..She Took Me To Cinema, UI Zoo
In a piece bearing uncommon love in a polygamous family, the Chairman of the NCC and gubernatorial hopeful, Professor Adeolu Akande has taken to Facebook to pay glowing tributes to his step mother, Madam Alice Akande, who turned 72.
Hurray! My Third Mother is 72
She is my father’s third wife and my third mother.
I first met her during my school holidays at Sango in Ibadan in 1973. She owned a seamstress shop in the heart of Sango Market, overlooking the railway tracks and the cattle market.
Holidays at her house were always fun. She had several apprentices who handled house chores and treated me as the VIP of the house. She took me to the zoo at the University of Ibadan, and I guess my love for the Premier University has its roots in my youthful subconscious because of the serenity I experienced on our first visit to the zoo. It was a totally different world from Lagos, where there was so much buzz and noise.
She took me to the popular Kingsway Stores in Dugbe. Having grown up in Itire, Lagos, I was not accustomed to such luxury, especially the unlimited cruise in the escalator.
She took me to the now defunct Obisesan Cinema in Dugbe to watch Baba Sala live on stage.It was an experience I was never tired to relay to gain some stardom back home in Lagos especially while we watched the weekly broadcast of Baba Sala’s drama every Wednesdwy evening.
I was treated to privileges that would have earned me hot slaps of the slippers from my first and biological mother in Lagos if I had requested them.
I remember walking across the rail tracks in Sango with some of her apprentices in search of water in the swamps of Old Bodija in the mid-70s. My annual holiday with her in Ibadan became almost weekly visits when I lived with her elder brother who became my guardian at the Anwar-ul-Islam High School, Iseyin. Deacon Afolabi, (who remains one of my Guardian Angels to this day) had his family in Ibadan and came home every weekend. I tagged along as often as I could.
As endearing as all of these are, she earned my greatest respect and admiration when she did the unthinkable by offering her life in place of her dying son in 2013. It is a story for another day.
Lively, genial, prayerful, and ever compassionate, Mama remains energetic, agile and fit at 72. This is wishing her a happy birthday and many happy returns. May your days be long in good health and endless joy.
E jeun omo pe o. (Amin)
