[caption id="attachment_38938" align="alignright" width="400"] Professor Segun Gbadegesin[/caption] Segun Gbadegesin is a Professor of Philosophy and was Head of Department of Philosophy and Deen, College of Arts and Sciences, Howard University, Washington DC. He received his B.Sc in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (First Class)from the University of Ife, Nigeria; M.A. and Ph.D in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For his 70th birthday ( 20th December), he will present the book he wrote, entitled, All The Way: Serving With Conscience to the public at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, Lagos tomorrow, Monday, 21 December. In this interview with Ademola Adegbamigbe (and Idowu Ogunleye who snapped the shots), Gbadegesin reflects on his life and speaks on the state of the nation Q:Prof., congratulations on your 70th birthday. We want you to reflect on your years so far? A: I appreciate your coming at this time, I am very grateful for considering me fit to be interviewed on this occasion, and more importantly I would like to thank the leadership of The NEWS and PM NEWS for what you have stood for and for the courage with which you have endeavoured to project the Nigeria of our dream, not the reality that we have now, but what we all think could be, and you have been at the forefront of that, all these years. The sad experiences of incarceration didn’t really discourage you from continuing in the part of probity and in the cause of justice, fairness and democratic norms; so individuals like you and institutions like yours have been inspirational to some of us. Now, reflection on turning 70. That’s something for which I would have to primarily give glory to God because it is all due to his grace and my understanding of grace as unmerited favour (and mine is unmerited in several respects). I am not a saint, I didn’t take my health seriously but here I am. I didn’t even know that I will be 70. When I turned 60, I told my children ‘well all of you should try and do whatever thing you want to do in my presence because I am not sure whether I will be 70.’ In terms of reflections on the nation, let me take a cue from the title of Chinua Achebe’s controversial book, “There Was A Country”. We really used to have a country. You cannot compare the primary schools of those days with the secondary school of these days. In Primary one, I was already reading yet I didn’t start reading before going to school because my parents were non literates and so it was the hard work of the teachers that helped me such that at the end of my infant one, I was a fairly good reader for my age. Now, I am not sure that the dedication of the teachers in those days is comparable with what you have now. I still have some of my teachers alive and when I reflect back on what they did and the sacrifices they made in making me whom I am, I am always grateful. Teachers were like second parents in those days. You just could not afford to misbehave in their presence. And when you were out of school, you had to behave well because when the teachers got to know that you didn’t behave well out of school, then, of course, you were subjected to serious punishment. Again, parents handled their children well in those days. The first fifteen years of my life were transformational because every value that I hold dear now, I learnt them in those days. And my bondage to conscience as discussed in the book can be traced to that time. The idea that, “No, you cannot do that. It is not done”, that’s when I got it, whether in the school during devotional services, or during devotional services at home, or in the reaction of elders to infractions. My father, who was such an influence on me, was a devoted Christian but, more importantly, he was a morally conscious man. So the idea that you go into a position of influence, a position of authority, and you mess up, never crossed anybody’s mind in my household, or the generation of students that I associated with. Where did the rain start beating us? I think up to 1962, especially in the South West, we still had a very good system of education, politics, even economic system due in large part to the vision of Chief Awolowo and his group. They ensured that human development or the development of the human being was paramount in their thinking and was the driver of whatever they did. That mattered a lot - it mattered a lot that they focused on education; it mattered a lot that they focused on social development. To me, therefore, the foundation of the South West was laid in those years. The unfortunate turn around, the negative transformation, started from the time Awolowo left the Western Region. Yes it was good to have an alliance with others, but they went about it in a way that jeopardized what was already working. The Action Group as a political party was working, everything was moving in the right direction. Then we wanted to have a mainstream approach because we saw others benefitting from the national cake and we were not. But even before independence, the West was doing even much better than other regions and that was because of the vision of Chief Awolowo. And, of course, you know the rest is history. The gamble led to the collapse of the first republic and we have never recovered from that. Now, why does this matter? It matters because, that was the beginning of abandonment of a true federal structure. When the military came, it reverted to a unitary system that effectively destroyed the federal system. And when in 1979 the civilian government came back, it was never the same again. You may recall that the Shagari administration toyed with the idea of Presidential Liason Officers (PLO) for the states. It is incredible to me that a country of our structure, nature, will not allow true federalism to work because of the interest of some particular groups. How can right thinking people, with all the economic and political indices that show that it is the best option for this country of diverse peoples rubbish the practice of federalism? It is simply mind boggling for me and unless we get that straight, even with a strong two party system, we will still be wandering in the political jungle. That is why I said we are far from where we ought to be and I don’t think we are making good progress even now towards that end. The structure is the most important thing. If we get the structure right, everything will follow. If we don’t get the structure right, we are just doomed. It is incredible to me that a country of our structure, nature, will not allow true federalism to work because of the interest of some particular groups. How can right thinking people, with all the economic and political indices that show that it is the best option for this country of diverse peoples rubbish the practice of federalism? It is simply mind boggling for me and unless we get that straight, even with a strong two party system, we will still be wandering in the political jungle. It has been 70 years of grace personally. But I would love it to be 70 years of progressive development for the country I love so dearly. Unfortunately, that has not been the case. We have taken one step forward, two steps backward these many years. And the potentials for greatness are there for the country if we just do away with our selfish, ethnic, clannish interests—if we allow national interest to supercede. Q: We want you to talk on the making of this book, how long did it take you to write it? As I mentioned in the preface, I started thinking about this book more than ten years ago. In June 2005, I was on my way to Nigeria from the US. I boarded Air France from Washington Dulles airport. By the time we got to Paris, the flight to Nigeria had left, so we had to be accommodated overnight in Paris. It was in the hotel room that the thought just occurred to me: why do we as Nigerians especially have to go through this hassle of connecting at European airports? Why can’t I go to Lagos from Washington directly? What’s wrong with our national carrier? How did we get to this sorry state? Somehow I also got to think that, well maybe I should be getting something down, not just on my years of life but on the years of the life of my country, with critical reflections on all the vicissitudes of life that the country had gone through. I proposed in my dream to give it the title “Count Down to 60”. Well, that was too ambitious because that was summer and my 60th birthday was December. So I abandoned that and then started working on it gradually with some modifications. It didn’t actually pick up steam until January this year. So I started this effectively and finished it from January to October this year. Q: The point basically is that you had the book in your head... A: It was just a question of getting it down on paper and that was what happened. Q:Do you still remember the friends of Okeho of your early years? A: Yes, certainly. I am very fond of Okeho. Interestingly, I just had occasion to chat with Professor Bolaji Aluko and his wife recently when they received their invitation to the book launch and birthday events. To their comment that I was going to celebrate my birthday in the “village”, I quickly corrected them, saying “No, it is not the village; it is “New Nigeria.” “ Okeho, to me is New Nigeria. The innocence of spirit is still there, people still work very hard, even though there are frustrations all over. We have never had pipe borne water in Okeho. [caption id="attachment_38940" align="alignright" width="400"] Segun Gbadegesin[/caption] There was a time when the Okeho Development Association started a pipe-borne water scheme. It didn’t actually materialize for several reasons. Now there is The Ikere Gorge dam in Iseyin . It was started way back in the 70s and got completed in the 80s or early 90s. We were told could service the whole of Oke-ogun water and irrigation needs. But till now, it is one of the sad realities of our federal system that the dam is just rotting away. Generally, Okeho people are enterprising and the development has been relatively rapid in recent years. We have a new Kabiyesi, not so new, he is more than 10 years on the throne. He is very dynamic. I know that the future is very bright for the town. [caption id="attachment_38939" align="alignright" width="400"] Segun Gbadegesin[/caption] Q:Do you remember any of your teachers? A:I had very hardworking teachers who had a lot of influence on me in those days especially in my elementary school years. Some of the teachers came from outside Okeho. One that I specifically remembered was my teacher in infant one who was a woman, married to another teacher in the town, Mrs Adegbile. She was kind, generous and loving. Mr and Mrs Adegbile loved children to the extent that when they were leaving, they wanted me to come with them. They talked to my parents and, of course, that was a non starter for my mother especially because I was an only child. The others were equally very good to me. Mr Okesiji, now deceased, who was my teacher in primary five and Mr Abokede, who was my primary six teacher. I remember an episode that I narrated in the book when I was in primary six. Mr Okesiji, who was my primary five teacher, was a good football player. He had an accident in the field the previous year when we were in primary five so he was gone for some time. In primary six, Mr Abokede became my teacher and one day, during a recess, I and my fellow classmates were just chatting in class and I looked through the window on the football field and I saw that Mr Okesiji was playing. That was the first time I saw him playing after he had the accident and I shouted in excitement, “my teacher, my teacher is playing soccer again, this is great.” I didn’t know that Mr Abokede, who was my current teacher, was just entering the class. Before I turned around, the entire class was quiet. I looked back and saw Mr Abokede . He said, “Have you seen me play soccer before?” I was embarrassed and I said “No sir, it was Mr Okesiji that I was referring to”. He laughed and didn’t take it seriously. So the point is once my teacher always my teacher. I took to teaching partly because of the good experience with my teachers and also because my father loved teaching. He once told me that teaching was a secure job, you don’t have the challenge of envy, no jealousy. You teach your students, if they do well, they respect you and you are happy. Preaching is the other job he loved very much because preachers are men of God. They don’t harbor any grudge; there is no jealousy there too. He was particularly concerned about being in good relationship with everyone. I took to teaching but for a few years I was in banking after obtaining the grade two teacher training certificate. I just taught for six months and then went into banking, National Bank of Nigeria. That was just for about three years prior to my admission to the University. After my university education, I went back to civil service just for about five months, from August to December and after that it has been teaching all through at the university level. So I enjoy teaching very much. Q: Many philosophers don’t believe in God. Why do you believe in God? I think it was Francis Bacon who gave a very sublime quote that the little science makes you an atheist but deep knowledge of science makes you a believer in God. We can probably say the same thing about philosophy and faith. It doesn’t mean that there are no occasions for skepticism; it comes with the philosophical territory because we are dealing with matters of mind and spirit. The mind is the vehicle for reasoning, and reasoning sometimes leads in the direction of atheism, simply because there are certain issues including religious and spiritual issues that you cannot deal with, within the purview of reasoning. Take for instance the belief in God and the existence of God - it is going to be just by faith. The belief in God is just through faith, not through reasoning. You cannot go far enough with any attempt at proving God’s existence as philosophers like Descartes had to realize once confronted with serious objections to their purported proof because you just cannot prove it as you can prove 2 plus 2 equals 4. However that doesn’t mean that you cannot believe in the existence of God and find some justification for such a belief through your life experiences. Because again we are subjects of mind and subjects of spirit. And it is the spirit that leads through faith in the existence of God. We are not just rationale beings. If you invoke the spirituality of your being then it leads you directly to believe in the existence of God and that’s the way I have managed to relate to it Sometimes, you know, reason still intrudes, so when I sit down in church and I listen to the sermon and I wonder how can one process this through reasoning. Take, for instance, the issue of Judas Iscariot. Judas apparently was destined to betray Christ. If Judas did not betray Christ, Christ would probably not die. But if Christ did not die then there would be no salvation.So why do we condemn Judas? Does it make sense to condemn Judas for betraying Jesus, if you follow reasoning? Of course, it doesn’t. Q:Some people say he didn’t confess his sins, just like Peter, otherwise, he would have been forgiven. A: Yeah, repenting is different because that would come after the fact. But really, how else can someone be expected to repent? The poor man went and committed suicide because he knew what he did was wrong and to me that is the ultimate form of repentance. But the point is that as human beings, we continue to blame Judas. Christ also led us in that direction because he himself suggested that it is written that the son of man will die but woe unto him through whose hand this is accomplished, meaning that yes I must die but the one who betrays me, woe unto him. If you follow reasoning you cannot reconcile these pronouncements. It is not a matter of reasoning. It is a matter of faith and belief. Q:What other values do you live by? A: I mentioned in the book about accepting a position of responsibility and ensuring that you carry out what is involved in that position. I was elected president of Egbe Isokan Yoruba in Washington DC in 1994. I saw that as a huge responsibility especially at that time and so I invested my whole being into it. I tell people that if I had not been made a full professor with tenure, I could not have carried out the activities of Egbe Isokan Yoruba and Egbe Omo Yoruba. I would probably not have gotten full professorship because it was like a full time responsibility for me. Whatever I put myself into, I do it to the best of my ability and that’s what I did, certainly with the help of many individuals both in Egbe Isokan Yoruba and Egbe Omo Yoruba. I couldn’t do that alone. My wife played a significant role I n those activities. It was the same thing with my appointment as chair of Department of Philosophy, and later associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In fact I did that to the point that I had heart problems and had a major heart surgery during my time in the office of the dean - that was because I focused so much on what I needed to do. Nothing for me is more important than doing my utmost best in whatever position I was honoured or I am honoured to serve and I think those who have been my friends and associates can say that much about me now. Q:Where did that value come from? A:Again I think it came directly from my father and indirectly from all other sources that he had exposed me to including church, social groups. My father was a stickler to values and he introduced me right from the beginning to the importance of being responsible in whatever position you find yourself. He was a man who will do the most whenever there was any assignment. I remember in those days when a relation died, everybody was gathered around especially young men to dig the grave at the back of the house. My father will volunteer for everything and so that got to me and then it has been my role to do as much as possible whenever duty calls. I also think that moderation in everything you do is important - especially in the area of material possession which has not been a strong value that many of our people hold dear; but it is very important. I think the craze for material possession is driving us to a negative territory in this country. How much can anyone expect to own and what do you make of it in the final analysis? My father was moderate in terms of material things. He didn’t leave me anything but he left me more in terms of moral values and in terms of what he invested in my education. I can never forget that. Even now I don’t have anything to leave for my children but they have education and they are making it on their own. Why does one need to accumulate so much in order to leave material things for children and are the children going to be able to be on their own? What will be their value system? That is one thing I think that is driving this craze for material accumulation. “My children and my grand children will not suffer.” “My great grand children will not suffer and so on.” But for goodness sake why don’t you let children work on their own, give them the resources to work on their own, so that they are in a good position to live their lives the way they would like it to be. I think that is very important. I don’t want to belittle the importance of wealth. The fact that I don’t have it doesn’t mean that it is not good but am just saying this in terms of the development of children. They need to be imbued with the value of hard work. Every child needs to work hard to make things for him or herself and the nation would be a lot better off. I applaud wealthy individuals abroad especially those who give out their money to charity because they would like their children to work hard and create their own wealth. But there are needy people and they want the needy people to benefit because they didn’t have the kind of background that the wealthy children have. So if you are a child of a wealthy person, your education will be invested in and that gives you the head start and that’s all anyone needs. It is the same thing with the society, you know, just as it is with individuals it is with society. We missed the point initially and that’s why we are suffering now. When Chief Awolowo was asking all to invest human development - human capital - from the bounty that we had as a nation, he was talking sense but he wasn’t taken seriously. If a nation has the kind of resources that we had and we invested in education, building up our educational institutions, by this time we shouldn’t be thinking about negative things. We shouldn’t be having cultists in our universities and even in secondary schools. So we missed that opportunity and now we are paying for it dearly. There used to be a time when oil was selling for above $100 per barrel. Now it is about $30 something and we are still having many children born on a daily basis, minute by minute. So we compound issues because first, we don’t invest wisely, and second, we have not taken seriously the need to control our population. But when one makes this observation, people say it is elitist, Whenever I visit and I see the sea of heads on our street corners, market places and airport front yards, and I see that we don’t make provisions for these sea of heads, I wonder when this ticking bomb will blow up in our face because what we are doing is putting the nation at risk. I hope that we will get it right before a violent revolution erupts like a volcano and consumes all of us. How is it that we bring up children into the world and we don’t care for them as a nation? How is it? And what do you expect of them? I mean we talk about militancy now, but do we not pay attention to the common saying that the devil finds job for an idle hand? What do you expect when people are hopeless? They don’t see anybody thinking about them. Sure, we are now talking about giving N5000 to graduates, and what’s that going to do? And is that the right way to invest our resources? APC appealed to everyone, as you know, as a party of change but APC now needs to change. I supported APC because the alternative would have been very disastrous in the country. The revelations are now there to show that the country under PDP was heading for the boulder of destruction. However, change should mean more than just replacing an inept government with a new government if that new government also becomes inept. The way things are now there is still a chance for APC to reboot. Six months is still ok but I wonder whether the spirit is there for rebooting or whether it’s just the competition again for material accumulation and for selfish aggrandizement that is driving the party. That makes me emotional when I think about that. Is this what everybody wanted as change? Just as I was saying in 1999/ 2000, is this what democracy is all about? Is this what change is about? Some people came to this change idea just to boost their own ego but not for the country. Look at what happened at the National Assembly. It’s just so tragic and sad. I just hope that the president assumes full control. Right now they are saying it is all about 2019 but even the president has not said that he is not running in 2019. I don’t know what the politicking is all about. Even if it is about 2019, shouldn’t the party prepare itself for that victory in 2019? If everybody is running against each other now where is the party going to be in 2019? That is something I cannot figure out? [caption id="attachment_38943" align="alignright" width="1000"] Segun Gbadegesin[/caption] Q: We have a worry here about monetization of politics now, compared to the First and Second Republics. What is your take on that? Q: That is interesting because there was virtually no money in politics in those days as far as I know. Across Yoruba land in the First Republic, politicians invested all they had in the system but made no money on their own. That was the spirit in those days. Those people did not have mansions; but their children did well. It was not an era of security vote. The lesson then is that the nation must refocus. Invest in your children and let us collectively invest in the nation’s children and then we can expect to reap bountiful fruits in the future. I think monetization started with the Second Republic, if we talk about civilian politicians but way before that if we talk about military politicians who got us into this. Q: Together with your wife, you successfully raised a crop of very good children. Do you want to share with us how you managed to do that? A: Well thank you very much again. I think I gave credit first to God of course, and to my wife. In particular, I would say something about what I also wrote in the book with respect to public education. I am a product of public education, not private education. My father couldn’t afford it. It wasn’t even that available those days, but public education – primary, secondary, teacher training, excellent institutions for the development, not just academic, but of social and moral character of children. My children also are products of public education. None of them attended any private school, and I gave the reason in the book. When we came back from the US, after completing our various programs in 1980, my son Muyiwa was admitted to the Unity School Ilorin, in 1981. My wife and I sat down and talked about it. The first thing that occurred to me was that we won’t be able to supervise his character development, and that was primary for me. I knew that wherever he was he would do well academically but I wanted to be able to be in control of his character development and so we talked about it and of course my wife, who was also and still is a very loving mother, didn’t want to have any separation from her children. Fortunately for us, Moremi High School was on the campus of the University of Ife at that time and it was a very good secondary school. The principal was a good disciplinarian, and he was able to have full control of the character and academic development of the children. That’s why we decided that Muyiwa should enroll there and that’s what was replicated for others – everyone enrolled there with the exception of our baby daughter who went with me in 1989 at age 8 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When I had my sabbatical, she was the only one who didn’t take the exams to Unity schools. Every one of the others took and was admitted, but they declined to attend because we wanted them to have the exposure to that family character education. Thankfully, it turned out to be ok. It is good to have varieties of educational experiences for children, a mix of public and private but it seems to me now that what is happening is the gradual abandonment of public education in favour of private education. I think that is bad for the country, in the sense that education is still the avenue, the source for inculcating national values in children. I don’t mean to suggest that private education doesn’t inculcate values, because private education providers include Christian and Muslim religious institutions. However, if we think in terms of national values and which institution is the best equipped for inculcating those, it is the public education system and we need to revamp those institutions. If you go round public institutions today, you see class rooms dilapidated , you see roofs blown off, you see children sitting under trees. I think that is sad, it is tragic. My children had the benefit of their education there right from their primary school education through their secondary schools. Even in their university education, they were with us because before we left they were at the University of Ife? So we bonded together. It is not easy to separate us. They have that sentimental attachment to us and I think we have that to them as well. I am thankful for them; I am grateful to them for that. That we were able to mould them in the way that we wanted and they accepted because you may want to mould them and they fail to accept. So we thank God. Q:Now how did you meet this great woman you have been talking about? A: Some symbolic things happened to me on December 20, 1969. That was when I turned 24. The first symbolic thing that happened to me was that I was able to defer my admission to the University of Ife, effectively on that day. I had been admitted to the University of Ife, I resigned my appointment in the National Bank to take up that admission but it turned out that I had to withdraw my resignation from National Bank because I couldn’t afford to pay the fees. I couldn’t afford it at that time. Shortly after I withdrew my resignation and returned to the bank, something interesting happened. The manager of the bank was Mr S.G.O. Agbabiaka, a very good human being, a good manager. That morning he called me to his office and he had in his hand The Daily Sketch of that day, and he asked if I had seen The Daily Sketch. I answered “No.” So, he turned the pages and there was the list of Western State scholarships for that year to the University of Ife. My name was there on the list and I didn’t know. The scholarship was meant for the semester that just started but from which I had withdrawn because I didn’t have enough funds to go. So I thanked him and I said “well, I have come back to the bank and I don’t know what to do.” He suggested that I should go and see the Senior Assistant Registrar of the university, Mr Alex Olu Ajayi, who was then visiting Ibadan. He was staying at the Premier Hotel and so I went there. Mr Ajayi promised that he would do whatever we could do for me to not miss the opportunity. However it was not feasible for me to start with the 1969 class because they had started classes and matriculated. Therefore my admission had to be deferred till the following year. I thanked him. It was on December 19 that I went to Ife and I returned on December 20 and so my admission was deferred and I returned with joy in my heart. It was on that same day that I met my future wife so that’s why I said symbolic things happened on December 20, 1969. That’s how we started and it’s been a wonderful 45 years of marriage. On our way here, we were agonizing over the deplorable state of the University of Ife. What can really be done to bring back the glory of that University? When I completed my first degree at Ife, every university that I applied to for graduate studies admitted me. They offered me admission, no questions asked. That was how excellent the academic reputation of Ife was. But it was not about academic reputation alone, which of course was the most important thing. But there was also environmental reputation - the most beautiful campus in Africa was how Ife was referred to. Scholars came from all over the world. In fact, we had expatriates just wanting to be at Ife. How did we come to this sorry pass? I know that faculty members are working very hard. I know that there are still individuals there who take their responsibilities as seriously as Prof. Hezekiah Oluwasanmi. However the system is not working because of the various obstacles and these include political obstacles. Everywhere in the academic world, universities are autonomous. You don’t dabble into the governance situation of the university just because you are providing funding. Even state universities in the US and in Europe are autonomous, they have their own presidents, the equivalent of vice chancellors, the councils, the boards of trustees are strictly responsible for that. But here it is a different ball game as if we were different species. We say the one who pays the piper must dictate the tunes, and that’s how we get ourselves into all sort of things. Certainly funding is very important and if the universities are given the right direction, I am sure that they will secure funding for their various programmes. But that has not always been the case because the federal government is responsible for most of the universities apart from the state governments and the private ones now. But let’s talk about the federal universities. The idea is that every state will have at least one federal university. That appears to be our policy direction and I guess it is because we want to be fair to every state. But why multiply entities without necessity? It is certainly not far out to suggest an alternative arrangement in which we have very strong zonal federal universities with satellite campuses throughout the zone. Compare the University of Wisconsin system with its Chancellor and campus scattered throughout the state of Wisconsin. Or why not encourage inter-university collaborations on research and instruction. Certainly, universities do not all have to cover every major degree program. For instance, between Ife and Ibadan, there are areas of collaboration. There are things they can do together that don’t have to be replicated in both universities. It seems to me that what is happening is that the federal government needs a way of projecting itself across the nation and one way of doing it in its own mind is to ensure that every state, every zone has the presence of the federal government without giving the requisite resources and without encouraging them effectively. The alumni of the universities can also do a whole lot more. I am an alumnus of Ife. The only branch of the university that has ever been in contact with me was the Faculty of Arts. However, the University of Wisconsin Alumni Association, the College of Letters of the University of Wisconsin, and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Wisconsin constantly bombard me with letters of appeal which always include details of what was going on at any one tome. I hope that it is not the sense at our universities that government will do everything for them. It has never worked that way. Q: What will you be doing in Okeho that you are retiring to? A: We have a Foundation. My children are the brains behind it. Education of course is our own strength and so we are going to try to bring that to bear on the educational development of the town, not just in Okeho but also Eruwa where my wife came from. We will give scholarships to students. I have actually reached out to principals of secondary schools in Okeho and Eruwa to nominate students for scholarships for this year. This is the year we are starting but it will continue and then of course not just scholarships but also providing assistance for programmatic instructions from time to time – at least getting the students on the right path before it is too late. That is how my wife and I were able to make it. So we will be doing that. Secondly, the health issue is something we are going to take seriously. Muyiwa was the Commissioner of Health under Governor Abiola Ajimobi’s administration. When they went around for health screening, he came to the realization that many of our people are in dire need of help with respect to health issues and that’s not the first time this has occurred to me. When I was involved as a research assistant in a sponsored public health research, during my undergraduate years, the problem was there. So where we are going to start by providing assistance for preventive health and we are lucky that Oyo state is one of the states that now has this health insurance scheme. We are going to assist with the premiums for health insurance of some of the members of the community, so that not having the funds will not prevent them from having to see the doctor. When I hear people say proudly that they have not seen the doctor in twenty years, I conclude that they don’t know what they are saying. You don’t want that because seeing the doctor at least once a year is not just curative, what is important about seeing the doctor every year is prevention and catching any ailment early enough for management to succeed. Okeho is honouring you with a cheiftancy title. What chieftancy title is this? Well, I resisted this for a long time but what happened was this. In 2005, during my 60th birthday anniversary, my wife and I were given chieftaincy titles from Iganna. Since then Kabiyesi, Oba Rafiu Osuolale Mustapha, Adeitan II, the Onjo of Okeho has been putting pressure on me. He has a sound argument to the effect that if my wife and I didn’t have any problem receiving chieftancy titles from Iganna, why should we have any philosophical problem receiving chieftancy titles from Okeho? It came to a head when I told him that my 70th birthday was coming and we are going to celebrate it with a book launch. He was then on pilgrimage to Mecca. He wished me well. A few minutes later, Kabiyesi called back and was emphatic we must now be prepared to have the chieftancy title during the birthday ceremonies. Again I resisted, then one of my cousins called to say that Kabiyesi still didn’t understand. It was then that I asked what title Kabiyesi had in mind. He said Asiwaju of Okeho. I told him that it was the more reason I didn’t want a title because there are so many of my own immediate seniors and peers who should be Asiwaju of Okeho and not me. Thereafter, Kabiyesi himself called me and said that he had made the announcement to his Chiefs during his 10th Coronation anniversary. It appeared that any further resistance would smack of disrespect, and so I thanked him for his magnanimity and thoughtfulness. For me, however, it is not necessary to have a title to joyfully serve the community of one’s birth, the foundation of one’s being. I would be nothing today if I didn’t receive the nurturing of the loving ccommunity that I had the fortune to born into and to grow up in. Returning to give back, therefore, is an obligation that I most voluntarily assume. In view of all the values that I have internalized, to do otherwise is unthinkable.