What actually motivated you to go into politics?
It’s a long history, but I will make it brief, you see, I was born in an environment where local politics was the order of the day. You see those of us, who were born in the fifties, we were born into politics and the political era of Awolowo, Akintola among others, which led to the independence of Nigeria. You see, my family’s house used to be the center of attraction in my village. My mother was a local caterer and she prepared the local meals such as pounded yam with egusi and isapa soup early in the morning.
So, if as a visitor, you have not taken your meal in that compound, you have not visited the town. Different people came there on daily basis to take meals. So, the political class used to assemble in our house to discuss politics and I was always on standby to assist them.
So, gradually I developed interest and by the time I started primary school in 1967, I had the latest information regarding what was going on in politics, which cumulated into the civil war of 1966. So, by the time I was in secondary school, I was one of the few pupils, who were given latest information on what were going on in our society, I even engaged some of my masters in political discussion and my mother was an active member of the Action Group (AG) and UPN.
Her membership card is still with me. So, by 1979, when politics came back, I have grown I was a member of Awolowo Vanguard Corps, the youth wing of the UPN, I was member and the chairman in my constituency even while in secondary school, then we played politics in school when we elected prefect, I was elected the school librarian, so when I left secondary school for Hsc, I still did politics. In a nutshell, I will not say that I have been in politics all along. Back home then, when we were on holidays, I was always involved in different activities like school debate, teaching, organising parties in those days. So, all this influenced my not going into civil service.
You see, when I left the university in 1987, I just decided that I was not going to work in the civil service, because if I worked in the civil service, I will be limited to my table, if there was no files to push, though I taught for a while say 9 months and something happened. I was teaching in Orin in Ido/Osi local government area and Omoboriowo had defected to the National Party of Nigeria NPN and I heard in the morning that he would be coming to town.
The late Omoboriowo knew me as a young UPN man in those days and since he defected I have not seen him and I was teaching in a classroom when I heard that Omoboriowo and his team were in town. I left the classroom and being a UPN school, the principal didn’t allow anyone to go outside the school premises, but I found my way out and when I returned, the vice principal queried me for I disobeying the principal’s order to listen to the NPN campaign and I said yes, some of them were my friends as we were together before they defected to NPN and he said I could not do that as a civil servant.
That statement shocked me because I was an auxiliary teacher without a file in the schjool record. That was how I left teaching job to further my education and since then, I have not worked for a day aside my farming and politics. So, I won’t say it was that particular time that I joined politics or this reason why I joined politics, but I know that some of us took it as a life-long struggle. I have no regrets.
How do you relax despite your tight schedule?
You see, I have no stereotype lifestyle and I will say I’m a very simple person, who easily gets adapted to any situation I find myself. I relax by driving because I love driving, listening to good music and I use my Sundays to relax. Aside that, I love it when I’m in company of my friends, I’m more relaxed. And I don’t allow my position to get over me, so in a nutshell I will say, I recreate, but I don’t have a stereotype lifestyle.
