TIAMIYU APAOKAGI: THE HUMAN BAOBAB (4) - Kehinde Ayoola JP
Apaokagi had become a part and parcel of my family like I said earlier. We therefore did many things together with him in the full picture.
In return, he showed me and my wife 100% loyalty and hid nothing about his affairs from us.
Tiamiyu's extended family stayed in Kwara State - in Offa town.
That town has held a huge fascination for me since I was a child.
I am a Yoruba man who prides himself in the heritage passed down by his forebears.
The people of Offa are pure Yorubas in the mould of the Oyo people. They speak the variant of the language usually spoken in Oyo with certain of our appurtenances like mode of dressing (the kèmbè trousers worn under the dashiki plus the abetíajá cap are common sights among the Offa people). Also their oríkì (pyrogenic) as well.
Offa people are the Ìyèrú òkín (Ìyèrú the Peacock) famed for their valiance in fighting wars (ìjàkadì katakìtì l'orò Òfà)
My late mother's lineage answers to this oríkì.
I remember that the foremost political associate of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in the old Kwara State, late Chief (The Honourable) Josiah Sunday Olawoyin hailed from Offa.
Chief J.S. Olawoyin was Papa Awolowo's choice for the gubernatorial ticket of the defunct Unity Party of Nigeria, UPN, in 1979 and 1983. Apparently sensing that J.S. would never win in Kwara, younger UPN elements rooted for Chief Cornelius Adebayo who won and became governor briefly in 1983 before Major-General Muhammadu Buhari and his fellow military adventurers put paid to the Second Nigerian Republic on December 31st of that year.
So all these went through my mind when Apaokagi told me he would love to travel home to spend the Sallah holidays with his family at Offa.
I gave him my express permissions of course.
I however, offered to escort him home.
Nigerian politicians have been meeting across the nation to strategize for the next elections. I was invited to one of those meetings at Lokoja. I then planned to spend a night at Offa before setting off for Lokoja the following day.
So I decided to go and see Offa again after several years.
I bought 3 rams for Apaokagi plus several food items which my wife gave him. There was a generous cash allowance as well.
A while back , I and my wife had encouraged him to build a home for himself. I intended to see how far he had gone with that project.
We set off on our way two days to Sallah.
Our trip was delayed by other commitments of mine; so we left Ibadan around 5 o' clock in the evening.
Apaokagi guided the Toyota Prado through the busy Ibadan traffic (it was made more so by the preparations for Sallah). We hit the new Ife road en route Oshogbo via Ede.
By the time we navigated our way through Oshogbo and we were on our way to Ila Orangun, it was getting dark.
The road to Ila was nightmarish. It was full of potholes. It is an area that should be better classified as a GFA (Government Forgotten Area).
The road is bushy as well as tall Panicum maximum (Elephant Grass) hugged the roadside.
There were sharp corners that combined with the bush and potholes to invite extreme caution from anyone driving on that road at that hour of the day.
Apaokagi held the speedometer steady at 60 km/hour. The headlights were on by this time. I checked the time on the luminous dashboard: 8:30 pm.
I dozed off.
After I got myself lost in the blissfulness of a nap, I suddenly woke up in time to see an animal dash across the road in front of our SUV.
Tiamiyu hit it gbam!
The impact swerved the car a little bit but Apaokagi steadied it.
I looked back, the beast was lying in the middle of the road.
We stopped to pick our game!
I asked Apaokagi to stand by.
He brought out his gun and stood by the side watching the road.
I staggered a bit as the sleep had not quite cleared from my eyes.
I looked at the animal.
Antelope!
Wow!
I picked it up and stuffed it inside the booth of the car.
We continued our journey.
(Part 5 loading ....)
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