Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it, says the biblical King Solomon in his wisdom.
As Nigerians mourn the passage of the wife of APC Chieftain and former Osun State governor, Chief Bisi Akande, a love story has resurfaced to prove King Solomon right.
Akande’s wife, Omowunmi, died on Tuesday evening at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, at 73.
But the love story of Akande and his late wife appears to be one fire that even death cannot quench.
The late wife once told the story in a book written by Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu titled: Drama of Fate.
She told a frightening story of how a giant had wanted to beat her. As she ran blindly to escape his wrath, she dashed into the arms of a stranger who she held on to for protection, and the man later became her husband, Chief Bisi Akande.
Excerpts from Drama of Fate:
I was panting as I ran into the arms of Bisi Akande for safety and protection. With trepidation, I held tight to him, to save me from the anger of a giant. A man of immense frame was angry with me. He terrified me. He chased me with a view to capturing me and manhandling me. It was at Ila Communal Football Field in December 1961.
Both my father and mother were natives of Ila Orangun working as itinerant palm wine producer and marketer. The truth, however, was that I had never lived nor gone to school in Ila and I did not know the physical terrain or the social structure. I was born at Ilugun, near Olokemeji on the way between Ibadan and Abeokuta. I was raised at Ikire in Osun State where I had my primary school education before I proceeded to Baptist Girls’ Modern School at Idi-Aba, Abeokuta. It was my father’s desire that I should come back to marry an Ila man. This desire was more or less a condition for regular payment of my school fees. Therefore, at the end of each school term, I spent all my long holidays at Ila-Orangun.
In our quarters at Isedo, Ila Orangun, I knew two of my elder relatives who were primary school teachers, and who, also, regularly came to Ila similarly to spend their holidays. One is Akinlabi Odejide(Popularly called Akin Odejide), a former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Local Government in Osun State. The other is Archdeacon Folorunsho Popoola, now a priest of the Anglican Mission of Nigeria. Each time I went to Ila on holidays, I was always on hand to help them carry out their errands, including efforts to entertain their friends with snacks and drinks. Occasionally, I used to see Bisi Akande with them. Apart from my being always too shy to deal with my elder relatives’ friends, Bisi’s visits were always too casual for me to take any special notice about. So, I did not really know him intimately. Moreover, I was about 17 years old. In those days, it would have been too presumptuous for a school-girl of my age to relate to such strangers coming to visit my elder relatives.
However, on a fateful Saturday, around Christmas time, I noticed that my elder brother, Akin Odejide, left for the Communal Football Field in a very smart black trousers with green striped long-sleeved shirt. As a young school sports girl, I, out of curiousity accompanied my other elder relative, Folorunsho Popoola, to the same field. It turned out that while Akin Odejide was joining one of the playing teams, Folorunsho was warming up to be one of the linesmen. When the match started , even though I was left without any companion, I was eager to enjoy the match as a supporter to Isedo team for which my elder brother was playing.
In the process, I saw Bisi Akande dressed in the same uniform like a twin brother to my elder brother- Akin Odejide. I felt secure but I did not go to him because, he, too, was as busy as the other spectators. Suddenly, I encountered someone like a giant. So huge was the man! By my standard in December 1961, I thought he looked like a giant monster. I had not seen such a tall and huge man before. Maybe I was not discreet in the manner I set my bewildered gaze on him. He grew offended. At the same time, he rushed at me, and shouted, “Why are you looking at me like that?” With a terrible sense of terror, I rushed into Bisi Akande’s arms. It was the first time I had to put myself under the protection of someone I did not know intimately.
Chief Bisi Akande, then a young school teacher in the same school with my elder brother, Mr Odejide, decided to leave the field before the final whistle of the game. It became safer for me to follow him to avoid further harassment from “the giant” whose name I later learnt to be Tunde Obaafa was a former Local Government policeman and a former schoolmate to Bisi Akande at Ila Native Authority Primary School, Oke Aloyin. Our first place of call after leaving the field was the place of Mr Bayo Laniyan at Ile Elekian Abobaku near the market place. He was then a student at Ondo/Oyo Joint Provincial Teacher’s College, Ile-Ife. He had just been bereaved, having lost an immediate younger brother. At his place, we met two girls, who were somewhat older than I was…but I recognized them, eventually, some years later, as Mrs Aduke Odetayo (Mama Yemi) and her late sister, Mrs Dupe Ojo. They were both casting some furtive but embarrassing looks at me and, at the same time, whispering some conspiratorial gossips about bisi and me. At my nudging, we decided not to stay long. As we got out of the house, I quickly requested Bisi Akande to escort me to my aunt’s place at Ile Oyebon in Okejigbo quarters.. There, I was surprisingly embarrassed. Everybody welcomed us with some ecstasy as if Bisi had been known to them as my fiancé. They were praying for both of us and praising me for bringing him to visit them. I was dumbfounded and could not confess again that I had just met him a few hours earlier. That time, I had not assessed him as fit for any relationship. He too never indicated any romantic desire towards me. We later returned to my father’s house at Ile Elekian Amonija, Isedo in the early hours of the evening that day. For fear of similar embarrassment, I cleverly did not invite him to enter into our house. I bade him good night in front of the house.
He took the opportunity of our parting talks to date me for somebody’s birthday a few days later. On our way to the birthday party, we saw Prof. Lamidi Fakeye, the sculptor, later of Obafemi Awolowo University, in front of his house. He expressed happiness at seeing me with his beloved “boy” or “friend”, and his welcome suggested similar ecstasy expressed at my aunt’s place a few days earlier. He asked us to pose for several photo snap shots. At the birthday party, the welcome was much more embarrassing. There were catcalls, jests, jokes and heckling. Some girls were hugging and others, including young men were toasting us new arrivals – all in romance moods. Bisi Akande knew them. I had not met any of them before. A lady who, a few years later, became known to me as Mrs Fade Adeniji (Mama Nike), was the Master of Ceremony. She called the celebrant, Mr Dokun Oyefara of Ile Ejemu, Iperi quarters, to the high table. The man who later became her husband, (Major) Bayo Adeniji, (now the Balogun of Ila Orangun), was announced as the chairman. I nearly fell down with embarrassment when she announced my name as the Lady Chairman and invited me to the high table. Almost simultaneously, she dragged another girl, then called Miss Bimpe Dada, to sit on the seat nearest to Bisi Akande- while the MC, Fade herself sat on his other side. Both of them hemmed him mischievously in the middle. The chairman of the occasion had then taken over the control of the ceremony. The drama meant nothing to me, since Bisi had not said anything romantic to me.
I thereafter, accompanied him to several public outings like plays, funeral and wedding ceremonies during the twelve days we spent together at Ila on holidays. For the rest of my holidays, Bisi Akande was keeping me to himself, but without suggesting anything romantic. The more I tagged along with him with innocent intention, the more people read romantic meanings to our association. The more that situation caused me embarrassment, the more I thought I needed him as a big brother through whom I could make friends among my peers of Ila extraction. His constant offer to take me out for the Christmas and New Year youth activities enhanced my enthusiasm to learn more about Ila environment and its people. I was to leave for Ikire to see my mummy and to leave Bisi behind at Ila. He saw me to the motor park and bought me a nice seasonal card and a sweet, costly packet of biscuits.
Bisi had two friends at Abeokuta who also came to Ila on holidays – Tony Ogundele who was then a student at St Leo’s Catholic Teachers College, and Jimoh Abimbola, also then a student of Mac-Job Grammar School. Through Tony Ogundele, Bisi sent me a lpve letter asking me to think about the possibility of becoming his future wife. From that time, and for a whole term, both Tony and Jimoh came to see me, as middlemen, on all our visiting days. Then, in our school, we only had visiting days to receive visitors but we had no outing days for going to meet people out of the school compound except for end-of-term holidays, when we had to travel to our parents. Therefore, I could not return their visits in their schools. I sent Bisi’s love letter to my elder brother, Akin Odejide, for advice and guidance. He happily supported the idea of a marriage between Bisi and me. We both became intimate friends thereafter. I was happy that Bisi did not rush me into anything or disturb my studies. Rather, he encouraged me to study harder for as long as I desired. He too was always a private student until he left for Lagos in 1963. I was afraid to travel to Lagos in those days, unaccompanied. He too had no time to visit me until 1965 when he was transferred by his employers- the British Petroleum- to Ibadan. I was already a midwifery student at the Baptist Welfare Centre, Iree, now in Boripe Local Government Area of Osun State.
Unfortunately, my mother opposed our relationship from the beginning because, according to her, Bisi was supposed to be a relative to my father. I therefore could not put the matter directly to my father until I had finished my schooling and got fixed in a job. One day in 1966, after four years of courtship, Akin Odejide took Bisi to my father at Oyi Obasinkin in Ifedayo Local Government and secured his consent. Both of us were very happy. We got married in December 1966 and have had cause to thank God for blessing our union with children and grandchildren.
The irony of the whole episode has been that my husband was perhaps more loved by my parents than me. He was regarded as the first son to my mother and father until they both passed on. One thing we both have not experienced since we married was to live separately except for the three years (1984-1986) when he was incarcerated by the military government in Kirikiri and Agodi Prisons.
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