Half-century remembrance ceremony of the passage of Late Lt. Col. Adekunle Fajuyi, first Military Governor of old Western Region kicked off this week in his hometown, Ado-Ekiti, capital of Ekiti State.

It started with the laying of wreath at his popular tomb, Adekunle Fajuyi Memorial Park. Fajuyi, then just 40 years, was murdered in the wee hours of July 29, 1966 at a location near Iwo-Road, close to Agodi in Ibadan capital of now Oyo State, while hosting the then Head of State, Maj. General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi- Ironsi, who was also assassinated, by obviously vengeful counter-coup plotters of northern stock, led by then Major (later General) Theophilus Danjuma (rtd).

The civilian administration of late Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa had been similarly toppled in a bloody coup six months earlier, ending Balewa’s life alongside those of other ranking functionaries of his government, who were mainly northerners.

Fajuyi was survived by two wives, including late Mrs Eunice Oja and 88-yearold Mary Adebayo, said to be currently staying with her children in Ibadan; two male children, Donald Femi Fajuyi (still alive and deeply involved in the ceremonies) and Dayo, of blessed memory (both lawyers) and other female children.

Details of his life and times were recounted by son, Donald and some of his (Fajuyi’s) associates, including his immediate successor in office, General (rtd) Robert Adeyinka Adebayo, who hail from Iyin-Ekiti and who built the prestigious park where his remains were interred and still lie till date.

Journey to the military – Adeleye

Alhaji S.B Adeleye, alias Meboloshirin (I cannot befriend a wretched person) had in 1943 advised late Fajuyi to join the army with him and three other friends. Adeleye, aged 104 years, who now lives Iyin-Ekiti, said the five of them had trekked the entire way from Ado-Ekiti to Ajase town, which was just about 20 kilometres to Ilorin, where they planned to join the army to enable them partake in the World War 11, which by then was going on.

He said:”I became friends with late Francis Adekunle Fajuyi in 1933. I was the one who advised him to let us join the army in 1943. He was then teaching in Aisegba- Ekiti and was then receiving 12 shillings per month.

“I returned from Lagos and went to meet him and said that I wanted us to go and join the army. I told him that I tried joining the army at the Glover Memorial hall in Lagos but could not because they said I have a small stature.

I said but I really like to join the army and I advised him to join me. He agreed and around 1pm one afternoon, we set out for Ilorin. We had three other friends, who joined us and we trekked for six hours from Ado-Ekiti to Ajase town.

The town is about 20 kilometres to Ilorin, where we wanted to join the army then. “We left from a spot in Okesa area of Ado-Ekiti where the All Saints Church is now situated. That area was a bushy area and it used to be the masquerades’ grove that time. “Fajuyi brought the idea that we should go at that time because he knew his father would not allow him to go if we delayed till the next morning.

“One other person, whose name I cannot remember is the younger brother to the wife of the Ewi of Ado-Ekiti, Oba Rufus Aladesanmi, who I think has become the Alare of Are-Ekiti. “We got to Ajase town at 7pm that day and we wanted to continue trekking to Ilorin but we waited to get food to eat but there was no food.

That was why we decided to sleep at the Ajase motor park that night. But then, we later changed our minds when we saw an ambulance that was conveying a corpse to Ilorin from Ajase that night.

Because I had lived in Lagos before then, I was smarter than others and approached the driver of the ambulance. He agreed to take us to Ilorin on the condition that we would each pay a Shilling and squat where the corpse was kept, and we agreed.

“The ambulance took us to Ilorin and we went to a Catholic Church on Jeba road where Fajuyi’s teacher, who had been posted from Ado-Ekiti to Ilorin, was. We trekked from where the ambulance dropped us to the Catholic church around 10 pm. Fajuyi’s former teacher, who I only remember as Mr. Rewane, a white man, took us in and gave us a tin of garri and four cubes of sugar each for supper that night before we slept.

“The next morning, he asked us why we were at Ilorin and we told him we wanted to join the army. He was surprised. He asked Fajuyi if he brought his Standard Six certificate and Fajuyi said yes.

He then said that Fajuyi would not join the army but he would find a job for him. “The other four of us then left Fajuyi with his teacher and went to the place where the commissioning into the army for the World War II was going on and as soon as we got there, we were promptly welcomed and in less than 15 minutes, the officers there started to take down our names for registration.”

Fajuyi nearly became a forest guard

Pa Adeleye equally recalled how, but for the twin vices of tribal and religious discrimination which was then already raging, Fajuyi’s dream of becoming a soldier would have been ended by his teacher, Mr. Rewane, noting “Five days after we had been accepted at the army recruitment camp, Fajuyi came to see us.

His teacher had secured a job for him as a forest guard and he rode a bicycle and wore the uniform. They allowed him in because he was a government worker.” He spoke: “He told us that he had to tell a lie to be employed as a forest guard in Ilorin then.

He said he told the forest office that he was from Offa on number 9, Yoruba Road. He said he had to tell such lie because the North wouldn’t have employed him if they he had told them the truth that he was from the West in Ado-Ekiti. We had three regions then, the North, East and the West and these three regions preferred giving appointments only to their own children.

“Kwara State was of the north then and it extended to Omu-Aran and close to Otun in Ekiti here. When stayed for 22 days in camp, before we were ferried inside the train to Enugu for military training.

We had spent three months in the training camp in Enugu when I saw my friend Fajuyi again. He said he had been sacked from the forestry office in Ilorin because the office found out that he was a Christian and not a Muslim like them. He added that because he was sacked from the forestry department, he had then opted for the army and had been recruited.

“While Fajuyi’s set was taken to the CTS in Accra, Ghana for their military training, my set trained in Enugu. It was from our respective training camps that we were later sent to the war Fronts in India during the World War 11”, the old colleague said.

Embodiment of greatness, compassion

Pa Adeleye equally revealed some of the virtues of late Fajuyi, saying “When the war ended in 1945, he was redeployed to Zone 6 in Apapa, Lagos while I returned home first. He had been trained to become a clerical officer in the army because he had a Standard Six when he joined.” Said he: “I went back to meet him. We used to hail each other with an alias then.

I used to call him Kakao while he used to call me SB. He encouraged me to stay in the army with him. He took me to his boss, Major D.J Bonne, a white man, who, liked him a lot. When he told his boss that I was staying, the boss was happy and offered me a post of a Dispatch Rider (D.R) for then Governor-General, John Macpherson.

“While in the service of the Governor- General as dispatch rider, I was able to assist my younger brother, General Adeyinka Adebayo, who came to stay with me in Lagos then.

When Adebayo completed his Class four education in 1948, I searched for a white collar job for him in other areas but we didn’t get. I later asked him if he would like to join the army and he said yes.

I said Samuel Ademulegun, Ralph Sodeinde, Ironsi and Babatunde Ogundipe were then the highest ranking officers in the Nigerian army then. “I took Adebayo’s application letter to the governor-general and he had written exactly the same thing Sodeinde wrote in his own application letter. The only difference was that address and name of Robert Adeyinka Adebayo.

The governor-general was surprised and asked me why my younger brother was bearing that name. I was a sergeant then in the army and I explained to him that after losing my father, my mother had moved on to marry Adebayo, who was Adeyinka’s father and that settled it.

That was how my younger brother, General Adebayo, emerged the number five person in the Nigerian army then. He is the only one alive now out of the five of them. Adebayo started his military training at the 3rd Battalion in Abeokuta.”

Fajuyi was a wrestling champion –Akerele

To Pa Sule Akerele, of Okesa quarters, Ado-Ekiti, who was once renowned as a clothes seller, and weaver of native Royal Yoruba attire such as ‘Ofi’ Aran, and ‘Dansiki, Fajuyi was equally a local wrestling champion in their days as very young men in Ado-Ekiti.

Akerele said: “I was Fajuyi’s close friend when we were very young and used to wrestle from quarters to quarters in Ado-Ekiti. We used to gather ourselves for wrestling matches in the evenings.

We would move from one quarter to another. We moved from Ule-Asa in Okesa quarters; we went to Basaya in the same quaters, and went to a place called Ojude in Eregburu quarters in Ado-Ekiti for local wrestling matches. “Other places where we used to wrestle include Akogun quarters in Irona, Ejigbo place in Ejigbo area and then to Odofin quarters in Odo-Ado and also the Ode-Remo quarters.

“We were in our early twenties. Some of our other friends then included Jimoh Iyalode from Ejigbo, Saka Agemo also from Ejigbo, Yesufu , Aliu Dara from Idolofin, Salami Oluyele from Ejigbo, all of them are gone now except Oluyele, who I am not sure he’s still alive.

During the local wrestling matches, once a wrestler throws his opponent to the ground and the opponent’s back reaches the earth, the wrestler has won and he would be carried on the shoulders by his supporters who would hail him home.

“Fajuyi used to win in many of the matches and he used to be carried on the shoulders of the supporters and hailed as a champion. “Before he went to join the army, he informed me and I told him that the only reason why I could not join him was because he was educated while I didn’t go to school. That was why I didn’t follow him to join the army then.

“His sudden death in 1966 was a huge blow to us. We all heard about the news and we were shattered. Many of us, including those older and younger ones to him wept bitterly”


SOURCE: https://newtelegraphonline.com/adekunle-fajuyi-brave-host/

Eiyah...

I'm sure this is one history topic not taught in the East.