So, even God knows! By Bola Bolawole

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Last week’s “The havoc of name-change” was a revelation to many people. Akin, a friend who now lives in the United States, said he never knew me as anything other than Bola Bolawole. And thanks, my brother and friend, Tunji Bakare, for the correction. “Oje” in Yoruba has to do with “Egungun”, that is, masquerades, and not drummers as erroneously interpreted here last week. “Ayan” is for the drummers while “Oje” is for the masquerades. I should have known that because I have many Ayans as friends, such as Ayanbadejo, Ayankola.

Some name-change touches raw nerves; mine did in many quarters. There is one that amuses me each time I remember it. When Mallam Yusuf Olaolu Ali was made a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), I sent him a congratulatory message but got no reply. Yusuf and I were course mates at Ife. He read Law while I read History/Political Science but we took courses together in Philosophy in our Year One. His ideological soul-mate in those days, Gafar Siyan Oyeweso, also read History. Both were prominent in the Muslim Students’ Society (MSS) while I belonged to the Marxist-Leninist Alliance of Progressive Students (ALPS) and the Movement for National Advancement (MONA). We were, to put it mildly, cats-and-dogs with other groups (‘ideologically-bankrupt’ as we called them then) like the MSS, the Scripture Union, the Palm-wine Drinkards; and even Wole Soyinka-inspired Pyrates Confraternity. “Running away” from my Muslim surname compounded matters with my Muslim friends. We were in the same Fajuyi Hall, whose chairman I later became in 1981/82 session, my final session on campus. And because our left-leaning group was always involved in Students’ Union politics, striving always to determine its ebbs and flows, we always were not very much loved by those opposed to us.

After Yusuf became SAN, I ran into him at the airport in Lagos and after exchanging greetings, I asked whether he saw the congratulatory message I sent to him. He responded with a snarl that he did not know me as Bola Bolawole! But I contested the chairmanship of Fajuyi Hall in our final year at Ife and won and my posters bearing Bola Bolawole were everywhere! What he meant, and which I understood, of course, was that he objected to my name-change because he grimaced ad nauseam over it at Ife. If he did that in my case, I can imagine how he would have responded to that of Gafar Siyan Oyeweso. I myself was taken aback when I first read that Gafar was now being referred to as Siyan Oyeweso, with the Gafar missing. At Ife, he was Gafar to all of us. But at the Lagos State University where, I think, he became a professor of History, he was Siyan Oyeweso. Whatever happened to “Gafar” I cannot beat my chest about. Siyan later relocated to the Osun State University and we have interacted on Facebook. I have not asked him if he is still chummy with Yusuf after he dropped or tucked-in Gafar and elevated Siyan for whatever reason.

But it is not all name-change that elicits controversies. Last Sunday at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Onikan, Lagos, one name-change received thunderous acclamation from thousands of congregants. It was at the first ever “Family’ Sunday service where all the 14 provinces and 1900 parishes of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Region 11, played host to Daddy and Mummy G.O., Pastor Enoch Adejare Adeboye and Pastor (Mrs). Folu Adeboye. The whole TBS, filled to capacity, erupted in jubilation when Pastor Adeboye declared during his sermon: “On my way here this morning, while I was on the long bridge, God told me to change your name from ‘Ikoyi/Victoria Island Family’ to the “Blessed Family’”. It was a name-change that gladdened the hearts of everyone; it was received without hesitation or reservation whatsoever. So much for name-change!

As a member of the media and publicity sub-committee of the larger organising committee of the event, I was assigned the responsibility of writing a news story out of Sunday’s event. I was apprehensive as I listened to Daddy’s sermon, attentive not to miss any newsworthy item. Because he had said he would be brief, I was worried as the sermon dragged and I had not got a peg on which to hang any newsworthy item. Finally, as God would have it, Daddy struck when he said “Those who are deliberately destroying the Naira will make the money but will not spend it”.  He added that this revelation was given to him early in the year but he was sharing it for the first time last Sunday. This very special revelation, I dare to say, contributed into making the event unique and awesome. Not only did Pastor Adeboye’s sermon address the spiritual need of the congregation, the revelation from God about those destroying the economy of the country and visiting untold suffering on Nigerians was a soothing balm not only to those at the TBS but to all Nigerians far and wide, Christians and non-Christians alike. So, even God knows what is happening in Nigeria, I quietly told myself. And I remembered a recent post on Whatsapp of a visibly angry man who said: “Tell me, when God said ‘Let there be light, was Nigeria included?’ That was a statement that captures the frustration of Nigerians with the parlous state of power supply. Relax, folks: Not only does God know, He has also spoken!

Finally, our politicians have a lot to learn from the “Blessed Family”, especially from the Regional Pastor, Charles Kpandei, in the way he has given due honour to his predecessor, Pastor (Mrs.) Oretayo Adetola, who he aptly described as the “Matriarch” of the ‘Blessed Family’. How many politician-godfathers have only stories of regret to tell today about their godsons? And if you think it happens only to politicians, last week I heard the story of an ex-Vice-Chancellor of a first-generation University who took only one week to thoroughly rubbish and then unceremoniously offload his own godfather!