they couldn’t have done more.
Nigerians love Baba Sala. No policeman will arrest Baba Sala. No Road Safety man will arrest Baba Sala. He enjoyed a lot of good will.
They gave my father national honour, O.O. N. They have invited him to stage his plays at the topmost place. Baba Sala’s movie was pirated because Nigeria does not have infrastructure to stop piracy. We don’t have what we desire. There was a private initiative. They brought my father to Do You Want To Be A Millionaire programme and over a million was raised for him. There was a time Pastor Wole Oladiyun of CLAM brought my father out and he told the whole church this man is a blessing to the world. Lets bless him. I was at that event. Over a million was given to him. Few people have tried to help to appreciate him.
Tell us about how you saw your dad becoming a rich man in his life time, he fell on bad times and then bounced back?
I was born in the 70s. I was born in 1978, so my father was in the middle of his career. I grew up in affluence. I grew up being served by cooks and drivers. I saw my dad being a lover of everybody. I saw my dad not traveling without bails of 50k notes, so that when people are hailing Baba Sala he will throw the notes out of the window.
He used to do that in Mushin then, in those days. That is what I grew up to know. I grew up to know my father doing house warming of several houses and suddenly things changed. He took a business decision and it caused problems. It wasn’t a wrong business decision. But storms of life struck him. That thing happened and it affected him badly. I mean badly. I was a child but I knew the difference. I knew what it means to be served and not to be served again. I knew what if is for our mothers not to work just to be working for him. And what it was for him to call all his wives to go and look for business to do and take care of your kids. I know the difference.
What I saw is that it didn’t change his personality. I knew when he didn’t have a car. All the cars had faults and it couldn’t be fixed. Instead of him to stay in his house in Ibadan, he was shuttling between Ibadan and Ilesha to go to worship every Sunday. My fathers church is at Ilesha. He lived at Ibadan. Some of us lived in Ilesha. I grew up in Ilesha. My father moved my mum and to the kids to Ilesha in 1992. That is why some of us can still speak Ijesha. I was born in Ibadan. Most of us were born in Ibadan but we grew up in Ilesha.
My dad will not say because his car was not good that he should stay back and worship God at Ibadan. My dad will go and take public transport. That transport will drop him at the roundabout. That is at the centre of town.
My dad would drop out of that vehicle and people would be hailing him Baba Sala. He would still joyfully hailed them back, just like he used to do when he used to sit behind his Range Rover. He will then go to his church, worship in the church and then take public transport back. He did that for years. That is how I got to know that this man will bounce back. He will not die with his problems. He had to sell some of his houses at that time. At that period, if you don’t die your hardtime will die. Something will outlive something. So my dad chose to outlive his problems. And he didn’t stop what he was doing.
My father didn’t leave film business and go and do another thing and say afterall this one ran me into debt.
He did many movies after Orun Moru. He did Mosebolatan. He did Agba Man, Awo Baba. He pressed on. He didn’t give up. And little by little he got back on his feet. He bought the same cars back again. He bought cars again. His kids were already growing up: so some bought cars for him I give God the praise for him.
That is why I was angry when some papers said Baba Sala is sick ooo! Baba Sala needs public fund. Baba Sala was never sick. Baba Sala never needed public funds. No.
My father never had a Stroke like it was being rumoured. Its old age. My father had become very old as at the time he died.
Remember, all his life, it was hardword all through. Hardwork tells at old age. I knew there was a time when he was in his 50s, he had problems with his legs. By the grace of God he walked again. My father never had a problem that is strange to his age. He went through all the phases of life and he bounced back. He died in his house. He was taken to the hospital in his car. He had a good life.
Talking about Baba Sala’s Orun Moru movie that was pirated, what do you think went wrong?
He was a young man then. He was in his 40s at that time. He was in the Prime of his age, when you are enthusiastic. We should remember that my father surrounded himself with family members. So, he was trusting. 90% of his work force are family members either his wives, his brothers, their wives, his cousins, nieces, uncles and so on. Or people related to them. It takes a man that loves his family to do that. He provides food for those who are hungry, even families that would have scattered he would employ both the husband and wife, to come and work with him. That is trust.
The 2nd thing was that, he took a big risk in an environment that is not insulated from risk, that is not risk-insulated. The kind of investment he made on Orun Moru only very few people can invest that much. He did like Ogunde.
But it seems the likes of Ogunde are Ijebu people. They understand that business more (laughs). My father is an Ijesha man. Ogunde is an Ijebuman. So, he took a risk. On one hand he was enthusiastic that he was taking a risk and it must not fail. One the other hand, which is the family side, he trusted his family members and they will not fail him. Both of them failed him.
The people who were involved in that theft were his workers. And I told you his work force were not strangers. They were family members. The same thing with the bank.
The bank is a Nigerian bank and they didn’t say it was because it involved Baba Sala and this thing was stolen that the debt will be written off. Yet, we know what happened in some banks and how the debts of those banks were written off.
We know what happened with Societe Generale Bank and Oceanic Bank. We just saw what happened to Skye Bank. What happened to Savannah Bank till today? Not much was done to help my dad then. Not much help was received. Sometimes it is when you get into trouble you realize you are loved. In Nigeria, many times the more popular you get, the more loved you become. I am popular myself, so I can tell you that. My dad died 2 days ago, I have received maybe up to 500 calls and messages but no single alert. If this 500 people visit me on that day of the burial, I will have to feed them. Producing a movie then was capital intensive.
People would travel. Producers will fly in, Cameramen would fly in. Equipments would be flown in. It was a huge investment. Remember Technology at that time was cumbersome. The truth is that it’s beyond what he could handle himself and unfortunately he did not receive help. May be that is part of what weighed him down at that time. Our society celebrated him so much then.
We should have helped him out when he ran into trouble. Are we saying if Baba Sala had suffered health problem at that time may be Nigerians would not have rallied round him then for his surgery abroad? That is what it implies. That is the implication. People love free things. He made them laugh for free. He made them smile for free. He made them happy for free.
And then, I am in trouble, you can’t rally round me.
