Former Senator Lekan Balogun, a politician, businessman and lawyer, shares his experiences with AKINWALE ABOLUWADE
Soon you will clock 70 years. How has it been so far?
So far, life has been good. It could have been better or worse. I am very happy. One should be grateful to God. If you look back, you will be happy with the way things have turned out. I have had to face difficult times in my life. But if I had another opportunity, I would repeat certain things that I did before in the same way again. If you have a bad experience and you learn the right lesson, you will be happy. If it were possible to play back the good and bad things we have experienced in life, we would like to have them all over again. So far, life has been so beautiful.
Tell us about your lifestyle and how much it has helped you to live up to this age.
I used to tell my friends that I work for God and country. When you combine politics, business and traditional obligations you will see that there is no time left. I try to do the best that I can in each aspect of my calling. This is why I say that I work for God and my country. I can’t condone injustice. In this country we face the challenge of injustice from the minister, who refuses to meet the people, much less concede to them their rights as citizens; to policemen who engage in extortion at checkpoints and to somebody who got a plot of land about five years ago and the seller or intruder laying claim to a parcel of land. These things happen in our society all the time. You will recall the story of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, how Tokyo and I were fighting, as well as how Auxiliary and I once disagreed. It was all about being opposed to social injustice. My fighting spirit is more heightened when you treat people unjustly. I am not talking about whose experiences could be justified, but those who had unjustifiable experiences. Imagine somebody encroaching on your land and start building a house unjustly with the support of an army of thugs. Some people are looking for jobs and they are denied application forms, not even the jobs. Another set of people are those with financial challenges. It is not in my nature and place to say that I don’t have the means to help such people. When you go through all that and you still have business activities to worry about, you will have less time to attend to the things that can fetch you money. Traditional and political activities also take up my time. I engage in politics from the ward to the state and national levels. I do this in order to ensure that Nigerians choose their leaders well. Our people’s problem is how to choose well. The environment does not provide the kind of opportunity that they need to choose well. Instead, the society cares only about the money you make, the muscle you throw around and how much mischief you can make. My understanding of other democracies has to do with the intellect, character and temperament. In the regime of money, muscle and mischief making, a carpenter is given the job of lawmaker and a bricklayer is given the job of a medical doctor. This is very common in our society. The other day I read in a newspaper that somebody tried to impersonate a Commissioner of Police. I can’t imagine anybody, criminally inclined as he may be, impersonating the police boss. It is like you and I trying to pretend that we are pilots, though we cannot even open the cockpit. Where do we start from? I don’t even know if I can start the engines of an airplane with a key, just as I would start a car. If I hold the key of my car and lie that it is the key of an aircraft, how long can I sustain the lie? When you have experienced many things in life, you will no longer be surprised by the fact that we are not making progress as a people. But you are still bothered about the effects of such a thing on the people, as well as the likely consequences. The tragedy of living in such an environment is all over. It is not limited to one local government area; it affects all the local government councils in the country. It appears worse when you have been in an environment where things work. The more you know about how life should be and how life has been, the more painful it is. In life, you find that you are constantly under pressure.
People say that you make friends and enemies easily. Why is this so?
I know this sounds contradictory. I don’t choose my friends on the condition of their past relationship with me or because of what they think about me. Instead, I choose them on the basis of a current relationship. If a fellow treats you unjustly he becomes my enemy, in spite of my closeness or relationship with him. That is what I call consistency. I am looking for values not mere friendship in people. We should think of what is right and wrong. If my brother is wrong, I will be against him. But if my enemy is right, I will stand by him. A good man today can become a bad man tomorrow. One of my adopted children told me that he was angry when he learnt that I defended Tokyo some years ago. But I told him that Tokyo was removed unjustly. I always want to be on the side of justice and truth. I will guide and guard what is right without minding whose ox is gored. Auxiliary (the factional leader of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, Oyo State Chapter) is from the same place (Aliwo) in Ibadan with me, but when he was on the wrong side I called him and scolded him. When he started to toe the path of social justice I embraced him. There is a Yoruba adage that says whoever insists that he would never have anything to do with someone else would not live long. This shows that life is dynamic. I have little personal interest in people.
In what ways has your background shaped your world view and attitude to life?
I was born into a very humble Islamic family. I was made to learn the Holy Koran at a very tender age. My father was very old before I was born. He would not allow any of his children to go to school until they finished learning the Koran. After I was through with the Koran, I attended a Catholic primary school. In the school I learnt about catechism and it helped to form the basis of my worldview on human relationships. For instance, Christianity and Islam preach that you should treat other people as you want them to treat you. At that stage in life I began to realise that it is not your religion, tribe or family that matters most, but the value of the person you are relating with. That, I can say, formed the basis of my attitude to life and relationship with people. At a point in England, I read a book that talked about the truth and meaning of words. It made me understand that if you ask a man how he is doing and he says he is fine, he may just be saying he is fine whereas he is not. He may have just lost his uncle. When Nigerians say it is not bad, it is bad enough. We got to a point when we discovered that exploitation and oppression knew no colour. A black man can be an oppressor, as well as a white man. Of course, the white man had a history of oppression until other races started to resist him. In due course, we discovered that independence did not really mean that we were independent. It meant that the white men had just left us to sort ourselves out. They were replaced by another set of black people that were oppressors. As you become conscious of the fact that oppression and sentiment know no colour, you lose interest in parochial sentiments or religion, tribe. At this point I began to imbibe the values of social justice, democratic values and norms, and so on.
Tell us about your educational background.
I attended Anglican School at Lalupon, where I was born. I moved to Ibadan and attended the Catholic School in Oke-Ofa. Later, I sat for GCE Ordinary Level and A Level examinations. I should have been a natural scientist. I discovered that natural science has its racial interpretations and I am referring to the colour code in which black is regarded as zero, red is classified as the colour of communism and white is assumed to be on the highest level. It was an unusual changeover for me from natural science to social science. You can attribute this to my orientation and worldview in life.
What has been your greatest challenge in life?
Fighting against social injustice has been my greatest challenge in life. Once I quarrelled with my wife over how my children or my househelp were treated. Women have a habit of using abusive words on househelps. I find myself telling her that she should not talk to him or her like that. It has become a part of me. Sometimes I feel that if a child is not mine the world will say that I am unfair to him or her. As a result of my disposition, I find that little children are always looking for me. My children are so conscious of the fact that I would be on their side. One day, I told a friend of mine that my children were great. He asked if I was talking of my biological children and I said no. But I said they were my children as long as they were serving me and since they had fathers, so what is the difference? A friend in Abuja noted that I addressed my cook, driver and others as my children and he asked why I didn’t call them by their first names and I said no. These are not things that I do consciously but things that have become part of me. I call people my friends, my brother or my son depending on how old they are.
You are a very busy man. How close are you to members of your family?
I was very close to my children when they were growing up; we understand one another. Many times in the past, they complained that I was not staying at home; that I was either in Abuja or Lagos. But because of our mutual understanding we talk about it in a friendly manner. I would tell them I had to come. When they don’t see me they come to see me. I don’t get worried easily. I have a wife who is the exact opposite me because she complains about every little challenge. But I would tell her if you handle the challenges of life well you would be happy that they happened to you. I thank God every challenge had always turned to a good thing for me. I am not a Christian, but people invite me for Christian programmes.
Which were your happiest and saddest moments in life?
I was very sad when my mother died. She was a very good mother. My father had died many years before then. I was already an adult when my mother died. My greatest moment was when I won election into the Senate and I became the Mogaji of Aliwo. I recalled that my father had wished to become the Mogaji. So when I got to that position I was very happy. It meant that I was able to fulfill my father’s dream. If he could see me now, he would be proud of me.
Where have you worked before?
I was a lecturer in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria but I left to jon Shell. I left Shell some years after and I started a consultancy outfit in order to survive before I contested in a governorship election against the late Chief Bola Ige and Dr. Omololu Olunloyo but I lost. I later went to the Senate in 1999.
Since you work for God and country, who pays your bills?
In between politics and other things I engage in little business.
What is your advice to youths?
They should be more committed to the higher values of life and be more objective in their relationships.