Buahahahahahahaha ... I'm sorry ... We just need to have fun sometimes!

Kehinde with his Wife and Kids

Funke Akindele has moved on, and so her estranged husband, Kehinde Oloyede who wished his wife, or one of his wives a happy birthday, a few hours ago, on social networking site. Kenny Doo as he's fondly called posted the 'cake pictured below' with the caption - 'Hapi birthday to a wonderful wife,i wish u LLNP ingud health.Thank u 4 being there always,evenwhen I go off track.Onisuru lo jogun ohun gbogbo.'

Even when I go off track???

Kehinde's Beautiful Children

Funke Akindele On Her Wedding Day

Gov. Adams Oshiomhole of Edo today Friday November 29th apologized for the comments he made to a widow in Benin during an inspection tour on Mission Road, in the state capital, a fortnight ago.

Oshiomhole said that he now regretted the comments which had become the subject of discourse in the social media. The Governor said that he made the comments in anger.

The governor’s apology was made when the leadership of the Federation of Muslim Women’s Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN), paid him a courtesy visit in Benin.

He noted that though the challenge of modern times had bestowed on the shoulders of some women and single mothers the status of bread winners of their homes, such should not be used as an accuse to flout the laws.

The Governor urged the Muslim women leaders to use their offices to propagate the essence of healthy living among children and women in the nation and the need to maintain proper sanitary conditions in their neighbourhoods.

Oshiomhole lamented that the challenge of widowhood had also exposed children to different temptations, adding that there was the need for society to be careful, to avoid unwittingly creating more problems for the nation.

He noted that money was not the best thing that guaranteed ones happiness, “but honesty and selfless service.

The Governor added that if Muslims and Christians were adequately committed to their religious doctrines, the world would be a better place.

He urged the women to propagate the message of Islam through the nooks and crannies of the nation, and to also inculcate the values of honesty in their followers.

Oshiomhole, however, assured the association of government’s support in ensuring that its present leadership made remarkable progress and also consolidated on the successes of their predecessors.

Earlier, the FOMWAN National President, Hajia Amina Omoti, urged the state government to look into the issue of the teaching of Islamic Religious Studies in public schools in the state.

Omoti also solicited for government’s moral and financial support for the effective running of the association.

Source:News Agency of Nigeria (NAN)

TRAILER


Image credit Bella Naija

I always wonder how Nigerians in Diaspora survive with all these small toast breads, bagels or sandwich or whatever. I can't trade my eba and hot okra soup, rice and ponmo dripping in pepper stew, fufuand edikaikong for all these small small things the Western world call food. The annoying part is hearing them say 'oh what a great meal!' Like seriously? I was so upset seeing my breakfast that morning after all the waiting #CultureEatsStrategyForBreakfast

Post-marriage, she seemed to flounder in her choices with her half-hearted crusader`s role in Prakash Jha`s ‘Satyagraha’ and the totally inane social activist`s role in ‘Gori Tere Pyaar Mein’. With ‘Bombay Samurai’, Kareena finally seems to have got her post-marriage formula right.

According to sources, the film is "a crazy zany rollicking roller coaster ride with amazing twists and turns. There are seven to eight pivotal characters. But Kareena and Farhan (Akhtar) preside over the show".

"They play a couple like no other seen before in our films. They are wacky and unpredictable. The two actors will have a ball playing their outgoing zestful characters," the source added.

Both Kareena and Farhan were keen to work with one another.

Says Farhan: "I`ve seen Kareena`s work. She is consistently excellent. I was keen to work with her. Dev`s film gives us a chance to try something different."

Kareena expressed the highest admiration for Farhan: "I admire Farhan for being multi-talented. Which other director has done so well as an actor? Farhan took my breath away in `Bhaag Milkha Bhaag`. I am really looking forward to working with him."

The Farhan-Kareena film starts after Kareena`s annual holiday in Switzerland in December.

Incidentally, she goes on this annual Christmas-New Year holiday in Switzerland without fail every year with husband Saif Ali Khan.

Culled from ZeeNews

A man believed to be in his 70s, who claimed to be a wizard, was yesterday found on the banks of the Okrudu River at Kaimebre, a settlement near the Kasoa New Market in the Central Region, early yesterday morning.

The man, who gave his name as Charles Atta, looked frail, pale and bore protruding breasts like that of a teenage girl.

His body was smeared with mud from the bank of the river where he was found by two brothers, Liberty Obeng and Innocent Obeng, who claimed they found the strange man crying for help.

The two brothers told DAILY GUIDE that the self-acclaimed wizard confessed to them that he was in the company of colleagues, including a medical doctor and were flying to Cape Coast for a meeting when he was forced down.

According to him, they were flying over a church where an all-night vigil was being held when he crash-landed at Servant Kings International School.

“When we asked him where he was coming from, Atta told us that he was from Akuapem Akropong but was flying to Cape Coast to attend a meeting for witches and wizards,” he said.


Charles also confessed that the two puffy protrusions on his chest were breasts taken from his 16-year-old granddaughter and that he normally borrowed them for his night activities.

The two brothers said they were initially confused and bewildered by the weird sight of the man, and not knowing what to do him took him to Pink FM, a local radio station at Kasoa for help.

When the strange announcement was made on radio, hundreds of people besieged the premises of the radio station to see the suspected wizard.

Upon hearing the news, the Kasoa District Police dispatched a number of police personnel to the station to save the victim from being lynched.

Superintendent Samuel Tabril Punobyin told the paper that the police did not investigate spiritual matters and that the suspected wizard could therefore not be charged.

He said the police would look for the family of the man and hand him over to them.

Charles Atta is still in the custody of the Kasoa Police.

Culled from Daily Guide Ghana

Come year 2014, Kehinde Bademosi a.k.a Kenny Brandmuse will take Africans on a 'JOURNEY OF A THOUSAND MYTHS' as he's set to explore the African lost arts and cultures that made our heroes tick. Read excerpt below!

Culled from Punch

At Golden Sharon Nursery and Primary School (formerly Kingdom Sharon), located at Ijaba area of Ota, Ogun State, an incident occurred on Tuesday, November 26, 2013, that has created panic in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Johnson (not real name).

One of their twins, four-year-old Lydia (not real name), who attended the school, was defiled by a female teacher, Olajumoke Oyewole, in a fashion they suspected had ritualistic intent.

Lydia, who is a pupil of Nursery One with her twin brother, got home on Tuesday afternoon and started complaining of a nagging pain in her private part. But things she later revealed confounded her mother.

Saturday PUNCH decided not to reveal the real names of the victim and her parents because of the nature of the case.

The mother, who spoke with this correspondent on Thursday at Ota after a visit to the police station where the accused female teacher had been taken, said after Lydia came home after school, she began complaining consistently when she wanted to urinate.

She said, “I asked her what was wrong and she said, ‘stone.’ I thought she meant that somebody stoned her and I waved off the matter that she would be alright.

“But when the pain persisted and she kept complaining, I decided to check why she was feeling pain there. That was when I discovered a wound on her private part.

“I was alarmed and I asked her who did that to her. She immediately mentioned Aunty Jummy (the accused.) I asked what the teacher did to her and she said the lady dipped her finger in her private part and brought out a stone which she used to scratch her there.

“The lady is not her class teacher. She (Oyewole) teaches another class beside my daughter’s. I did not understand this and I quickly called my daughter’s class teacher on the phone to help investigate the issue. She said I should come the following day but I decided to go that same day.

“I reported the matter to the head of the school and while we were leaving, we went past the (accused’s) class. My daughter said, ‘Mummy come, this is where she did it. She sat on that chair and put me on her lap and used the stone.’ She pointed to the teacher’s chair in the classroom. The lady was not around at the time.”

According to the woman, who was clearly confused when she spoke with our correspondent, the way her daughter was defiled was strange. She said she had to take her daughter to the family clinic to conduct a test on the little girl.

Meanwhile, she had apprised her husband who is away at work in Benin, Edo State, of the incident. He instructed her to report the matter to the police as soon as possible.

“The doctor examined her and asked me to have a look at my daughter’s private part. She explained that apart from the wound from which my daughter was bleeding, her hymen had been torn. The doctor said only a state hospital could give a report on such test since it was suspected that a crime might have been committed,” the woman said.

The case was reported at the Onipanu Police Division, Ota, later.

The police were said to have taken the little girl to a state hospital nearby, where a test was done and the same confirmation was made about the defilement of the girl.

When the police went to arrest Oyewole, she denied committing any crime and resisted arrest. But the school owner advised her to go with the police.

A member of the victim’s family, who did not want the case to be treated with levity, informed the Children’s Anti-Corruption Initiative, a non-governmental organisation, concerned with the protection of children’s future.

In company with this correspondent, CACTI visited Onipanu Police Division to find out how investigation into the matter was going.

While the divisional police officer was not available at the time, a divisional crime officer, said Oyewole had been locked up in a cell.

“The teacher is in the cell. This is a serious matter that we are still investigating. We are still working on the case. She will probably be transferred to the Criminal Investigation Department in Abeokuta soon,” the police officer said.

While in the premises of the police station, the accused’s mother, with tears on her face, approached CACTI’s group and knelt down pleading with them to let the matter be settled.

But when asked if she had asked her daughter why she carried out such act on the little girl, she said she had not asked her.

The victim’s mother was asked whether there was any possibility that her daughter might be confused as to who did such a thing to her, she said she considered it but that it had become clear that it was Oyewole.

“The night of the incident, we woke her up in the middle of the night just to be sure, we asked who did it to her, she said, ‘Aunty Jummy’. The following morning, it was the same answer.

“When we got to the hospital, the doctors threatened her with injection to say who really did it. My daughter can faint at the sight of an injection. That is what she hates most in life. But she repeated the same name.”

CACTI’s Executive Secretary, Mr. Omololu Akinwande, said there was a high possibility that the teacher had been sent to perform the act in order to use the girl’s blood for ritual purpose.

He said, “What you must note is that the girl is not in the accused teacher’s class. She is also a twin and the strange object the teacher allegedly used is suspicious.

“We cannot rule out the possibility that some wicked people had connived with the teacher to get them something from a twin. This is why this case must not be swept under the carpet.

“It is just unfortunate that many schools in Nigeria are no longer safe for children. Government needs to make it compulsory for schools to put in place CCTV cameras in order to keep children safe. When people know they are being watched, they are not likely to try something bad with children in their care.”

Akinwale insisted that rape in Nigeria had gone beyond sexual desire, adding that many now indulge in it for ritual purposes.

The phone number of the proprietor of Golden Sharon Nursery and Primary School was switched off when an attempt was made to contact her on Thursday.

Saturday PUNCH learnt on Friday that members of the accused’s family have sought the help of community leaders in the area to appeal to the victim’s parentst to drop the case.

A member of the victim’s family who did not want to be named, also told this correspondent that the police at the Onipanu division have been making efforts to make the parents drop the case.

“They told the mother that she would be the one paying for the transportation of police and the accused from Ota to Abeokuta for the duration of the investigation and anytime they need to go to court. They just want to pressure them into dropping the case,” the relation said.

But the spokesperson of the Ogun State Police Command, Mr. Muyiwa Adejobi, has said that the police at the division did not have any power to stop the prosecution of the case.

“I have been briefed on the case and I have been told the accused is still in custody. The Commissioner of Police, Mr. Ikemefuna Okoye, has directed that the case be transferred to the state  CID.  The CID will take over the investigation of the case and justice will surely be done in the matter,” he said.

The proprietor of the school was also arrested by the police on Friday.

Culled from Punch

Dr. Omololu Olunloyo, a former governor of Oyo State, tells GBENRO ADEOYE that he was not disappointed that he spent less than three months in the office as governor

First, my condolences on the loss of your mother, Alhaja Tejumola Abebi Olunloyo. Thank you very much, she lived long enough and escorted me in the journey of life long enough. I’m going to be 79 in a few months. We’re in the midst of the funeral and I hope in the next month, we will conclude the final funeral ceremony but as they say, it’s something that never will be forgotten since one has only one mother.

What major influence did she have on you? The major influence my mother had on me is to stick by one’s gun in anything that one wants to do; to determine to succeed by working hard at it and to believe that nothing is impossible. She was a very tough person, even aggressive and that is part of the attributes I inherited from her and I count it to be of very great use to me in a hostile world. She didn’t allow anybody to intimidate her, however rich they may think they are, whether inside or outside the family, and that has been my outlook too towards life.

The aggressive part, how has it helped you? Yes, when you want to achieve any goal, it may be in sports, academics, or politics, when you have intimidating circumstances, obstacles, whether man-made, natural and unnatural obstacles, I found out that I was able to overcome some obstacles. I mean for instance, 48 of us were admitted to the Government College, Ibadan out of 2,002 that sat for the entrance exam. Three of us were from Standard five and I was on scholarship. All the other 45 boys were standard six boys and they had done an extra year in Primary school, so they were way ahead of us. In the first year, they beat us to smithereens and in the second year, we caught up with them in seven subjects. We remained on top of the class permanently because during the holidays, we worked all the problems in the books; Durrell mathematics, Durrell algebra, Durrell geometry, Durrell calculus and we decided that we must attain world standard. We had two excellent teachers in mathematics.

The aggression was that we would wake up in the morning and decide to work all the questions. We knew one year before school certificate that we were definitely going to get Grade 1, there was nothing stopping us. There were many brilliant old boys, many brilliant classmates and many brilliant junior boys. So, you learnt some humility apart from aggression too because in war, you could get caught. Some junior boys too could teach you a trick or two or something because we had senior boys who were not as bright and we had junior boys who were brighter. And so you learn to respect everybody. Even in Britain, that confidence was like that. When we were doing tutorials, the professor would ask ‘Olunloyo, what did you get?’ I would say ‘three-quarter.’ He would say, ‘yes, I’ve worked it out, I got three-quarter myself. So we must both be right.’ And the other boys in the class would say ‘either you are both right or you’re both wrong.’ We had a sense of humour. But you had to work through all the problems.

You are famously called ‘mathematician’, what’s the story? I am an engineer but in the school mathematics was my penchant. There was almost no problem I could not solve. But when I left school, the media would say ‘mathematician’. I had the distinction under the (Obafemi) Awolowo (government) of being given two simultaneous scholarships. One for engineering, one for mathematics and they so indulged me and allowed me to use both scholarships. In the engineering class, I came first and in the mathematics class, I came first in the university. It was a great privilege. I used that of engineering first and they sent me to Scotland where you have a four-year course, I had a dramatic career in St. Andrews. I got there and they said everybody from overseas would start from the first year and I was far ahead of Year One. I told them that I would like to appeal and I gave my reasons. I appealed to the Senate. The Senate turned it down and said I must go to First year, so I devised something. I asked them to give me an exam with seven days’ notice. One in physics, one in chemistry and one in mathematics and that they should decide where I should go from the test results. They agreed to give me the test. In physics, I got 84 upon 100; in chemistry, I got 88 upon 100 and to crown it all; in mathematics, I got 98 upon 100. Sum total 270 over 300, 90 per cent average. At the end of that second year, the Dean took me to the Faculty meeting and said he had brought some good news to the senate. ‘The African man who said he was beyond first year and asked that we allow him go to second year, the second year results are out and he actually came first in the class. We would have wasted his time.’ Then, there were six gold medals: the first year, I got one that year out of two, the second year, I got the two and the third year, I got the two. So I got five gold medals out of six.

The third year, I did honours, in aerodynamics and hydrodynamics, they called me and said they didn’t usually show scripts but I had got 100 per cent; thermodynamics which was the horror of all students all over the world and they had one question- had I learnt it before coming. I said ‘no, you taught me everything here. So I’m very grateful to you’. In drama, I was first and then they did something then, the person who comes first in each university, 26 of them then, they would send the results to the British Association for the Advancement of Science to compare. When they compared, they declared me best overall Engineering student. That price had eluded the university for 11 years out of its 600 years of existence. So when I was going to graduate, by the way, Bolanle Awe and I graduated that day; all the professors, the vice chancellor, students, all their parents, they gathered up, clapped and clapped and clapped once the vice chancellor had announced the result and that they were grateful to me for bringing the British Association Prize back to the University of St. Andrews , the first university in Scotland. I made quite some money. The Mayor of the town wrote a letter to the Dean of the Faculty that he wanted his son to become an engineer and that he wanted the most competent postgraduate student to coach him. That he would pay a handsome sum of money, so I was given a letter to the Mayor. So he employed me, paid me some bags of money and I lived like a king for those three months. And then, his son was deaf, so I would write everything on paper (for him). He later wrote me to thank me that he had passed his exam and that he never understood Calculus before I taught him. That only Archimedes, Newton or Einstein were greater and I thanked him very much for the extravagant encomium. I had an interesting career. The queen invited me to Buckingham Palace –‘we know that you are one of the people who have justified our coming to Africa…we are grateful to you for making our effort there achieve some spectacular result.’

At what point did you decide to go into politics and why? When I came back, I wasn’t quite satisfied with Ibadan (UI). I came on January 1 and they promoted me on May 8. That invoked a lot of envy. Then I resigned and went to join University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife)

I was the first lecturer appointed by the University of Ife. They denied me that credit because they falsified through conspiracy the history of the university. The first falsification is that they said the university was started in 1962 which is not true, the university was started in 1961. They also lied that the first chancellor was Awolowo, but the first chancellor was not Awolowo, the first chancellor was SLA (Samuel Ladoke Akintola), whoever is the head of government is the chancellor. While I was doing my engineering practical, (popular politician) Adegoke Adelabu came and removed me from my factory in Kent, (United Kingdom) and took me round Ibadan, announcing that I would be the minister when I came back. He actually died before then. If he had not died and I came back, he would have made me a minister. Not long, (Col. Adeyinka) Adebayo made me Commissioner for Education and I had the distinction of being Commissioner for Education two times.

You first became commissioner at 27, what was the experience like? Now there was a commotion in the Action Group which affected my mind and I was a follower of two politicians in Ibadan who I knew very much. One of them was the first Ibadan lawyer, Mojeed Agbaje. The other man who interested me very much was Lekan Salami of Ogbomoso and Ibadan fame. I took part in the breaking of the door of the Premier’s office, I saw something that was undemocratic. Akintola was the supreme leader, Awolowo left of his own volition without advice to contest the federal election. In the federal election he contested, he had no alliances. Stubborn, aggressive, very hardworking, visionary leader that Awolowo was, he never understood real politics at anytime. In real politics, you have to look at the figures, you have to have allies, there are no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. You must have some allies. Nigeria is too fragmented for you not to have allies. If you’re counting the fingers of someone with nine fingers, you don’t count in the person’s presence and say you ‘so you have nine fingers.’ We had a brilliant man called Akintola who understood real politics. Awolowo believed that book knowledge was so important but he knew better.

A situation arose; Awolowo wanted to ally with the east and Akintola wanted to align with the north. So there was a crisis: Akintola wanted something, Awolowo wanted something. Where we came in is what I will explain to you now. Awolowo had earlier fought at the Jos conference and Akintola said he demanded that the governor call a meeting of the house and call for a vote of no confidence or of confidence. Or alternatively to dissolve the house and call for fresh elections, but they refused. They denied him an ordinary motion for confidence in the house which is undemocratic. You either test a man’s popularity in the house or you dissolve the house and call for fresh elections. They knew they would spend money and Akintola was eloquent. As a result, there was tension and we protested. That was where they picked me.

Were politicians as corrupt then as they are today? Of course, there was little or none of that. The most important thing is that there was corruption but over one millionth of what it is now.

Then, why do we have so much corruption today? Corruption manifests itself as an attempt by people to reward themselves when the state doesn’t reward them.

Did you think you would win the governorship election when you defeated late Bola Ige, who was the incumbent governor, to become Oyo State governor in 1983? Who is Bola Ige, why the question? What is the importance of the question? He was beaten in the election; he agreed he would be beaten. Ask Akande who was the deputy governor. Who is he? I was in government before him, I was in government after him and I was in government with him. When I was in government before him, I was under Majekodunmi. When I was in government with him under the Adebayo government, I was declared by far the best commissioner. So I had had experience operating in government before him. Most importantly, in Oyo state with free education, I had made my name. After Oluwole Awokoya, I’m the second most important Commissioner for Education the state has ever had. Awokoya was the first commissioner for education. That’s the greatest educationist the Western Region has produced. I claim the second. On August 11, 18 and 25 and September 1982 , Bola Ige assessed his government and said it was not likely they would win the election that was coming. They put it in the cabinet book, he signed it, sealed it. First of all, how did Bola Ige become governor? Should he have become governor at all? He did not contest the primary, so he was not selected to be the governor. He didn’t deserve to contest. Where were the primaries of the UPN held? It was held at Oke-Iho and who won it? It was won by S.M. Afolabi of Ire. You understand me now. They came down to Ibadan, the same thing in Ondo, where Omoboriowo won. But Awolowo wanted his old reliable hands to assist him, so he asked Omoboriowo to step down for Ajasin. Bola Ige’s constituency was Ilesha and there was no Action Group there. It was NCNC in Ilesha. Action Group lost all their seats.

Babalakin probe was set up to see whether the election was rigged or not, I encouraged them to set up the probe. Though, they had the most powerful propaganda but we beat them at their game. In my hands were three copies of the Intelligence report. I was the guru of Intelligence. I would know what they would eat in the night, I would know when they sleep with their wives. I put a security ring round them, something that I studied. It went to court and they were badly routed. The result was three for me, none for him and two neutral. Not 3-2. None for him, he lost the case a day before the judgment. So I’m not particularly interested in that question. There were some correspondences between Ige and I that we should settle and become friends again. They assumed he would win, why? He was coming from a non UPN constituency, he was coming from an NCNC place.

The documents are still there in the cabinet book of the Oyo State, the signature of Bola Ige on the prognosis. He was not of the opinion that they would win the election.

Were you disappointed that your government was scuttled by a military coup after about three months of assuming the position? I was not disappointed. If you see my CV, you will see that I have been Commissioner for Economic Planning and Community Development. I’ve been Commissioner for Special duties. I’ve been Commissioner for Education twice. I’ve been Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, and I’ve been governor and then a member of CONFAB. I have no regrets; all I wanted to do was work.

So looking back as a very brilliant student in school, are you pleased with the path you took in life and how it turned out? Yes, I’m very pleased because I do not believe in knowledge for its own sake. I believe in the application of knowledge to the betterment of mankind. I don’t believe that knowledge itself is anything. Listen to Christiane Amanpour on CNN: Knowledge is power, knowledge is this, knowledge is that. Knowledge should be used for human beings, and I was influenced in that by Adegoke Adelabu. He told me that knowledge should be used to develop the world. I’m quite pleased with myself. After my PhD in the university and the other degrees I got, I taught in (Universities) Ife and Ibadan. What I taught in Ibadan was not what I got my BSc or PhD for. I taught abstract algebra and logic which I learnt on my own which I’m still learning. Sometime in 2010, some students of University of Ibadan met me in the library; I spent six hours there that day. Another time, they met me in the bookshop where I spent three hours. They came to meet me at home to ask if I was still doing mathematics and I said very much. I told them that I was in touch with everything happening in the world of mathematics and that this and that had happened in the last two years. They were amazed and then asked me to come to the university to give them a lecture even though I had left 17 years ago. So I gave the whole school a lecture on mathematics and then they established a chair-Christian Omololu Olunloyo Proletariat Chair of Mathematics.

Has any of your children taken to mathematics the way you did? Well, not to mathematics but to other things. My daughter who has just been made Special Adviser is an artist; she’s an all-rounder. She was a prize girl in mathematics here and in England, did 11 A Levels, including Spanish and Greek. She does interior décor and so many things as tiny as she is. She did drawing in O Level and A Levels. One member of the family who seems to be the most brilliant was made bed-ridden by the ‘Alli must go riots’. He has been on the sick bed for 34 years. He was just eight years old then. He’s 42 years old now. When Obasanjo saw him sometime back, he wept. But he’s gifted. He’s Akintayo Olunloyo. Then we have an engineer who graduated in 2000 from the University of Ghana with a second class upper. I have one who has a doctorate, though she’s interested in very many things. She’s interested in social networking, she’s interested in criminology. Many people count me as a mathematician in Nigeria but what I used government money for was to study engineering. I’m an engineer, qualified in both civil and mechanical engineering, aeronautics, oil and all these things and I’m a registered engineer, a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, a member of the American Mathematics Society, so I decided to diversify. I’m not interested in acquiring knowledge for its sake, I think it should be for mankind.

Did you consider who would also have a love for mathematics when you wanted to get married? My wife was a secretary, my own private secretary and she typed very fast- 120 words per minute. She rose to become a teacher in the civil service training school. But she’s a good mother, somewhat impatient; she cooks well when she’s not angry. Her cooking is best when she’s in Togo, Cotonou and London, there are some ingredients in Togo, they have very good cooking oil there and she uses it very well. She has four sons, three daughters.

One of your colleagues in school, Dr. Lekan Are, described you as exceptionally brilliant. Did you have a social life in school? Lekan Are was also exceptionally brilliant, he’s my senior in age but we were in the same class. 2,002 persons sat for the entrance exam in 1947, Lekan Are was second out of 2,002.

Yes, we had a social life in school. The most prestigious games in school were football and cricket. I was the leader of the attack of the cricket team and I was regarded as the best schoolboy bowler in Nigeria because I was the opening bowler for my class, house, school and combined colleges of Nigeria. Lekan Are was the leader of the attack in football. He was number 9 and he scored 20 goals in my team and I got 72 wickets in cricket. For the first time in many years, we beat Kings College, Lagos home and away, we beat Igbobi College home and away, we beat Lagos Grammar School, so it was an epochal year for us. Lekan Are had the distinction of having the neatest notebooks in our final year. Some of us had no notebooks; all the things I knew were in my head in mathematics and so on.

Wole Soyinka became so proficient because his father made him write one essay everyday. His father was called S. A. Soyinka so from the S.A, boys started calling him Baba Essay. He gave Soyinka enough paper, one foolscap sheet and he was also interested in drama. I didn’t like biology, drawing birds and frogs and so on, I was not interested. Also, Latin. I liked literature. Soyinka began learning theatre from the age of 9. We had some very brilliant boys in GCI. They admitted only 24 students in a year out of 2,000 so you must be exceptional.

It’s often said that brilliant people have weaknesses like drinking, women and smoking, which are yours? Everybody has vices. But drinking and women, we were not doing anything like that in school. We were not allowed to be drinking and be touching women. (Turns to his wife beside him and added,) my wife is my witness.

How do you keep busy now? Plenty of things. (turns to wife again and says he’s asking an important question). I study the music of the world, from all over the world. I was president of music society in my university. I don’t listen to music, I study music and I have perhaps the biggest music library in Ibadan. I have a bigger one than Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, Ibadan. I’m up to date in music and they also know me in London, when any music comes out. Also horticulture, I built this garden in 1986, somebody built the house in 1944. I plant flowers, I read books and I like to study music too. So I like to be a moving encyclopaedia or brain box.

What about one of your daughters, Ms. Kemi Olunloyo, who’s seen as controversial. What’s your opinion of her? Kemi is an independent-minded person and she is not the kind of person you can suppress. She believes what she believes. Some of them may be wrong in other people’s system. For example, in America, she always fought against crime and drugs and all these things. But I like her condemnation of religion- very bold. Where did these churches come from? There are three or four churches that should be wiped out of the Lagos –Ibadan expressway. All you have to do is build a barb wire or walls along that express, they were there originally but they cut it. When people were more godly in this country, there weren’t so many churches.

How religious are you? I know your mother was a Muslim while your father was a Christian.

Religious? I’m a good man. I love my fellow human beings and I obey some of the laws of God. Nobody observes the ten as David Cameron says. The ten are very difficult to obey. Religion is an opium of the people.

What do you think about Oyo State politics? The government, they are not experienced macho politicians but I think they have good intentions and they have been playing out the intentions. But the whole western region, they have to study Awolowo better. Awolowo had his strengths, he had his weaknesses. Only a mad man would call him perfect but he was the best of his time. If any politician sets out a mission, that mission will go on for years. There are four cardinal principles, but the marks you will give him for education is not the one you will give him for rural development or for agriculture and so on. As a matter of fact, Awolowo placed education as number one and health as number two. In contrast with (Kwame) Nkrumah in Ghana, who placed health as number one and education as number two. As for Oyo State, Ajimobi has transformed the place.

We know that anybody who tries to improve the environment will have to demolish the ramshackle out of the environment and so will be regarded more or less as an enemy of the people, demolishing this, demolishing that. But there are many crazy things that have to be demolished and he‘s done that and he shouldn’t just get ten upon ten in one area and get zero upon ten in the remaining. He should concentrate on education, scholarships, human developments and also infrastructure.