By Ola ‘Kiya, Reporting
BARELY nine days to the burial of Princess Esther Adefolakemi Arogunmasa’s final funeral rites, the twin towns of Ogori and Magongo in Ogori-Magongo Local Government Area of Kogi State is already getting agog.
Old age is an honour, especially when legitimately and graciously earned. Mama Folake enjoyed it to the fullest.
Don’t forget that the centenarian was a Double Princess – her father being a prince in Magongo, Prince Oluyori Ebajemito and her mom, the daughter of late Ologori of Ogori, Oba Owolusi Fadipe-Aisoni.
This very fact makes her burial an inter-communal, royal affair between the two ancient communities.
This writer looked at our centenarian’s special knack for personal hygiene in an anecdote directly involving him.
Let’s today, through another short story, see how much value Emam’ Efolake held honesty so dear to her heart while alive.
Of a truth, Princess Arogunmasa loathed dishonesty to her bones! She had a special hatred for pilfering and anything related to fraud, lying and the like.
I was a pupil at popular “Eniye” primary school” sited between Ogori and Magongo. This is way up the hill from Akpafa secretariat towards Magongo. I was “shipped” to the school from St Peter’s Anglican Primary School while in Primary 2.
Those days, parents abhorred enrolling their children and wards at Eniye because of its long distance from the main town. So, St Peter’s Anglican Primary School and that of St Andrew Catholic held the ace in population.
As a result, the management of Eniye School, sited in the middle of a thick forest, got permission from the Okene/Ageva Local Government Area of the then Kwara State, to “invade” the other primary schools in Ogori and Magongo (of course with their consent) to harvest some willing pupils to the school for enrolment.
Ironically, the Eniye school, as far as I could decipher well, then, was ahead and academic performance and discipline among its peers in both communities.
This was the school I was shipped to, as it were, through volunteering myself because then, one of Mama’s sons, Ajijola Makanjuola Arogunmasa, popularly called Ahjih, then, was a senior pupil there. I wanted to have a feel of his testimonies he was fond of reeling out while in the midst of his mates who were in the other primary schools.
So, as a pupil of Primary 2 there, I woke up one day, did my usual morning shores and prepared to dash out to school in my khaki shorts and white shirt in a hurry. Usually, Mama Folake would give me 2 Kobo to school perhaps daily. But on this fateful morning, she was nowhere to be found.
What do I do? The 2 Kobo was meant for my breakfast at school before closing and returning home in the afternoon for whatever meal prepared for the rest of the day. Alas! Mama had gone to the market. I couldn’t go to start looking for her in the crowd. But I remembered she had, on a similar scenario, once kept my 2 Kobo on the belly of a wooden bench capsized over another bench right beside the main door of the two-storey building.
There, I found 2 kobo, innocently picked it up, dropped them in my bag and with speed, as I was already late, headed for school in a journey that’d take me about an hour on foot!
School over, I returned home under the scorching sun to meet a tensed atmosphere: Mama had been looking for the 2 Kobo I found and took to school without being instructed to do so. Her take was that she did not instruct me to pick any money up anywhere and so it amounted to stealing. Because my action wasn’t intentional, neither did I have the blood of thieving flowing in me, I immediately confessed and I explained why and how.
I received some verbal lashes and strokes of the cane for picking up the money without an express permission to do so and well repremanded to beware next time. To my chagrin, however, Mama Folake said it was a test to know whether I was a thief or not. She expressed consternation at the swift manner I had confessed to the supposed crime even when nobody saw me committing it.
The good news is that after that incident, no matter what got missing at home, nobody would put their eyes on me, and my response – whether positive or negative when confronted – was never doubted or questioned. I got a clean bill of one who doesn’t pilfer what belongs to others. The message therein has grown up with me. You cannot be raised by Mama Folake and be covetous, greedy or materialistic. Contentment in every area was her watchword!
Mama Folake was a very honest personality. You might not have enough good clothes to wear, money to spend, but Mama could not afford to see you hungry or not acquire western education. No! Not Mama Folake! Seeing people merrying over food was her delight. She was the toast of the hungry, the underprivileged in the street. She took care of even the unstable minds and street urchins who were rejected by others. She didn’t have much, yet she gave, sacrificially, much! The Ebajemito lineage definitely has the milk of love, humanity, generousity and sacrifice flowing abundantly in their genes!
I learnt contentment, moderation, honesty, boldness, courage, humility and forthrightness from you, and I’m living in them proudly.
Rest well, matriarch of Ebajemito, Fadipe-Aisoni and Arogunmasa dynasties!
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