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Lagos International Trade Fair Boss buries father, tasks Nigerian parents on role modelling
Chief Mrs. Lucy Omosefe Ajayi the Executive Director of the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex Management Board and daughter of late High Chief Lawrence Aigbokhan Williams Odigie who died on April 12th, 2021 in his Lagos residence has in a short interview with National Daily in Ekpoma Edo state at the interment programme of her father, maintained that parents need be closer to their children to build a better society as they remain a role model for their wards. Harping on the importance of sustaining ones moral rectitude against all odds. Excerpts:
Given the kind of man your late father was what are the take aways for Nigerian parents?
I think parents should not be far from their children no matter how old they are because as at even a week before he had his relapse in America he was still talking and chatting,I didn’t know he was going to fall sick. He would ask me how is the office? How is this,please don’t give us a bad name we don’t have politician in the family and they usually have a bad name please remember this before you do anything and just let go.
He knew of the problem I was having with my boss as regards trade fair concessioning, he said do not do what is bad leave their job for them you will not suffer, that time they were giving me problems they want me to sign off Tradefair the whole 322hectares, he would read all messages back in America and advise he would say when next you are going for that interview let me know. He did that because he didn’t want me to offend humanity. If your boss is telling you to do what is wrong just leave and do what God want, if you saw my Daddy at 75,76 years he was full of life that is why people are shocked to hear he is no more because he was like a boy oh boy, a free minded person in all that he was not a government worker,the last time he worked was at UAC which he left as a manager and since then he has been on his own, I have not seen that Daddy executed any contract but if you see what the man has and that has taught us that it is not by stealing big monies,if you have small money and you plan well you will come out just fine. If you see his house in the village you will be shocked and look at things he is doing. He is just an educationist,I grew up to know that he own a vocational school there was a popular one in Isolo, Royal,there is nobody who doesn’t know royal till he died he was still running workshops on chartered secretaries and with those small, small monies he would save. The last time I went home I saw all the small, small blocks he moulded and I said he never told us we would have helped him. So since he didn’t build I said we are going use those blocks to do a mausoleum for him.
Kindly let us into some of the beautiful memories of Daddy’s forays here on earth.
I said it in one of my previous interviews that my father is the fastest typist I ever knew,he encouraged me I had my secretarial admin certificate OND in the Lagos State Polytechnic Isolo.
He is my mentor,my friend and my first love he having me when he was 25, he was really a young father, in fact while I was in the University everybody felt he was my boyfriend,my father went to every school I went to, every teacher even my Vice Chancellor knew my father because I was a little bit troublesome so he was really monitoring.
Really?
Yes because even in the secondary school I was suspended once for you to know how stubborn I was, I am still stubborn because I hate cheating and I will fight against injustice to the last, so he was always counselling me my other siblings are gentle,they would let things go by, I won’t. Even if I went to school and came from the University and I heard that you insulted my father,I will go to the house and pick up a fight with you so most times he would say don’t let her know anybody insulted me because if it takes one or two years for her to know,she will come back and fight such a person, even right now I keep looking at his videos and I’m saying Daddy I don’t think you are gone.
Each time I want to come to the realization that he had gone something,somebody will remind me he is very much around. Like the village I went to now his neighbours had a problem with some technicians working in the house and I came though I didn’t see the woman over the fence and I said to the woman that madam you should have come to report and not pick up a fight with the technicians that are working, she said look I don’t care who you are,I am waiting for Daddy to come so that I can report you to him. I then said that Daddy you are talking about is gone,that is why I am here. She just kept silent and I said you should come and pay me condolence rather than fighting my technicians,she later came and all she was saying is that handsome man,that good man, haaa! Will we ever have light in the village?
Will we ever have good roads again,the last time he graded this road is the way the road was graded and now if you go there you see the impact of erosion so what can I do? That is Daddy for you. When we went to the cathedral church the Vicar was saying your Daddy is a distant person, I say I am a fulfledged Anglican and I got permission from my Bishop right from Lagos so you must attend to me. Last Sunday we were in the Church at the Village, the Church that was on my street Saint George that I felt was small, I didn’t know Daddy was the founder of that Church.
There are so many things Daddy did and they came and said you went to the Cathedral without coming to us,this is your father’s first Church,he founded it and felt what more could I say about Daddy?
The villagers were so supportive and said Daddy was a good person what do you want us to do. People were thinking they would give us problems not knowing us but they didn’t,that is the kind of person Daddy is.
We have the upper village and the lower village where my grandpa was, they said they’ve not had light for past eight years that this poles standing is the unfinished job of Daddy so many unfinished projects,so everyday people will call me, we had the advert in the papers yesterday and so many people said wow! We don’t know he was gone. I said yes and that they must come, you can see the crowd at his christian wake here, he gave this estate the name same in Isolo,anywhere he lived so I don’t know what more to say.
You once said your father didn’t support you getting involved in politics, when exactly did he came to term with your decision to take to politics?
He has been a guide in everything I do, he will tell you he doesn’t like one to do politics because his father was one and he lost so much to the extent that he stopped schooling for some time because of politics. He was in the opposition, then me coming to be in the opposition again he couldn’t take it. He said no, no, no you can’t come back from South Africa and say it is politics that you will venture into. Me being the stubborn person saw what he did not see and still went ahead so I didn’t talk about politics to him until I got a position in Kosofe and he was like they gave you in Lagos not Edo state but you know I am not supporting this, he is too inquisitive even while in America because he was there for very long time he became sick in America, COVID held him back there being a green card holder he must go there every year he can’t spend nine months without going.
He left immediately after my chieftaincy coronation on May 5th 2020 and he was healthy, he only went for his check ups for his eyes that led to something and next they said they saw cancer at the last stage, I thought America will safe my father but America didn’t safe him so I had to tell them to bring him back to Nigeria and he was here three weeks before he died. I went to bury my mother in-law and I came back on a weekend he asked after me, insisting I must see him though I ought to go for a meeting in Abuja on Monday I had to reschedule for Tuesday just to see him having allowed me to go and bury my mother in-law, I came to his house some minutes after five and they said he had asked after me twice and would say okay o so she is not here.
When I got there after five on Monday 12th he opened eyes and saw me the nurse said leave him let him sleep he just need some rest and three hours after I felt no this was not normal, every hour I will go and check him so at this point I was shaking him and said Daddy wake up now so that you can see me, I am going to Abuja tomorrow and he looked at me wanted to talk but couldn’t his mouth was twitching I told the nurse because he had a 24 hours nurse on standby,I said check his pulse, she said I just checked and asked he said he does not want anything, I said this is not a normal sleep three good hours! So they had the suction machine and I could see he wants to talk so I held him but he was too weak and I said wear him his pressure socks five minutes after one would expect him to ask that it be pulled off but he did not I told the nurse this man is going, so she put the pulse meter on him and the thing read 90 over 40 something and he had started shaking and I said she should pound his chest I didn’t want him to really go, and weakly he went and slept right in my hands. So he waited for me to come and I think it is a blessing, I am happy that he waited for me to come and that he made the trip from America because he was already weak he came in to Nigeria March 15th and he died April 12th . There is so many more we have not heard about his good legacies that we would still hear. He was a great man, an Icon of great repute.
Are there no other sides of your father, is just a jolly good fellow through and through?
No, though you cannot be perfect, but I can score my father 90 percent, I pray I would be like him you know me I am the hot tempered one, Daddy isn’t at all even while on the sick bed when I scold the house girl he tell me leave her, he doesn’t want people to be hurt. He can tolerate many things I am telling you, you can come and insult him and he will be looking and he would smile,I will say Baba this person is insulting you,he would say but that is not my name. I am not what the person is saying, he is just awesome.
The only thing I am praying for, I know he is an orator I took that after him,Daddy is very intelligent I took part of it not all, I would miss his advise and wisdom, Daddy has time for all his children he can talk to you for five hours and he would not stop and same with all of us,we are nine,he has time for everybody and he is a good listener, he usually plead with me to listen first to what he is saying then respond and that it is not all that you respond to but I want to respond to all. So I think now that he is not around,I would start thinking of all his advise before I do anything now and I want to have his kind of temper, he is cool tempered.