Akintayo David Ogungbemile, a retired Acting Comptroller General, Nigeria Customs Service, would join the septuagenarian club this week. In this interview with FUNSHO AROGUNDADE and FUNSHO BALOGUN in his Lagos home, Ogungbemile, also a lawyer, shares his experience as Customs boss and life at 70

You will be 70 in a couple of days. How do you feel about the new age?

I will give God the glory that I am where I am now. I would be celebrating my 70th birthday on the 17th of July in a country where the average life expectancy is less than 50 years. If I say that I am excited, it will be an understatement. But I am so happy to reach the age. When I was younger, I promised my God that when I attain the age of 70, I will give glory unto His name as well as write a book to highlight His grace upon my life. I am happy that I have fulfilled just that, as on that day, I will be presenting my new book which is titled ‘Abundant Grace’ at a modest ceremony with family and friends in attendance in Lagos.

Can you tell us about your beginning?            

I was born on 17 July 1945 into the Ogungbemile family of Ileje Street, Ijesa-Isu, Ekiti State. My father, Jeremiah Akande  Ogungbemile, like his forefathers, was a peasant farmer and my mother, Abigail Ariyewun Ogungbemile, a petty trader. I grew up in a polygamous household but my father was very keen on all his children receiving formal education. For me, school presented a viable and pleasurable alternative to accompanying my father to the farm. Hence, as soon as I was old enough, I didn’t need anyone to persuade me to go to school. In those days, school bag and sandals were not available for many of us, and my father could not afford such luxuries. For several years, I attended primary school without shoes and had quite gotten used to it to the extent that when in later years, I got my first pair of shoes, I wore them to the ‘bush latrine’ and forgot them there. From primary school, I went to Modern School which I didn’t like because some of my classmates went straight from primary school to secondary school. That brought out the rebellious trait in me but I was very careful with my father. Anyway I later found myself in secondary school. During vacation, I enjoyed following my elder brothers to hunt for rabbits and to the stream for fishing. In the evenings, I loved assisting my mother to hawk matches round the town and I occasionally followed her on foot on market days from our village to Ikole. I also spent more time listening to her moonlight tales. We were excited about choir practice because we had fun and it gave us a lot of joy. I also indulged in wrestling with my peer group and playing hide and seek games at the appearance of the moon. But some of these earned me many strokes of the cane from my disciplinarian father and class teacher for stubbornness. Those are some of my recollections of childhood.

•Akintayo David Ogungbemile

As a child, did you play some pranks?

I had a very interesting childhood experience as a restless boy. As a child, I possessed a stubborn streak. I had an inner voice that pushed me to be audacious and I embarked on escapades for a thrill. One of such opportunities to engage in a prank was the annual Ogun Festival in my village. On the day of the festival, it was the norm for the Oba to beat the town’s Ogun traditional Agba drum. We observed that on the day of Idagba usually at about noon, the people in the town, including those in the market, would leave whatever they were doing to assemble at the palace to witness the traditional drum being beaten by the king. In a particular year, a willing accomplice (friend) and I decided to deceive the people by beating our school drum and watch the people who thought it was the town’s traditional drum being sounded. Of course, two of us were members of the school band and I had access to the school’s drums. As the mother drum sounded loudly few minutes before noon on the festival day, the people trooped out from the market towards where the town’s traditional drum was normally mounted only to discover that the preliminary rites had not started. Meanwhile, my friend and I watched their reactions from our hiding place reeling with laughter. After a few minutes, we went to the market, mingled with the people and listened to their comments. Some actually rained abuses in annoyance. The people were confused as if they had experienced an auditory hallucination and after some minutes, went back to their homes and market stalls mystified. I also remember that during that festival, there were masquerades on acrobatic display to entertain children in particular. I was curious about what it would be like to dress up as a masquerade and typically, my curiosity led me to daringly go and participate in the masquerade displays. Boldly, I went to my father to request for an agbada (flowing gown), giving the impression that it was for someone else to wear as a masquerade.  He refused, saying it was against his Christian beliefs. But I persisted until he finally gave his consent and I borrowed his agbada. During the festival, he recognised his apparel and discovered that I was the masquerade passing by his house. He was livid that the son of a well known lay reader/preacher and Sunday school teacher had become a masquerade. But it was too late for him to apprehend me or retrieve his flowing gown.

You later left your town in Ekiti for university education in Ibadan. How would you describe your experience while in the university?

I had a very exciting experience in the University of Ibadan. I gained admission into the university in September 1969 to study Sociology. I was very active as one of the student union leaders in UI. I was privileged to be part of those who influenced the reversal of many unfavourable policies both in the campus and in the entire country. One of those incidents brought me in contact with the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. That was around 1971 and 1972 when university authorities in Nigeria threatened that students who fail to pay their tuition fees would be disallowed from taking their session examinations. Rather than taking the matter up with the university authorities, we chose to take the matter up directly with Chief Awolowo, who was then the Vice Chairman of Nigeria’s Federal Executive Council as well as the Federal Commissioner of Finance. We left Ibadan for his office in Lagos and without prior notice, he attended to us and after listening to our plea, he picked up the telephone and called Chief Wenike Briggs, who was the then Commissioner for Education to direct all universities not to prevent any student from writing their examinations over their inability to pay school fees.

Aside your activism, you studied Sociology at the University but ended up as a Customs officer. What informed that transition?

Firstly, Sociology taught me how to be smart and purpose filled. While studying in UI, everything fell into place for me. In fact, the university’s motto of ‘knowledge and sound judgment’ came into play in my future endeavours. With the knowledge I gained from my Sociology courses, I learnt to be less judgmental of people but to be more perceptive. Secondly, from my childhood days, I had wanted to be a journalist but God didn’t approve of it even though I prayed and fasted about it. After graduation, one of my brothers took me to meet one of the bosses at Daily Times who was his very good friend. The man told us that the newspaper was not meant for fresh graduates. That response actually put me off. After that time, I was now ready for any job. As God would have it, at that same period, government was looking for graduates to recruit into the civil service. One of my brother’s friends was also in charge of the interview for those who applied. I reluctantly applied but when the time for the interview came, I did not attend. Four months later, I changed my mind and went to meet my brother and told him that he should take me to the Federal Civil Service Commission to see his friend that was in charge of the interview. Fortunately, when we got to the secretariat, we ran into someone who knew my brother from their university days. After the pleasantries, my brother told him our mission and who we had come to see. He later told us that the man was on leave and in any case, he was not in charge of recruitment. The man later took us to the person in charge. When we got there, the person told us they had been instructed to shortlist 48 applicants for interview into the Department of Customs and Excise (it was a department at that time). I was asked to fill a form and he got me shortlisted for a job interview at the department then. I passed the interview and was employed as a Collector of Customs Grade II in November, 1972 and retired in March, 2004 while acting as Comptroller General.

How would you describe your experience while in the service of Customs?

It was a combination of unique, eventful, fascinating and life-threatening phases. I passed through the Customs’ rigorous training programme of two years for theory and practice which prepared me for 30 years of posting to different Customs formations in Nigeria. I was an instructor for four years at the Customs Training College, Yaba, Lagos. For years, I was carrying out enforcement duties in Rivers, Niger and Borno States. I was also on investigation/inspection duties for about four years in Abuja and Lagos. I was Area Controller for about six years in Lagos, and held management position for about seven years in Abuja Customs Headquarters. Each deployment culminated in a landmark achievement with appropriate awards from the ministers, state governors, the Comptroller General and corporate organisations, who were beneficiaries of my actions while in active service.

Your job was a risky one that involved tackling dangerous smugglers. How did you handle the hazards peculiar to your job?

To God be the glory that I left the service alive and healthy as acting Comptroller General. On three occasions, I escaped death doing my job. I was lucky but my driver was not so lucky on one of the occasions. He was shot by some people whose operations we bust. I was in charge of an investigation back then and we had adopted a method we call ‘Participant Observer’ in Sociology. To address the problem, I invited four officers that I trusted and co-opted them into the operation by asking them to pose as customers and go to the people we were investigating. At first, we wanted to invite the police but they dodged. We later bust their operation. That was why they wanted to kill me. A day before my driver was killed, we were in my official vehicle going to Agege, Lagos. Along the way, I had a foreboding that somebody wanted to hit me. The feeling didn’t allow me to rest. When the fear persisted, I shifted to the left side of the car and started searching the vehicle to know if somebody had planted something in it. But I didn’t see anything. The following day, I asked my driver to go and pick another driver and make sure that both of them came to pick me. By providence, the driver, the night before, rather than taking the car to the usual place where it should be parked, because it was raining and too late, parked it at a police station. The following day, he went to take the car to pick the other driver. The assailants, who were probably trailing me, thought I was in the car, opened fire on the vehicle and killed the driver. When they now discovered that I wasn’t there, they started threatening that the battle had just begun. After that incident, I was posted to Maiduguri, Borno State, to have some breather. While there too, I had to deal with petrol smugglers. But after many battles, I was posted back to Lagos.

You acted as Comptroller General of Customs for some time, but rather than being confirmed you were later retired. How did you feel when you received the news?

For me, it was time to think back and give glory to God for an excellent and eventful professional career. I must confess that I have been a beneficiary of God’s exceedingly abundant grace in my life. Immediately I received the message, I went into my prayer room, and I thanked and praised God for everything. I rolled on the floor of the prayer room from one end to the other, heartily thanking God for His mercy, divine grace, favour and direction. My family and I humbled ourselves in prayer of praise.

But why didn’t you lobby to be made the substantive Comptroller General?

I don’t have any regrets at all that I wasn’t made the substantive Comptroller General or lobby to be appointed. The enormous pressure and intrigues against me while I was acting as Comptroller General prepared me for the President’s decision. Besides, there was also another factor that would have made my choice a very tough one. Don’t forget that as at the time I was acting as the Customs boss under the administration of former president Olusegun Obasanjo, the Chairman, Federal Inland Revenue Service; the Auditor General of the Federation, the Managing Director/CEO of NNPC; the Inspector General of Police; and the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria were all from the South-west, and I am also from this region. It made it very easy for those lobbyists to ensure that my appointment was not confirmed especially as I had bluntly refused to lobby anybody for confirmation of my appointment.

You appear as a man with a strong faith in God. How did you become a man with such a strong faith?

I have always been in tune with my God right from the beginning, and I followed my dad to church. I was born a member of African Church but I joined a Pentecostal church and became born again after I married my wife. She worshipped at Pastor Chris Okotie’s Household of God Church. One day, she insisted that I should follow them (the family) to Pastor Okotie’s church and when I got there, I was swept off by his good command of language and mode of worship with music. However, I later left the church, and in fact the Pentecostal movement, when one day during service the same Okotie called out those who could not speak in tongues and asked them to line up so he can teach them. Of course, the activism spirit in me kicked against it because I felt that speaking in tongues should come naturally. I thought I didn’t need to be schooled before I could speak in tongues. So from that day, I stopped attending Household of God and went back to the Orthodox African Church. So, when you talk about one on one relationship with God, I learnt that from my father and when you talk about being born again, my wife was instrumental to that. Ironically, all through my university days, I didn’t attend church even for a day.