“…my other survival strategies in the US”
“… and “the pranks I, others played as kids”
By Ademola Adegbamigbe
On Thursday, 29 March, President Muhammadu Buhari led several top politicians, captains of industry, academics, and people from different walks of life to chair the 10th Bola Tinubu Colloquium to commemorate the 66th birthday of the All Progressives Congress (APC) National leader. Encomiums have been pouring on the man in truck loads from different well wishers.
Just as these accolades are sprayed on him like confetti, the man will no doubt remember his journey to the top, strewn with difficulties and strategies to overcome them.
One of these was when he was studying accounting and at the same time, working as a security guard. He narrated to TheNEWS: “I was taking the third Accounting class and equally working as a security guard at a construction site. They were very serious with their kind of security. You just had to do that job. There were about six points with six clocks at the site, which the security man must wind every hour and with a dog in hand. So, there was never a chance of trying to catch a nap. As I was doing my accounting assignment, I fell asleep. I was dead asleep! The inspector came to the site and found me sleeping, with my head on my books. He simply pulled the register and wrote: ‘I have been here. You were sound asleep. So, see me tomorrow.’ When I woke up, I found that Skiddo (name of the dog that Tinubu used for his security job) was gone, and then the register. I just went to a corner, cleaned my face and concentrated on my assignment because I knew the job was already gone.
“You can’t lose two things. I ensured that I read well for my test and passed the next day. I opted to post their uniform and the cap to them, but suddenly ran into the man and he handed me my cheque and said the job was gone. I told him I knew and we said goodbye to each other! I had to start looking for another job.”
Why did his family parcel him to the US? He told this magazine that it was a s a result of those youthful pranks that nearly everyone is guilty of. He explained to this magazine: “I admit that I played some pranks and got spanked while growing up. Yes, I indulged in some pranks, like trespassing into other people’s gardens to pluck oranges, despite warnings not to do so. I would spend my allowance on bicycle renting. I told a couple of lies. For example, I would collect money from big uncles for the purchase of five books – Dic, Tion, Na, Ry –) instead of one dictionary! It was only one that I needed. I did that so as to have enough money to play around, rent bicycles and buy sneakers. I would play football, go and play at the lagoon, and turning out very dirty and rough in the evenings. There were so many of such pranks.
“I would seize football from my mates and take it home. The boys would come to the house, asking for the football and my parents would spank me and order that I return the ball to its owners. There was a time I asked my uncle, the late Kafaru Tinubu’s dispatch rider to lend me his motorbike to ride. One day, he gave the motorbike to me to ride. As I got back home, my uncle, who had travelled and was not expected back at the time, had arrived. He caught us and ordered that we be locked up. It took a while before he released us, and I was severely flogged.”
There were instances in which Tinubu and few of his friends like Tunde Badejo, Bolaji Agaba, Rasheed Abina, Tunde Adeyemo, the late Sola Popoola and others would sneak into the truck of musicians, like the late Adeolu Akinsanya and Roy Chicago, without knowing where they were travelling to for musical performances.
He narrated: “We would hide ourselves in their instrument trucks. There was a particular day when we did that and found ourselves in Ado-Ekiti, somewhere I had never been before. We did not know that he was going to perform at Christ’s School, Ado Ekiti. We had no money to return to Lagos and were stranded there. We couldn’t follow them back to Lagos because they were headed for another location, where they had a show. We managed to get to Lagos by jumping on a cocoa truck that was coming to Lagos. There was a particular time 11 of us packed ourselves in a Volkswagen Beetle and headed to the University of Ibadan through Majidun/Ikorodu Road for the Havana Nite. As we were going through Majidun, one of the car’s tyres burst and we had a serious accident. I thank God that I am alive today.”
Then one incident made his family to send him to the US. In his words: “I went to Ikenne, with my late sister, for a big ceremony. We had gone to pick bottles of Coca-Cola from the cold room and wanted to quickly return to the St. Saviour’s Church, where my sister was. There was a sudden rain of bullets and had we not been rushing to the church to ensure that we didn’t miss what was going on there, I would have died. The young man that was standing with me was hit. He slumped and died. Based on the sad incident and how I had narrowly missed death, my family said to me: ‘This boy, you have always said that you wanted to travel out of the country, it is time to do so.’ So, my mother gathered some money, sold her trinkets to make up for the remaining part of my allowances and joined it with proceeds from the sale of the Volkswagen Beetle given to me by my uncle, the late Ganiyu Tinubu, who used to work at Simpson Street, Ebutte-Metta. He had a Beetle car he bought from a Canadian and had it converted into a convertible, which I used to drive. Nobody taught me how to drive. He asked that I sell it and add the proceeds to the money I needed for my trip. That was what I did.
“Bolaji Agaba and I left the same day for the United States, while Badejo left some months later. We got our visas through my family connections. Bolaji’s own had almost expired before we left.”
On their arrival in the US, they thought they would stay in New York but Nurudeen Olowopopo said no and they put some money together for Bolaji’s ticket and we theey headed for Washington D.C. According to Tinubu: “I stayed with the late Sola Popoola at Washington before we started finding our way. We were running out of funds then. He helped us secure a one-room apartment in Alexandria, Virgina. We got an unregistered used car (they left the licence open) commonly called Gypsy, which we ran as a taxi. We operated at the airport, where we picked passengers, and not anywhere else, like the hotel because it was forbidden for unlicensed cab drivers to do so. We did that for a while to raise some money. We did, and Bolaji went to Tennessee, while I headed for Chicago.
Driving taxi, according to Asiwaju Tinubu, was aimed at getting additional money to what he had. He narrated: “One experience I will not forget was when I over-charged a naval officer, who was returning to the country. It was not intentional. Apparently, I didn’t know the direction; there was no GPRS in those days to locate directions. So, he gave me the direction to his house in a Virginia suburb. I gave him the price and the man responded with a slap to my face. He said I should know the correct fare to charge to the location he mentioned. He slapped me and gave me the money.
“I always liked to have a life of comfort. Tunde Badejo and Olowopopo told me that Chicago was very cold, so I told myself that I must have a car. I was supposed to have started schooling in April. I deferred it till September in order to have more money. Immediately I got to Chicago, I went straight to Richard Daley College. It was very interesting. I was able to pay for my apartment and tuition fees at the Chicago State University. I supplemented that by doing different menial jobs like door guard and security man.”
See the full interview below:
https://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2016/03/tinubu-my-struggles-through-life/