By Egghead ODEWALE
So, on this lovely harmattan day of 2003, or thereabouts, ahead of the Summit of Heads of State and Government (HOSG) of ECOWAS in Accra, Ghana, I was working on one of the desktop computers installed in the conference secretariat to produce some memos required for the Civil Society Forum which recommendations will feed into the proposed agenda for the Summit.
Dr. Kay, short form for Dr. Kayode Fayemi, as we then called him, walked into the Secretariat room, came to my computer and asked to be allowed to finish his speech presentation meant for the forum. I obliged, standing just beside the desk. Not quite long after, came into the room, this rather resplendent woman decked in a patterned green Ankara skirt and blouse. She had her head tied into something like the « isicholo », the drum-like Southern African hat. She moseyed elegantly towards the same desk as I was standing, coming to a halt just about two feet beside Dr. Kay and me. Then in his characteristic baritone voice, Dr. Kay declared, « this is my wife, Bisi. Bisi, this is Egghead ». We then exchanged very short pleasantries. Not long after, Dr. Kay was done with his speech and he thanked me, then left the room with his dashing wife.
That was my first encounter and meeting with Erelu Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi (BAF). After that brief incident, I recall I had gone off to regale Mohammed and James, both my senior colleagues, about how I had met Dr. Kay’s wife and how beautiful she is. Mohammed, who always knew her, had quipped that why didn’t I tell her right there and then to which I responded jocularly, « my liver failed me ». Often, I would encounter her works through literature, conference contributions and development programmes and projects. She was a foremost frontier at the 1995 Beijing Conference and thereafter continued to lead women agenda across the African continent. There was no way not to encounter her through the projects of Akina Mama wa Afrika based in Uganda, an organisation that has trained over 6,000 alumnae through its African Women’s Leadership Institute (AWLI).
On our second physical meeting years later in 2009, we had traveled together by road with Mrs. Funmi Olayinka from Abuja to Ekiti shortly after the Court of Appeal, holden in Ilorin, had upturned INEC’s declaration of Segun Oni as the winner of the 2007 Ekiti Governorship election. Coincidentally, that was the very day that Pa Falade Fayemi passed away in Isan-Ekiti. She was casually warm and receptive, ensuring everyone on the trip intermittently received travel sweets, refreshments and the like. We have since cemented a relationship that has moved from being my Oga’s wife to big aunty to second mother. It has been a connection interspersed with mentoring, inspiration, education, guidance and counseling but above all, a motherly backbone.
BAF has been many things to many people. She has amazed me with how she can fluidly connect to the young and old, male or female, the plebeians or creams of society. More amazing is the smoothness of her transition into the murky Nigerian political field. She strutted with the grace and elegance of her patrician upbringing while blending seamlessly into the coarse landscape of her husband’s political theatre. For there were plenty of unfamiliar elements in the early heady days of the foray—getting to connect with people of diametrically alternate worldviews, accepting to fit the expansive philosophy of the feminist being into a largely patriarchal universe, having a front-row experience of those many dispiriting tales of the struggle for political high office, being denied the evident electoral victory and having to repeat the circus from the polls to the court and eventually the assumption of office in 2010. Keeping one’s head high in the days of the ‘strungle’, as we say in Ekiti, was a constant hard-won battle.
Other than JKF himself, one person who witnessed all the tribulations and upheavals surrounding the Collective Rescue Mission, is Bisi Fayemi. People come and go but Bisi Fayemi did not. Or could not? I know she had initial reservations about the political journey but once she made up her mind, she never looked back and gave it her all. She was in on all fours and no husband could ask for more. Oftentimes, political commentators revile what is seen as non-elected spouses of political office holders’ ‘overbearing’ presence in the public arena. What is never acknowledged is that the ‘non-elected’ spouses make huge sacrifices and are almost always equally yoked to the trappings or lack of it of the very political offices. Despite being deliberate in her choices, Mrs. Fayemi is one who has sacrificed a lot for her husband, whether in or out of office.
She literally gave up her professional career in full support of her husband’s political projects. As would become of the contradictions of our socio-political experiences, here was a woman whose name was once called in the introductions of the husband. However, once her husband was in politics, the trend reversed. Still, she never betrayed any emotions of being fazed by such descriptors. She had committed to the sacrifices and would not be deterred by the naysayers. When the husband eventually became the Governor of the State, she was so fitting in her role as Wife of the Governor and First Lady that the couple easily and quickly became the exemplar for other similar political entities.
BAF is easily one of the few who sits atop a delicate quincunx of scholarship, professionalism, fashion and arts, motherhood and homemaker, and public service maintaining an effortless balance of all. She can be serious and studious. She can be a feminist, a gender specialist and a social engineer. She can dance, be merry and be a happy socialite with a high sense of haute couture and the arts. She can be a mother to her biological son as well as many of us she has now adopted as children. She can be a public administrator and political operator with a keen interest in people and resource management. She can be many things and still be the Ochiora, the Erelu, the Akorewolu, the Ajiseye, the Fiwajoye, the Yeye Oba, and many more chieftaincy recognitions in various kingdoms across Yorubaland and beyond.
I think it’s easy to see how tough it can be to scribble a testimonial about BAF. Especially, for someone like me who has enjoyed, and sapped, from her unending motherly milk, saying a few words on the commemoration of her Diamond Birthday can never be enough. Nevertheless, key points in our long relationship continue to remind me how I have had another mother in her. Some quick memories should be fitting. I remember that at the turn of the year on 31st December 2009, in the middle of our battles with the opposition political party and how our election had been stolen a second time within a two-year period, Erelu organised all of us in the Fayemi household, including her husband, into the parlour at the Eyiyato Lodge at Isan-Ekiti. We started playing music as loud as possible and danced into January 2010. We all danced to our heart’s fill. Yes, it was the dawn of a New Year but we were all just happy and she wanted us to bond together on that joyous occasion of a new calendar year. It is a sweet memory to reminisce.
Another sweet memory for me was, when in 2014, I went to inform her that I would like to bring my girlfriend to introduce to her, she left the food she was eating, right there and then, and rolled on the floor of her bedroom praising God that finally “ọmọ mí ti fé mú ìyàwo wá lé”. Till then, it never dawned on me that she had been praying and hoping fervently that I should find a wife and “settle down”. If I was initially confused, that gesture pointedly cemented the confirmation of her motherly love for me. When my mother turned 70, she not only encouraged but supported me financially to arrange a celebration for her. Despite not being well on D-day, she personally attended and honored my mother on her special birthday. She has thus etched a permanent memory in my mother’s mind.
Aunty Bisi has me firmly harnessed on her motherly back tightened with a strap fabric called “Ọ̀já” in Yorubaland. The significance of this ọ̀já was further demonstrated in early 2019 after I was confirmed to have slip spinal disc (sciatica), she promptly facilitated my neurosurgical operation which today ensured that I do not have to walk with the requirement of crutches or aides or be confined onto a wheelchair. I am eternally grateful to know her, associate with her and continue to enjoy her love. On the occasion of your 60th birthday celebrations, I cannot thank you enough for all of the countless known and unknown times that you have expressed affection toward me. I remain firmly strapped to her ever-compassionate and maternalistic dorsum. To borrow the words of Ondo State’s Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mrs. Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, Erelu’s indescribable personality is encapsuled in her effortless ability to be “too conservative for the radicals and too radical for the conservatives”.
My father and mother will always mention her in prayers whenever we speak expressing ceaseless appreciation for how BAF and JKF have helped developed their son. My immediate family members are forever grateful. So, on this occasion of your Diamond Jubilee, for and on behalf of my father’s family, my partner Oyinkolawa and our sons, Oluwademilade and Olularan, and in the terminology of the boys, “Happy Birthday Ewewu”!