My Father is 78 (1)

‘A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty’. -Ziad K. Abdelnour

 My father, Kola Animasaun, columnist and veteran journalist turned 78 years old on the 5th of July. I am sure many of his Voice of Reason fans and countless well wishers will like to wish him well. I have dedicated this week’ page to my father. Here is a piece from his book, One Thousand and Thirty-Nine:

‘On my 72nd birthday my daughter gave me an unusual birthday present amongst many that she gave me.

Risquat wrote for me quotations that sort of summed up how I have lived my life. I quote some of them here:

Faith is putting all your eggs in God’s basket, and then counting your blessings before they hatch  -Ramona c. Carroll

The way to see by faith is shut the eye of reason-Benjamin Franklin

The antidote to frustration is calm faith, not in your own cleverness, or in hard toil, but in God’s guidance -Norman Vincent Peale

My great, great grandfather on my father’s side was a Muslim. I would not know how far back their Islam went. He was known as Abbass .His son, my great grandfather, was Amodu. His son (or one of the two sons) was Usman and my father, Abdul-Lateef was his son. This is to say that on my father’s side we had always been Muslims.

My great grandfather and Grandfather Usman Adegbenro and Mustapha and my mother on Ayisat’s side were Muslims. But they did not start as Muslims. Ojelabi, The father of Mustapha was a devotee of the masquerade. He worshipped Egun and sundry other gods including Osun and it was in the fold that he brought up Adegbenro.

So Mustapha was also a devotee of the various cults until he found the light of Islam. Once he found Islam, there was no looking back.

Mother told me that legend had it that the first male son of grandfather –Kareem-who later died-was named in the honour of the day the whole clan became Muslims. That is to say Omotosho, my grandfather became a Mustapha. His wife my grandmother, became a Rabiat.

It was a great day, and great grandfather marked the day in Areta a village in Abeokuta in which he farmed. Great grandfather decapitated a whole roof and carted the roof and members to start a new mosque in Ikereku Idan in Abeokuta. Since then Islam has grown in his homestead.That would be around 100 years ago.

Usman Adegbenro encouraged clerics and spent all he had in the propagation of Islam. Most of these were from Ilorin and they were encouraged to take wives from their environment. His off springs are today refurbishing the original mosque which stands at the original site till today and they build mosque wherever they were. The Adegbenro mosque is one of the notable Ratibi in Gbagura and the Adegbenros have performed pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina. My mother, Ayisat Animasaun and her sister Alhaja Sikirat Jaji were the first in the stream that went to Hajj. They went in 1954 by air from Maiduguri.

Mother was always striving in the way of Allah. She contributed to the limits of her capability to the mosques and Quranic schools. She built a mosque in Abeokuta Street, Ikeja where she finally died in May 1994.My aunt Sikirat built a similar one before mama- in 1961.Mother went anywhere her religion directed her-to Kano to Ilorin and even to Iraq.

On my grandfather’s house in Abeokuta the earliest thing we know about is the place we referred to as ‘Ile-Adua’, a place of prayers. It was a place you could say your salat or meditate. It is still there today and the house was built in 1918.

It was the same in our Ricca Street house in Lagos. The pity is that the building has undertaken modernisation a number of times. But while it lasted we had our Oripo which was set aside for prayers and contemplations. In Lagos we had our mosque Oloro-our great grand uncle, Bakare was the Imam. And after him was Alfa Isa Animasaun, (a brother of my father) there was Ganiyu Bakare (son of my great grand uncle) who died a few years ago.

Wherever he went my great grandfather never forgot his Islam. In their Akiode village home, where they bought a large parcel of land from the Obawole family in 1920. They had a mosque that has now grown to become a Jummat mosque. I am today the Aare Musulumi of the central mosque.

My father’s mother’s people of Ile-Ala, Abeokuta has a long tradition of Islam and for a very long time has been Imam of Ojo Mosque. No wonder my great grandmother, on my mother’s side, married a great personage by name Laani Gangati.He was the Balogun of Ikatedo. We also called him Baba Eleshin because he also owned   horses. He married one of his daughters to a mallam by the name of Dindi nearby at Mokola. The Dindis originally came from Sugu in neighbouring Dahomey. They had been coming originally from Mali. They were Muslims whose duty was to teach the Qur’an and sunnah and also to teach people the religion generally. The Yoruba call them Imale (from Mali).

They were two brothers of the same father and the elder became the Tafsir of Abeokuta Central Mosque who, by tradition, is the spiritual adviser of the Alake of Abeokuta. The younger brother was father of my revered uncle T. Yushau Dindi, of the Nawair-ud-deen. My uncle spoke, in addition to Yoruba, Arabic, Hausa and the native Sugu.

Baba Eleshin liked the religion of Islam so much that he gave his eldest daughter-Nafisat-in marriage to the younger Dindi. Her other sisters, that is, my father’s grandmother and her sister, Adedigba confronted their father and asked why he should give her hand in marriage to a Hausa man! Everybody who is not a Yoruba and not an Igbo was Hausa. Of course Dindi was not Hausa, he was Sugu.

Baba Eleshin told them that he did it for the sake of Islam. They were not satisfied. But T.Y Dindi became a star. At about 12 years he was teaching his maternal grandfather the Qur’an to the admiration of his aunts and courtiers of which Baba Eleshin was a quarter head.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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