All the Myths, truth, lies and
the people I have Met this far
I was told or was given a
document indicating the day I was born as the 15th day of May 1965,
which I later discovered to be on a Saturday, in the morning around 10 am. As a
baby I could not remember anything I did that will be so significant to have
still be with me these far, but some the things I did and with the people that
were there and I could still remember were mostly with Olanrewaju Okedeyi in
the late 1969-70, we met when daddy used to take us to their house at bada
street in Idi-Oro , the street was at back of
saint paul primary school, idi-oro, later I think in 1969 they move into
our house on Ayonuga street, we were living on the ground floor, the few people
I could remember that we met at the house were the Anty Ranti, Egbon
Sunday, Remi Ogunbowale’s, later they had Taye, Idowu, Alaba Oni, Tosin they
were from Ijebu Atan, Madam comfort who was a reputable sew mistress the was
from Odogbolu town, so also were the Asaye’s the late egbon Sesan and me were
very close he went to saint paul primary school in Idi-oro and Ositelu Memorial
secondary school, Ogere which was their home town he had two senior brothers, both of whom were working at the electricity corporation of Nigeria, it later became known as NEPA and lately PHCN, names changing but getting worst in content delivery!
Before moving to number 32a,
yes it was 32a because there was a 32b, the two house were built by mr aina
from Ikenne town, the man had several houses in Lagos I could remember there was
one on post office road, Mushin and another at ayantuga street, mushin, he
lives in Ilaje street, Bariga and as at then early 1970s he was riding a range
rover and whenever he is around all the children were sure of one gift each. Baba
Onile as we all used to call Mr Aina then was a free giver and never seen to be
hard on any tenant at least while we were growing up there was never a story of
any family been forcefully sent packing from the house and we used to hear what
our parents say of baba Onile.
In the shops then were the
egbon Taju, Rasaki Salami their father was from Ijebu Modi-Mosan which happened
to be the home town of the father of my
mother from the onakoya in the akeja family lineage, the salam’s were Muslims
and their father a tall dark skin man sells cement in one of the shops facing ayonuga, in the late sixties till
the early eighties lots of roads were untarred in fadeyi, it was just emerging
from the popular igbobi autopeadic hospital, the only bus-stop then was the Igbobi
garage which was a big land that was facing the igbobi autopeadic hospital then
and it spread to akoronfayo street then there was no church and the petrol
station was the place molue buses uses as park. The place now call ANACO was not existing it
used to be an hotel called virginia hotel. At virginia hotel, there were lots of call girls and because of this, it sure had a fare share of patronage. It used to share from the popularity of the then famous
hotel bobby, whenever I remember the bobby Benson hotel I used to remember the
long white limousine we used to go and see at the front of the hotel, the limousine
belong to the popular musician bobby Benson and the owner of the hotel he sang
the popular song taxi driver. In the sixties
to the early seventies Ikorodu road was just a two lane road that stretched to
as far as sagamu town, yes sagamu because in those days we never went past
sagamu. We used to take to the road to sagamu and also come back through sotubo
my grandfather’s mother’s village, she was from Ijagba in sagamu, to Gbara
village, this is also an ijagba village to ogijo then passes through Ikorodu
town, then there used to be few bus stop on the way most of ketu mile 12 used
to be a swampy land and I still remember brother sakibu always getting down at
ayedere when coming back from sagamu, I
still remember watching the trees running with my dad’s Lada car no matter the
speed our Lada travels the trees will move with us and this used to be the part
of travelling to sagamu which we don’t like to mix for holidays and ileya
celebrations. As I grew up and started having friends there I added the
Christmas, the New Year and never will I ever forget the days Sabitu a popular
masquerade in offin, off Oyebajo street will go round the town. On the day the masquerade chooses to celebrate
its festival, several people from all over usually converge on sagamu and this
used to be in hundreds with long canes which they used to beat themselves, the
fun I had then I think was being among
the huge crowd that moves around usually the masquerades goes to the houses of
rich people he prays for them to live long to see several of the annual
celebration the few people that I was sure he used to visit annually was the
Late Baba pasuma’s house on araromi street, baba pasuma was segun’s (sotiminu)Victor
or is it Jagus house my friend had changed his name to Jagu, victor and others
all because he want to drop anything witch or is it oso, the mother
operates a small beer parlor and several
of the who is who in the town wait for the masquerade there, segun sotiminu was
one of the several friends that I had in sagamu then, he attended the imota high
school in imota and later he moved to lagos to live with Mrs Craig Longe the
wife of the formal secretary to the federal government, they were living at
alaka estate on the exit of surulere by national stadium`
Back to my growing up
years,
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