Dangote encouraged me to join politics –Isiaka Adeleke

Isiaka Adeleke
| credits: File copy

First civilian governor of Osun State, Senator Isiaka Adeleke, shares his experiences in life in this interview with TUNDE ODESOLA

What was growing up like?

I was born in Enugu. My father was a nursing superintendent and my mother was a nurse too. Both met at the hospital in Abakaliki. I attended St. Barth Primary School, Enugu in Asanta Area and from there, we moved to Nwani where I attended Christ Church School, Nwani, also in Enugu. My father retired there and was working as a trade unionist. During the build-up to the civil war, my father was in New York, U.S.A, so, we had to move to the South-West. Then, nobody knew we were of Yoruba extraction because we spoke Igbo language fluently. Around that time, I was in primary six preparing for the entrance examination to Government College, Umuahia, before the war disrupted that. The circumstance of the family’s sudden transfer from the South-East to the South-West made me repeat at Alafia Institute, Mokola in Ibadan. And I had to struggle with the Yoruba language there, but I coped after I flunked tests in the language several times.

At an impressionistic stage of your life, you left Nigeria for the United States of America to further your studies. How much has that influenced your life?

I had always wanted to travel abroad to get education. But I worked briefly after my Higher School Certificate with Ede Local Government before I travelled to the United States where I studied Political Science at Jacksonville State University, Alabama, from 1983 to 1985. I later did my postgraduate studies in Public Administration. It was not easy at all; I was living in Atlanta and had to drive 120 miles to my school at Alabama. I had to support myself by washing dishes. It was a lot of struggle then because at a point in time, I worked 36 hours in a week and combined it with the rigours of academics so that I could supplement whatever was coming from my dad. Then, four of us were in school and we were stretching his resources to the limit. Along the line, I got married to my first wife, who bore my first son that is now 32 years old. He is married with kids and lives in the U.S. During my graduate studies, I slowed down on my work schedule and was only doing security work at night. My wife was also working then to support the family. We really struggled hard to live a good life.

When I completed my graduate studies, I strongly felt I needed a job that would be commensurate with my academic status. I was doing undercover security work for some companies then but the money was not much. At a point, I told my wife I would be returning to Nigeria. She did not like the idea, but my mind was made up. I returned to Nigeria in 1995 and settled down in Ede.

What did you plan to come and do in Nigeria then? Was it politics?

No. I had my mind focused on business. On my arrival, I teamed up with my younger brother, Deji, to start a drilling company. We were drilling boreholes and using the manual system before we switched to the motorised engine and business was good. From there, we started the Pacific Holdings where we went into haulage, banking and other viable businesses that have turned the company into an octopus in the business sector in Nigeria today.

How did you get into politics?

Really, it was not a planned thing. In the course of discussion with friends like (Alhaji Aliko) Dangote and a few others, I was encouraged to play politics since I studied Political Science. I told them I did not have the money to contest then. They assured me of their support and when I finally decided to play politics, those friends and my brother gave me all the support I ever needed for to carry out the campaigns.

How much of influence did your father have on your political career?

I think I am privileged to have a loving and supportive dad. He would always tell us if it meant selling his property, he would ensure we all get a good education. Even though he was a politician and a senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, he initially opposed the idea of my going into politics. He was not alone in the bid to ensure I stay away from politics, his sisters and other family members were strongly opposed to it. They had this fear that there were too many landmines and people get killed easily on the field. Maybe that was borne out of his experiences and the kind of politics that was played then. Later, he was persuaded to let go and he became my campaign manager. I joined the Democratic Party of Nigeria initially before I ended up in the Social Democratic Party on whose platform I rose to become the first civilian governor of Osun State.

How did you come about the name “Serubawon”?

I think it was in the course of my electioneering campaign to become the governor of the old Oyo State. The campaign was quite unique with all the razzmatazz. We were doing things differently from the established norm. I could recollect we used to distribute my campaign handbills via a helicopter wherever we went to campaign. The long convoy of brand new campaign cars and the way we turned our campaigns into carnivals was innovative. So when we went to the palace of the then Olubadan of Ibadan, he asked me in Yoruba, “Se eyin le nse eruba won, ti e tun nja won laya?” meaning – “are you the one causing political awe?” From that day, the name, ‘Serubawon’ stuck.

How come Davido, the son of your wealthy younger brother, Deji, found himself in music?

My brothers and I practically raised our children together. I mean there is no discrimination because of the rich socio-cultural and religious heritages bequeathed to us by our parents. David was with my kids at Southern Adventist University in Tennessee, U.S studying Business Administration. I used to give them a thousand dollars each monthly as allowance. There was a particular month I gave each of them their allowances. I later discovered that he used the whole of his allowance to buy a keyboard. I was surprised and asked him how he hoped to cope. But he told me not to worry that he would cope. He was always singing, composing songs and playing musical instruments.

Davido’s daddy reportedly refused to allow him take to music. Why?

It is the dad that can talk much about it. But I know the dad strongly opposed his idea of becoming a recording artiste. He had argued that he saw no reason why he (Davido) was not flowing with the tide in the family. Why become a musician when his other siblings had worked hard and earned their PhDs in their chosen fields. But my take on the issue was that everybody couldn’t aspire to be a doctorate degree holder, so he (Davido) should be allowed to develop his talents and pursue his passion to enable him to become a fulfilled person in life. Now he is combining music with his studies. He is such a hardworking guy. I think Davido has conducted himself well and he is also mindful of the family name.

What effect would you say your mixed parentage and religion have on the family?

My dad was a committed Yoruba Muslim from Ede, who had immense connectivity with the grass-roots while my mother was an Igbo and a very strong Christian. We were exposed to both religions and it never became an issue in the family because my dad was a very liberal person. He was the one that built the first mosque in Enugu. I followed my dad to the mosque and today, I am a Muslim and the same thing for my late brother. My younger brother, Deji, is a strong Seventh Day Adventist Church member, while others are Christians too. My mother belonged to the Aladura Church of the Christian faith. She founded her own church before she died a few years ago.

For us, religion never played a divisive role in the family. When they have anything to do in the church, I will be there to support them. When there is anything that I am doing in the mosque, they will all be there to support me too.

During your tenure as the first civilian governor of Osun State, you were largely perceived by the people as an extravagant personality who loved to live big…

Honestly, that perception was influenced by the level of my exposure. I was a young man just back from America and used to the most modern things of life. Really, I do not think I was doing anything extraordinary or out of place. But as I said earlier, the level of exposure made the people see things that way. Again, I have lived in one of the best democracies in the world and I’ve seen the way things are done. But the people we were working with then were ultra conservatives who felt things should move slowly in line with moribund conventions. I wanted development to happen fast, but they did not understand what we planned to do. The older politicians, especially, did not quickly share the dream we had for the state. For instance, within our 22-month tenure, I changed the status of Iree and Esa-Oke from satellite campuses of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, to full-fledged polytechnics of Osun State to expand the capacity of the state in higher education. I have a passion for the development of our people. In the course of our electioneering campaign then, I was at a community in Ejigbo Local Government and we had to drive through a stream. The people trooped out to welcome us. I saw some people washing clothes at the left side of the stream while some were fetching same water downstream.

Members of the community said for them to support me and give me their votes, I must drink the water from the stream as that was the water they drank. They wanted to drive home the seriousness of the water problem in the community. I drank the water. Honestly, that encounter really touched me. When I became governor, the community was the first I to get potable water. In fact, my administration set out to tackle the water problem in Ilesa and Ejigbo through the Asejire Water Dam. We planned to sell off the 11 million-dollar worth of obsolete pipes we inherited from the Old Oyo State. The pipes were already exposed to the vagaries of weather and were rusting away. But some politicians, who were bent on checking my rising political profile and influence at all costs, hid under the military when they seized power in 1994 to probe the sale of pipes. I was sent to prison and spent four days at Ilesa. The judge never took my plea. I was not given the opportunity to defend myself. Later when I met the late General Sani Abacha, I asked why he was persecuting me. He took me to his bedroom and said, “I am a Muslim, you are a Muslim; so we are brothers. I have nothing against you.’ Some of your Yoruba people are behind your persecution but I have ordered that they should stop persecuting you.” He then said I should see Sule Hamman, his political adviser. It was Hamman that strongly advised me to be very careful in view of the powerful political forces that were working against me. He said I should just hold my peace because the forces he mentioned were so desperate that they could knock me out.

One would have thought you will be in a party like the All Progressives Congress given the fact that your late dad, Senator Ayoola Adeleke, was a strong disciple of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo.

In the first instance, there is nothing wrong with the PDP as a party. I am always amused when the APC lays claim to being the only progressive party. There is no fallacy that is greater than that assertion. The party you belong to does not confer automatic progressive credentials on you, what does that is your belief, passion and accomplishments.

Nobody in the APC today can claim to be more progressive than I am. I was an active member of NADECO, for instance. I was in the trenches in the struggle to revalidate the annulled June 12, 1993 election and was on the list of those to be hunted down by the military then.

Would you attribute the seeming Midas touch of your brother, Deji, to the entrepreneurial trait of the Igbos he might have picked from your mother?

I don’t think so. He is a person who dedicated his life to God. He is a staunch Christian who works and prays hard. He is very generous and cares so much about the needy. At Adeleke University, Ede, I think about 10 per cent of the students who are indigent are studying free on his scholarship scheme. If you work hard and do the work of God, you will receive favour and blessings from God. I will attribute his success to the grace of the almighty God.

When you look back at your younger days and what the youths are going through today, what do you see?

It is quite unfortunate that the picture that I see today is that of gloom and despair. The opportunities for self-actualisation are dwindling by the day. I think government should do something urgently about unemployment. In the absence of productive work to do, youths become available tools to do negative things. If there are jobs, nobody wants to die. But now, our youths are engaged in armed robbery, kidnapping and thuggery. For instance, look at what happened recently during the Nigerian Immigration Service test for applicants across the country. They needed less than 10, 000 persons; see the multitude that turned up for the test and the tragedy that followed. I would love a situation whereby we go back to the basics. When I was governor at the creation of Osun, I inherited some farm settlements then which were built by Chief Obafemi Awolowo. As I speak, some people are still there on the farm settlements trying to eke out a living. I would suggest immediate removal of fuel subsidy and the savings on that should be deployed in the states for accelerated food production.

We need to get everybody to the farm to produce food massively to prevent hunger and reduce considerably our rising food import bill. When the U.S was over- producing food, the surplus was kept in silos. And when they were negotiating arms reduction with Russia, they used it to bargain to help them (Russia) overcome food shortages then. At the end of the day, Russia was forced to come down and negotiate Strategic Arms Limitations Treaty II (SALT II).

How did you come about your unique cap?

There is nothing special about it. It was my launderer that came back one day with my cap ironed in that special form. I put it on and I liked it. Since then, it stuck as part of my way of dressing. Some people have tried to copy it, but it can never be like the original.