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| Gbanga Dan Asabe, late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole with BON founder, Seun Oloketuyi |
Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole’s last memoir with Asabeafrika began with the story
of her sudden movement from her husband’s house in early 2013 into her newly
accomplished four bedroom apartment in Ikorodu area of Lagos state.
This blog
wanted Adunni to tell us the reason she took such a brave decision to check out
from one of the four flats given to her at Chief Alani Bankole’s Oregun,
Ikeja-Lagos home and moved into Jajo community in suburb Ikorodu area of Lagos.
Her revelation surged forward like a raving storm, enjoy.
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| The Late Iyalode of Gbagura, Yeye Adunni Bankole |
How People failed to see my life of
irony….
time I did not enjoy any peace. But I am someone that will make a decision and
stand by the consequences of my decision no matter how gory. So, I was acting
out for thirty years. Ironically I was too many people’s enemy; unknown to them
that I was not actually their enemy. I was living a life of irony but I was
coping. Whenever the opportunity presented itself for me to make my case to
people, I did and they always took compassion with me but then I couldn’t reach
out to one percent of the people that should have my audience and know the real
me or what I was going through. And I acted like that not in any way that will
harm anybody. I will stand for the (Bankole) family where I should. Ironically
I will defend them in the press and blaze the trail and carry the family’s
problems on my very, very weak shoulders and for years and months I wasn’t
sleeping but ironically, I was being paid with a bad coin (Moved close to
emotion as she fought hard to withhold tears). And I didn’t think much of it because
I thought the man was there, he would understand but when he now became the
real olori
oko in my life I had to leave
or else I would have died. It became so worse that I became ill because there
was so much pressure on me emotionally, physically, psychologically and I was
working too hard at the same time. I had very, very rough time. I had to labor
hard to earn my day; even in the type of work I was doing; ironically, people
were envious of me thinking that ‘oh, she is always travelling’ and most time I
will travel from here to China and I
would weep for the fourteen hours flight, before I land. With my eyes swollen
red; I would weep from when I board the flight here until I get down in Guangzhou ; I would weep back when I get to Dubai, I was working too much with
very, very little resources. Too little; I had to stretch and go and go, I
would take things to London to sell. Take so many insults and at a time, I had
to stop. Why did I stop? There is a shop
in England I used to take things to in company of my sister-in-law and this
lady likes me a lot. And she will make some very, very strange demands. Buy
this and this, and I will buy, happily because she will pay me and I will use
the money to buy things and bring to Nigeria. I didn’t know she didn’t know who
I was.
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| The late Iyalode Adunni Bankole with friends during her 53rd birthday bash |
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| Guests offering prayers for Iyalode Adunni Bankole during her 53rd birthday dinner @ Protea Hotel, Lagos |
“I had to labor hard to earn my day;
even in the type of work I was doing; ironically, people were envious of me
thinking that ‘oh, she is always travelling’ and most time I will travel from
here to China and I would weep for
the fourteen hours flight, before I land. With my eyes swollen red; I would
weep from when I board the flight here until I get down in Guangzhou
But one day, I supplied things to her and I was hoping to get paid, she
just delayed me unnecessarily. And as I was trying to call her attention to it,
she said “you, you this shameless woman. So, you are Iyalode Adunni Bankole. I
never knew all this time I have been buying things from you. You are doing this
job, pulling trolley all over London, buying things and bringing to me, you
have no shame. I just read about you in Ovation”. I wept for three days. And
that was the last of my taking things to sell in England. Because I used to
have to cover my head but then, I knew I had to work. If I didn’t work I
couldn’t survive. Then I worked so hard. Nobody believed in me but I was using
the hard work to make ends meet until I became ill, my body protested, I almost
died. I was on oxygen at LASUTH for two, three weeks. (Voice laced with emotion but kept her strong
streak not to break down emotionally). I went for an operation and I thought to
myself ‘you will just die o’ and ironically, my life is an irony. Everybody,
even my children almost believed ‘oh, look at her. Getting the best of
everything, she is emi oga, she spends
all the money. I didn’t spend anybody’s money o. I am here by the dint of my
hard work and I am never mortified. There was a time in England, if I am going
to a destination; I will have to take up to four-five buses. Because people
will see you and exclaim ‘this is Iyalode Adunni Bankole’. I will get
off the bus and will be so embarrassed. I was pulling trolley, working. In
fact, a lady met me in New York one particular year. She helped me to take some
of my goods across the road; I was working on that day. Then three weeks later
she was in Nigeria and coincidentally came to my shop on Opebi. She was perambulating, going and coming, going and coming. I
couldn’t understand and she later, reluctantly, approached me and said ‘please
ma, you looked like one lady I met on Broad
Way, New York, carrying bags and
we helped you; me and my friend’. I said yes, it is me. She screamed. She said
‘for four days, we were on Broadway together;
you were buying and working hard. Taking trucks and loading things and you were
working as if you are a laborer. So, you are this beautiful, madam? Then she
called all my shop girls; she said ‘come, come. Nobody should steal this
woman’s things o. She works so hard’. And you know we got home the next day
with a friend and we discussed it and she said ‘that particular woman must be a
big woman o’. And we argued over it. I worked, worked, worked and it started to
affect my health. And nobody will listen to my story; anybody thought ‘oh, she
is enjoying’ and I was actually suffering. I wasn’t feeling okay; I wasn’t
happy. And if you are in a man’s house and you are not happy with him or you
believe that he is not making you happy, when you continue to stay there, you
are not helping the man. And I don’t want trouble for him, I just want him to
be himself, enjoy his life the way he chooses to enjoy his life and let me just
manage my own life the way God will allow me to. So, I have no hard feelings
against him. I leave everything to God; I am a mother today courtesy of him, my
name changed, courtesy of him and I got two other appellations, grand ones. A
mother and a grand mother, to God be all the glory. I thank him, I thank the
situation; I needed the experience and I got it. And I stayed long in the
union, you know I love my step children, I love those wonderful children. They
are lovely children, very intelligent, very enterprising and promising”
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| Late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole |
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| The late Iyalode Adunni Bankole giving her ‘Last Super’ to big friends at Protea Hotel, Lagos |
“Everybody, even my children almost
believed ‘oh, look at her. Getting the best of everything, she is emi oga, she spends all the money. I
didn’t spend anybody’s money o. I am here by the dint of my hard work and I am
never mortified. There was a time in England, if I am going to a destination; I
will have to take up to four-five buses. Because people will see you and
exclaim ‘this is Iyalode Adunni Bankole’.
I will get off the bus and will be so embarrassed. I was pulling trolley,
working….. I worked, worked, worked and it started to affect my health. And
nobody will listen to my story; anybody thought ‘oh, she is enjoying’ and I was
actually suffering. I wasn’t feeling okay; I wasn’t happy”
Yes, I have seen pain but I
understand my threshold
her husband’s apartment for a solitary life in Ikorodu, Iyalode Adunni Bankole
re-stated “The fact is when you have gone through the most extreme conditions; it
depends on your threshold. People differ in terms of character trait. I know my
threshold. I believe that it can’t be worse; when you have had an experience
that had cut through your physique, to your heart, to your emotions, you really
feel tensed in your heart and you ask yourself, what can be worst, Probably
death!
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| Late Chief Mrs. Adunni Bankole with Talking Drummer, Aralola Olamuyiwa aka Ara & Famous dancer, Tessy Yembra |
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| The late Iyalode of Gbagura with a Nigerian Customs top shot & her hubby |
“People differ in terms of character
trait. I know my threshold. I believe that it can’t be worse; when you have had
an experience that had cut through your physique, to your heart, to your
emotions, you really feel tensed in your heart and you ask yourself, what can
be worst, Probably death”
Alani Bankole’s weird decision to
marry new younger women and the story of my Ikeja flat
that her septuagenarian husband Alani
Bankole only married two more women to spite her and if the man actually
gave out her Ikeja apartment to his younger wives which must have forced Adunni to leave the apartment for
Ikorodu? “I am not aware of the fact
that he gave my apartment out to somebody. But wait a bit, what do you mean by
him taunting me? That is a very wrong impression for anybody to think that my
husband is taunting me by marrying two women at the same time. Far from it;
one, his decision is wrong health wise. Psychologically wise, it might be good
for him. It might be something that makes him happy but come to think of it, I
don’t think it is an original perception to think that his marrying of two young
ladies after I left is deliberately done to taunt me. Perhaps, that is his real
self, the orthodox African man; very regimented in his views. I have moved on
and I am happier now than when I was in that house. I am never taunted in any
way, not me, maybe my elder sister, the woman who laid the golden egg
(Referring to Former House Speaker Dimeji Bankole’s mother) If you have that
kind of woman who gave you a golden child that made us proud as a nation, a
child who is lucky to become the number fourth citizen of this great country
and all you can do is to marry her grand daughter as wife, then we can not say
he taunted me. I respect that woman (Dimeji Bankole’s mother); as a man, if you
have such a woman who gave you such a unique child, all you can do is to honor
her, pamper her, adore her and cherish her because she laid for you the golden
egg that made your name enter into the annals of great men who truly
contributed to humanity. But what do we have for her? You taunted her pedigree
by simply marrying her grand daughter and the world is celebrating it. I feel
very sorry for him with the kind of comments I read on the internet. I shed
tears in most cases. And it is not a funny development. It is serious than we
can imagine”
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| Mother & Daughter, Late Adunni & Mum, Princess Gbemi Adesida (Iyalode of Owu Kingdom) |
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| The late Iyalode of Gbagura with a couple wishing her well on her 53rd birthday @ Protea Hotel, Lagos |
“The days of wild-wind romances, when
you can say ‘oh, my husband loves me so much’ are gone. I loved him absolutely.
I loved him too much and that brought a lot of friction. Because I got it all
wrong, how can you be talking of pure love in polygamy? Which love? You have to
have controlled love, portioned love. You display it only when the man looks at
you”
People have wrong perception of me…
a boring union and an uninspiring marriage in three decades? “Well, I find my strength from being close to
God because there was a time I got so affected that I nearly ran out of myself.
You know when people deride you, when people blame you, it is ok. You take it
as criticism. But when you start to
criticize yourself, it becomes something else. But one thing pulled me out of
it all; I started getting compliments that were not deliberate from people. At
my low time, people would just call and say ‘ah, Iyalode, but for you in my
life, my marriage would have broken. Ah, Iyalode, that my child, I had it
courtesy of your advise. Or Iyalode, that my business was successful because
you advised me etc’. From then I started building confidence back in myself.
All of the time, they will say ‘Iyalode, iyalode, we see you in the paper’.
People had a wrong view of what was going on in my life and I was paying
penalty for it. And people were saying ‘Oh, that woman! That show-off woman?; I am not a show-off person. Even my
relationship with you press men, people mistook it for another thing. I don’t
have money to give you people. I dont sponsor stories, do I?
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| The late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole with First Daughter, Toyin (Mama Sultan) |
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| The late Iyalode Adunni Bankole with one of her senior wives @ her 53rd birthday bash |
No, ma.
publicity. People say I am a party person, I am not. How many parties do I
attend? If I have twenty invites, I go to three, deliberately, if I chose. But
the three, they will report it well, that Iyalode
was there. So, I was paying for too many things that were natural with me;
they were making me see it as a vice in me to be famous and connected. But have
I done anything wrong by just being who I am? I was just simply me. I don’t
have any criminal record? I don’t hurt people; I am not in any bad book. But I
was a victim of strong worded criticism. Even when I was fighting the cause of
my step son (Dimeji Bankole) I loved him with passion but I was being
persecuted for it and I lived through all that. But after my illness and my
father died, I just said ‘no way. I have to leave for me to find some level of
peace, gather myself, heal my wound and then see what life has for me on the
other side”.
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| Offering prayers to God Almighty….Late Iyalode Adunni Bankole during her 53rd birthday bash @ Protea Hotel |
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| The late Iyalode Adunni Bankole with some top Media Practitioners during her 53rd birhday bash |
I don’t regret marrying Alani Bankole
husband at all. “No, no, no; actually no regret, absolutely none. In 2001, when
my husband celebrated his 60th birthday, I wrote him a ‘thank you
eulogy’ in Encomium magazine. Beautiful piece, I picked my words. If I see a
copy, I will still repeat it. I am still grateful to him. He taught me life and
how to appreciate people. He taught me to share compassion which I am sharing
and it is giving me result now. He taught me to know that you have to be a
person of great goodwill to do anything in life and my goodwill is paying back
for me. So, I don’t regret marrying him, it was an opportunity to learn new
things. I married him because I love him and I don’t hate him”.
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| The Late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole with friends inside her Jajo estate, Ikorodu Praise Court home |
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| The late Iyalode Adunni Bankole exchanges greetings with a white admirer |
But does Alani loves Adunni back in
return?
the truth o. I am not being funny. I just don’t know. But I wonder if a man can
love two, three, four, five, six women at a time”.
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| The late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole, Yeye Mokun of Owu Kingdom |
How can a woman know if a man loves
her?
the present day Nigeria I don’t think any woman can know. Men are on stage;
they are bloody actors o. there is no love in anybody, they are on stage, they
are acting. The days of wild-wind romances, when you can say ‘oh, my husband
loves me so much’ are gone. I loved him absolutely. I loved him too much and
that brought a lot of friction. Because I got it all wrong, how can you be
talking of pure love in polygamy? Which love? You have to have controlled love,
portioned love. You display it only when the man looks at you. Because most of
the times, it is a stern, strict and regimental life style”.
of Late Adunni Bankole’s last memoir on this blog tagged “The role General Obasanjo played in my
marriage” tomorrow. Don’t miss it)
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| Late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole with guests on the day she was indoctrinated as Life Matron of PMAN |
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| Late Chief (Mrs.) Adunni Bankole with some guests during her 53rd birthday breakfast at Protea Hotel |
