He is fondly called Doctor Femi, the only paternal Uncle I’ve got and the only brother my father has alive from his mother’s womb. I call him Father, him being my Dad’s Senior who has played the role of Father to all of us in an extended family he helped to expand and populate generously. But for the purpose of this short piece, he shall be regarded simply as Doctor Femi.
Young, brilliant and multi talented, the handsome Femi had gained Admission to study Medicine in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. He was among the earliest students of a University founded on October 4, 1962 then as University of Northern Nigeria. By 1972, Doctor Femi had completed his studies in ABU Zaria and was a full fledged Medical Doctor. Young and hungry, he proceeded to the United Kingdom where he had gained Admission to the Royal College of Surgeon, Edinburg and was further trained as a Surgeon for another two years, making him one of the foremost and few British trained Surgeon of that time. By 1977, Doctor Femi had been blessed with my older Cousins Olaiya and Mayomi who themselves are by birth British. Looking at his deep reflections, his world views on topical issues, it became clear that Doctor Femi had more than Medicine and Medical practices in his mind. He held political views that would only come to life if he was a political player among the pack of Politicians of that time.
In a move I’m yet to grapple or reconcile with, Doctor Femi graduated from Royal College of Surgeon Edinburg, left United Kingdom and all the comforts and promises it offered, and he returned to Olle Bunu, his mother’s Village, to establish the first and still the only Private Hospital in Bunu District. Whatever his reasons are, I will leave the details to the first medical Doctor in a District of forty villages without a single hospital to narrate. A British trained Surgeon who returned to Olle Village to establish the first and only Hospital in the whole of Bunu District did not go without a good baggage of challenges: the locals accused him of importing diseases from Britain to Olle Bunu. Ever since he established his hospital, they opined, he deliberately made children sick so they could come to his hospital. Before his hospital came, they claimed, children were not getting sick this much. My grand mother, Iye Mogini Omoenate, the core of Ajigba Moji of Olle Bunu, was tagged a witch. They accused her of using black powers to help her ‘Cambridge’ son establish this ‘evil hospital’ that was meant to be a bondage on the people of Olle Bunu (it had been rumoured that he attended Cambridge University). My grandma was chased into the bush many times. She was the witch who produced the first Medical Doctor they would ever know. Ordinarily, my people refer to Cambridge as ‘Kemberi’ and for them, Kemberi was the highest point of learning on earth. How could a boy who was born and bred in Olle Bunu go as far as London, the land of white people, as far as Kemberi, the highest University of learning on planet earth and come back home to establish a modern Hospital for the people he grew up to know as people who lived without hospitals, without modern medicines; people who died of common diseases from malaria to typhoid as lately as 1960s and 70s; people who treated Community Health issues as the handiworks of witches…..and they would consult ‘Ifa’ diety and their gods to know which witch had brought these calamities over them. People whose populations were eaten up by the ravaging rage of small pox, chicken pox, meassles, cholera pandemic and similar public health issues that could have been managed and stemmed down with modern medicine. Probably, these were the thoughts that made a British trained Surgeon ignored all the opportunities in the bigger worlds, ignored the wealth and comfort of London and chose to return to Olle Village to establish the first private hospital in Bunu District on that soil. But Olle Bunu people had a different idea of their own. This new development must be the handiwork of a witch whose only intention was to make people sick and spend money in his hospital. They queried if the father of this young Surgeon was from Olle Bunu. Some said his father was from Igbo Bunu. So, regardless of the Ajigba root of his mother, if his father was from Igbo Bunu, then the young Doctor had no right to establish his hospital in Olle Bunu. It would amaze you that those who led the onslaught against my grandma and her British Surgeon son were members of her own family, most of whom are alive today (Bible book of Matthew 10:36).
After all said and done, Doctor Femi abandoned his hospital buildings in Olle Bunu, his mother’s Village, and sought a new location. He found a new Haven in Edumo Bunu where he built Femi Hospital as one of the earliest settlers. Edumo eventually proved strategic for Bunu people as it serves as a border town, making it the fastest growing Bunu town today.
As alluded to earlier, young Doctor Femi would find his way into the Nigerian Politics. He became a member of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) a Party founded by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. In this regard, Doctor Femi campaigned side by side Awolowo, riding on the same motorcade as he moved round the Middle Belt Region. As the general election of 1983 drew nearer, another great uncle from Olle Bunu, Uncle Solomon Elebiyo, was the favoured candidate to run for Old Kwara State House of Assembly. But painfully enough, the hand of death caught up with Uncle Solomon Elebiyo in a ghastly motor accident that left many of us heartbroken till today. Uncle Solomon was only 33 years old. He had his dreams cut short and Bunu mourned like never before. The gap left by the demised Solomon Elebiyo gave Doctor Femi a chance to run for the Kwara Assembly. By 1983, he was voted to Kwara State House of Assembly making him the first Bunu man to be so elected into a legislative chamber. His political victory didn’t last long as Nigeria’s democracy suffered a setback in the hands of the Nigerian military under the Leadership of Major General Muhammadu Buhari. After three months of Law making in the State Assembly, these Law Makers were sent back to their Districts as the Constitution was suspended. The military won’t need to follow any democratic principle of law making. They rule only by decree. To this day, Doctor Femi harbour an unexpressed resentment against armed personnel. Decades later, when I gained Admission to study in the same Ahmadu Bello University he graduated from, he once told me that a day would come when Police and Soldiers would have to hide their uniforms in a bag on their way to work because the people would turn against them. Like a Prophecy, I saw this fulfilled during the EndSARS protest of 2020 as Police got beaten up, maimed, and burnt to death.
In the early 1990s, after the creation of Kogi State, a period marking our departure from Old Kwara State and melting with the newly created Kogi State, the then Governor-Elect, Prince Abubakar Audu had nominated Doctor Femi for the position of Commissioner for Health ready only for announcement. It would take the concerted efforts of some Bunu Bad Bloods to write a lengthy and damaging petition against the Candidacy of Doctor Femi, for which they gathered thousands of Signatures in support of their nefarious mutiny against a man whose only sin was being the Best and the First in many good things. It was how Doctor Femi was robbed of being the First Commissioner for Health in Kogi State.
When their spurious claims and unfounded allegations were presented to Governor Abubakar Audu, the marked Igala man took a deep breath and declared to the team of Judases standing before him: ‘my hands are tied’. He could no longer change the nomination of Doctor Femi except on one condition: ‘if they could find for him another Femi’. It was the least of their worries. They would find for him another Femi; a younger Femi; an unknown Femi; an inexperienced Femi; whichever Femi it was. So long as it was not Femi Peter Olusakun, it was acceptable to these herds of hungry hyenas looking so bush, so dejected, so barbaric, so backward, so disgusting and yet so irritating. In spite of all these blockades, Doctor Femi succeeded and his children are succeeding in various fields, myself inclusive. It was why when I became a Senior Special Assistant to a sitting Governor, e shock Dem. There was no room to write evil Petitions. Plus, the defiant man in Lugard House won’t read it. Wait for more, dudes. E go happen. Just how history possesses the uncanny ability to repeat itself. If you cut down the father, the son rises with some sort of metaphysical ability to rejuvenate and reinvigorate in a deeper, faster and harder form (wahala for person wey no Sabi). Go see the movie: The Godfather….
It was why in year 2000, when Doctor Femi was blessed with a daughter and he named her Omiribirin (meaning: ‘however you try to block water, water will always find it’s level; water will always create it’s own path to flow’), I took the name to heart and I apply it to my daily Life. However you strive to block me, I will create my path to flow. If you block me in Kogi, I will move to Lagos. If you block Lagos, I will move to Abuja. As a matter of fact, if you block me in Nigeria I will move to Ghana or South Africa like many Businesses are doing currently. The sky is wide enough for all Stars to shine.
Today, as Doctor Femi celebrates his 75th birthday with many of his enemies long gone into oblivion, we celebrate a life formed and shaped by challenges; a life that has witnessed the smooth, flawless and progressive politics of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo firsthand; a life that has endured the pangs and pains of betrayals, the opposition and animosity of of kin and kindred such that to have managed to succeed and survive would have been against the run of play, against all odds and requiring the unbendable will of steel.
In similar twists and turns, when we look at the giant hospital buildings in Olle Bunu, abandoned in rusts and ruins, the very first buildings erected on Bunu soil to provide the people of Bunu with modern medicine, we see a violent clash between knowledge and the lack of it; we see an unholy meet between Progressive ideas and retrogressive mindsets; we see the compelling argument of Daren Acemoglu and James Robinson in their award winning book ‘WHY NATIONS FAIL: the origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty’; we see why some communities remain retrogressive and regrettably backward; we see the corrosive wickedness of a people binded together in ignorance, hate and animosity; and above all, we see a need for a new set of ideals, a new thinking, and a new paradigm that can lead to an enduring development among rural communities.
Happy 75th birthday to Doctor Peter Olusakun Olorunfemi. May you live longer and happier.
– Olu Majek writes from Abuja, Nigeria.
Email: olu.majekk@gmail.com
