By Samuel Ajayi
SUNRISE NEWS, Lagos, July 18, 2020 On Tuesday, I met Mr. Fola Adekeye for the very FIRST time. That was the day we did the disbursement of the monetary palliative I organised for private school teachers which Mr. Adekeye graciously accepted to serve as Trustee.
He runs a private school so he understands the trauma private school teachers have been going through.
His school, Champions Group of Schools, is one of the best, if not the best, in that axis.
It runs nursery, primary and junior and senior secondary schools. All in purpose built buildings with state of the art facilities. I counted his school buses, and I saw FIFTEEN and he told me he has over a hundred staff on his payroll.
But it wasn’t a tale of roses from the beginning.
Mr. Adekeye took me to where the dream all began. It was a three bedroom-bungalow which was his first ever building on earth.
“It was all bush when we got here,” he began. “That room where you saw madam (Mrs. Adekeye) was our only bedroom where we came here in 2002. The door to that room was fixed. 9pm so we could sleep. I set up this school because there was no school my kids could attend when we got here. We were the teachers because it was all forest.”
He said when he left his former place in Gbagada to move into the bush, his landlord did not rent out his apartment for over six months.
“He told me that he would keep the place free because he knew I would come back to my senses and return back to town and live with normal people,” he recalled.
He went further that there was no toilet fixed as they were doing “shot-put” to answer the call of nature.
The only upside was that they were eating fresh bush meat regularly, especially grasscutter.
“When one senior colleague (names withheld) came here, he called me under that bridge and said: ‘Fola, mi o le wa si inu igbo yen o. Ki lo wa si ibi yii?’ (Fola, I cannot enter this bush o. What brought you here in the first place?),” he explained further amidst laughter.
His building was the only one there. He had to build the path that is today Champions Street, named after his school.
Today, his schools sit on about SIX plots of land. One of the lands he bought for over…but it can buy a brand new Toyota Camry!
You can guess.
He just finished erecting a separate building for the junior school (pic 5 with himself in the middle) just before the lockdown and it is sparkling new.
“We spent over N55m to complete that building and immediately we finished it, this lockdown began. It was a major blow.”
On welfare, Mr. Adekeye bought bags of rice, gaari and beans and was sharing for his staff during the lockdown till now and his teachers doing online lessons are being paid every month.
Mr. Adekeye, who started his journalism career under Dele Giwa in NEWSWATCH, with a salary of N2,600 is today a counselor, teacher, pastor (with MFM) and great inspiration to many of us.
I pray God will continue to smile on you as your life is another classical example of staying true to convictions one so much believes in.
I am proud of you sir…