Even Time, the Great Destroyer, will have to try small before erasing MKO Abiola from the minds of Nigerians. MKO. Abiola. The Man. The Enigma. The Hero. Here is the gripping story ofMosudi, the child of poor Salawu who refused to bow before a crushingly violent Nigerian military, his former ally. A tiger of an ally.
MKO: Bashorun Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola (1937-1998).
★DEDICATION★
This piece is written in honour of and dedicated to all the unsung Nigerian protesters and innocent citizens who suffered terrible losses or lost their lives in the riots that engulfed our nation over the June 12 crisis. It is for these unknown legends that my pen is dancing.
INTRODUCTION
One thing that really got me interested in the late MKO Abiola was his smile. Dancing on his chubby cheeks, his smiles were so broad, so warm and so genuine. Inviting. He radiated happiness, joy and tranquility. They were just too charming to be faked. In the eyes of my mind, I can still feel the glowing warmth of his smiles beyond the grave and the cackle of his hearty laughter. But MKO was human like this writer and the Bashorun of Gbogbo Ibadanland, the Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland shed tears too. He felt pain, he felt betrayal, he knew hurt. He was human. He came, he saw and died in battle.
BIRTH, EARLY DAYS AND BACKGROUND
THE EARLY DAYS: A young MKO Abiola. Photo credits: MKOAbiola.org
He was born on a Wednesday in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the 24th of August in 1937. He stated that his parents were too poor to send him to school. His father, Alhaji Salawu Adelekan Alao Akanni Abiola was a small-time cocoa farmer while the mother, Alhaja Zeliat (Suliat) Wuraola Ayinke Abiola (nee Kassim) also tried to eke out a living from petty trading. He was the 23rd child of his father and he was named Kashimawo meaning 'Let us wait and see' because they thought he would also die like his previous siblings. I guess infant mortality has been an issue in Nigeria for quite a long time. But when he turned 15 and did not die, his overjoyous father properly renamed him Moshood. MKO was the first child of the man to survive infancy.
EDUCATION AND SCHOOLING
Although he was from a background of poverty, MKO Abiola was so brilliant in school that he got scholarship grants. Before then, he would gather wood and sticks from the forest at dawn and sell before going to school. He was just nine years old then. He would later see himself to the secondary school with the funds he made from his band. From 1952 to 1954, he was a schoolboy musician (he would later invest in Decca because of his love for music). For primary education, he went to Nawar-ud-Deen School, Abeokuta (1944) and later, the Africa Central School, Abeokuta (1945-1950).
MKO Abiola attended the Baptist Boys High School (BBHS) in Abeokuta where he performed brilliantly where he later benefitted from the scholarship of the Nigerian Baptist Church from 1951-1956. MKO Abiola later said that if not for the Baptist Church, he would have been a poor vulcanizer labouring under the sun somewhere in Abeokuta. Olusegun Obasanjo was also in the same school with him and while Abiola was the editor of the school magazine (The Trumpeter), Obasanjo was the deputy editor (you go fear open letter from deputy editor na...lol).
Later, MKO Abiola attended the University of Glasgow in Scotland from 1961 to 1963 on the scholarship given to him the defunct Western Region government to study accountancy at the university's Department of Management Accountancy. From 1963 to 1965, he attended the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. He later finished with the following qualifications: F.T.I.I., F.C.I.S, C.A., F. Inst.M., F.C.A., F.N.I.M.
During the 1962/1963 session, MKO won the 1st Prizes in Political Economy, Commercial Law and Management Accountancy. In 1964, he got a distinction in the F.T.II and in 1964, he bagged a distinction at the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland. That was not all, he also bagged the Queen Elizabeth Prize in the CIS in 1964.
MKO had joined the pan-Nigerian National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons at the age of 19 while still in high school.
EARLY CAREER, GOING INTO BUSINESS AND HOW HE MADE HIS MONEY
When MKO Abiola turned 15, he formed a music band singingagidigbo music with other young chaps (they called him the son of Salawu who goes about singing agidibo music) around and they would go round playing at events in return for food. Okay, he specifically played and was paid with 48 wraps of amala with stew and vegetable soup plus one naira and five kobo (ten and half shillings). His family would eagerly wait for the balls of amala to feed. He would later increase his charges to two naira, twenty kobo (two guineas). As the leader of the band, MKO pocketed half of the proceeds with which he supported his family. And for the first time in his life, MKO Abiola was able to help those poorer than him. He had become a young philanthropist.
In 1956, he started work with Barclays Plc on Bank Road, Ibadan, Oyo State as a bank clerk (December 1956-December 1958). He finally ended with ITT ( International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation) Corporation where he really hit it big. Abiola worked with ITT from 1969 to 1988. The following is an overview of his career after he worked with Barclays:
-Executive Officer (Accounts) and later the H.E.O. (Accounts) at the Western Region Finance Corporation from December 1958- February 1961.
-C.A Student, Glasgow, Scotland from February 1961 – February 1966
- Senior Accountant, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) and College of Medicine, April 1966 - June 1967.
-Divisional Controller, Pfizer Products Agricultural Division for West Africa.
-Controller, ITT Nigeria from August 1968 to June 1969.
-Managing Director, ITT Nigeria Limited from June 1969 to December 1969.
-Chairman and Chief Executive, ITT Nigeria Limited (assumed position in December 1970). He would later become the Vice President for ITT (Africa, Middle East and Europe).
-Founder, Chairman/Chief Executive, Radio Communications Nigeria Limited (assumed position in February 1974).
-Founder, Chairman/Chief Executive, Wonder Bakeries Limited (assumed position in January 1980).
-Founder, Publisher, Chairman/Chief Executive, Concord Press of Nigeria Limited (assumed position in March 1980).
-Chairman, Banuso Fisheries Nigeria Limited (assumed position in January 1983).
-Founder, Chairman/Chief Executive, Abiola Farms Limited (assumed position in February 1985).
-Founder, Chairman/Chief Executive, Concord Airlines Limited (assumed November 1987).
-Executive Vice- President of Alcatel International (assumed position in 1988).
HOW HE MADE IT BIG IN ITT
In the following sections, you will read how Abiola and Murtala Muhammed almost exchanged blows over money but after that saga, MKO got the money and excitedly, he went to report to his ITT office. On getting to the office, he met his white boss dead drunk. He then called on a photographer and they snapped the drunk dude. Abiola got the photograph and headed straight for the New York headquarters of ITT. On getting there, he flipped out the cheque of seven million naira, brandished it before their faces and told his superiors that unless the drunk guy in the picture was sacked and replaced with him, he would there and then tear the cheque into pieces.
Ehn! The eyes of his superiors lit up! Yeepa! We are talking of 3.5 million pounds here and they were not going to lose that because of one intoxicated mugu, not the money that they'd be trying to get for over three years. Sharp sharp, they recalled the white guy and MKO Abiola became the big boss. He had arrived.
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