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Let’s begin this epic, novel-quality story from the beginning.
Born on Monday, April 6, 1959 in Ibadan, to the family of Samuel Oladeinde Oshokoya, Olatokunbo started his primary school education in the year 1965 in Ijebu-Ode. Secondary education was at Baptist High School, Iwo, followed by a two-year stint at The Polytechnic, Ibadan for his General Certificate of Education (GCE) Advanced Levels. From there, he was admitted into University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) for a degree programme in Engineering.
It was at Ife that he had his first experience with the twists and turns of life, the kind that was to characterise his latter years and make out of him, the celebrated victor that he is today. He had first become aware of the reality of God as a primary two pupil of seven, in the year 1966. He was told that Jesus was coming back again, and He would appear in the sky in His full glory, take those who believe in Him up with Him, leaving those who do not believe in Him behind to continue in suffering. This created fear in his young impressionable mind, but obviously, not enough to affect his choices for almost 20 years!
He had enrolled at the University for a four-year programme, which should have seen him graduate in 1981, a year behind his peers who had gone for three-year courses. But he found himself graduating an extra year late, a development of almost tragic proportions in those days! Were he an average student, it wouldn’t have been anything to worry about. But, no; he was simply a victim of his campus lifestyle.
He had plunged headlong into the social scene on campus, becoming a popular disc jockey (DJ), the toast of many a campus gig. As a result, he was sloppy with attendance at lectures. Against all expectations that he would be an academic front-runner, having come from the elite group of Higher School Certificate/GCE A-Level holders, he was a brilliant laggard! In the event, he had carry-overs that kept him in school for another year, graduating in 1982, along with many students two years his junior.
Although, at this point, he was convinced that he might have overstretched the grace of God on his life, as it dawned on him that were his relationship with God right, He would not have allowed him to repeat a class, he still did nothing about it. The fresh engineering graduate had no difficulty getting a job, after the one-year mandatory service under the National Youth Service Corp scheme in 1983.
With his life style on campus, it would have been a surprise if he didn’t have a girl friend. He not only did, there was a particular one who visited him regularly - with all its implications. By the time he started work, the young lady who had already graduated and was in her youth service year, got pregnant. His childhood fear of God always lurking in his heart, he and his girl friend decided against abortion. In his book, pregnancy outside of wedlock was sinful enough; to add abortion would be pushing the threshold! So, they both decided to inform their parents about the situation, and their proposal to get married. The disappointed parents, both devout Christians, had been handed a fait accompli. They soon agreed on a programme. A church wedding was out of the question, so it was decided the young couple would be married at a registry, hold a reception right after it, and a week later, go to church for blessing.
On the appointed day, however, the bride was conspicuously absent. Probably because of the stress of preparing for the wedding, she went into forced labour overnight, and was rushed to hospital. When it became clear she wasn’t going to be available to sign on the dotted line at the marriage registry, family members and guests headed for the reception venue where everything was set to celebrate the latest couple in town.
And what a reception it turned out to be! While the couple was supposed to be lapping up all attention and be toasted at the reception, the bride was in hospital delivering her baby prematurely. So, the bridal chair was vacant; and the chief bridesmaid stood in for the bride at the cake-cutting. It was as all this melodrama was playing out that the news came. The bride had been delivered of a baby boy.
Everybody was happy, or almost everybody. The newest father was not exactly ecstatic about the news. Deep inside him, he sensed that something wasn’t quite right. He had a strong feeling that something was bound to be wrong with the child, born under term as he was. It was a spiritual kind of knowing that he could not explain at the time. Anyway, reception over, he headed for the hospital and his feelings were confirmed; something was indeed wrong with the baby.
As Brother Toks recalled it in an interview with KINGDOMPeople, recently, the doctors confirm that the baby had what they called “Cleft Palate.” This is defined as an opening in the roof of the mouth due to a failure of the palatal shelves to come fully together from either side of the mouth and fuse, during embryonic development, as they normally should. The doctors assured them that it could be corrected, but it would take three surgical procedures at ages three, nine and 12 months respectively.
All these for a small baby, the young father thought to himself. He was alarmed. He decided he neither wanted to take the child through all of that nor go through it himself. There and then, he entered into an agreement with God. He prayed to God to please take the baby and “let him rest in your bosom”. He told God it would be too tough for him to start married life with a baby with complications they were not equipped to handle. He asked God to give them a chance to start afresh, a chance to start all over again.
You might think God doesn’t answer such prayers, but from what followed, He did! In fact, as Pastor Tokunbo puts it at the interview, it’s proof that if you know how special you are to God, you could “negotiate” with Him. Anyway, later that evening, as the usual post-wedding party was going merrily on, a delegation from the wife’s family arrived and went straight to Pa Oshokoya with the news – the baby had passed on. His father broke the news to him as gently as he could, urging him to be a man and take heart. Of course, he had to put up appearances of grief and sorrow, but deep within him, he was happy that God had answered his prayer. The baby was immediately buried.
Shaking his head, as he recalled it all to KINGDOMPeople, he said: “in one day I became a husband, a father, and I buried my first child, all in one day. What a way to start life. But we had to move on”.
Move on they did. Within two weeks his wife had recovered well enough for them to go back to the marriage registry to fulfil their legal obligations. They followed it with another reception complete with the traditional cutting of cake, thanks to the fact that two members of the family gave them a wedding cake each. In the circumstance, the Oshokoyas had two sets of wedding photographs – one with the unoccupied bridal seat and of course, the other with the wife fully in place.
Meanwhile things seemed to be looking up at work. As young engineer gainfully employed in a consulting firm, he was due for a car loan of N9,000. Like most young men at that time his choice of car was Volkswagen Passat TS. He had gone to price it at the real ultimate car for young men as at that time, he had gone to John Holt Motors and all that remained was for his employers to hand him the cheque. They were willing, but there was a little challenge; they were yet to receive payment due for certain projects they did for some federal government establishments, including the Federal Ministry of Works. Necessary contacts had been made and the cheque for this sizeable amount was to be picked up before the Christmas break. The officer in charge at the firm, however, decided there was no hurry about it. He’ll collect it as soon as work resumed early in the new year, he told himself. Unfortunately, in the early hours of December 31, 1984, Brigadier General Sani Abacha announced the return of the military to governance in a coup.
The advent of a new government led by Generals Muhammadu Buhari and Tunde Idiagbon enthroned a strange new order: everybody was guilty till proven innocent. So, government contactors or consultants who dared to show up in any ministry, for the purpose of collecting money, risked being arrested and detained. They were seen as collaborators with the just overthrown corrupt politicians. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, Oshikoya’s employer went underground. As a result, not only did his dream of a brand new car evaporated, he did not receive any salary for the next three months. To compound matters, he finally received a letter, not for the long awaited car loan, but of termination of appointment – without a severance payment of any kind; not even the three-month arrears of pay due to him.
With his wife and their new baby to cater for and no job, Engr Tokunbo was back in the midst of a storm. All efforts, including tapping into his father’s contacts failed to yield a new job. He converted his Mazda 323 to kabukabu (unregistered taxi) to at least put some food on the table but after some time the car packed up. Life became so tough for his family that with nothing to eat, they would sometimes resort to fasting.
TO BE CONTINUED
Wow.
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