"Abiodun where re you"
"Am here sir"
"Come here my child.You re old enough too to follow your brothers to school.But i will not let you go."watery eyes sank his cheeks
"Dont cry my boy.I will tell you why .See my business will die completely if all the children leave me.Someone must stay behind.Who will revive my business if it dies or sustain my business and manage my business?Dont go.You will handle the binukonu supermarket and other shops.Dont be sorry for yourself okay you will make it."the obedient child listened as father drew him near and pacified him and cleared his cheek of tears."What is my reward?"
"You will inherit my dying commerce."baba wura once recalled the beautiful anecdote.In the late seventies ,the demise of the patriarch opened a vacuum in the family conglomerate that abiodun later filled perfectly as envisaged.He revived the family business and grew wealthy built houses and even bought shares in many companies up till Lagos.Daddy Congo had narrated the incidents too leading to the construction of the house blackpower and his sibblings lived prior to the great migration .
"Daddy Congo you contributed nothing to the house at aguodo right?"
"No boy i did a lot.I sent a couple of busses back home to abiodun while i was in Congo where we gave birth to your only sister.Though the land belong to pa Joseph he gave us many land his children as heritage including my factory premise.I did contribute too"Daddy Congo told ecstatic blackpower his fourth child before he passed on.Twenty years after he passed on blackpower returned home to inspect the properties and collect diverted and stolen rents and instruct tenants to pay into the family bank accounts .All of sudden in the street stroll and promenade he was taken aback and found out the property was bulldozed and Daddy wura constructed filling station on the land .
Then he saw the lady attendant at the filling station looking sternly at him as he stood gazing in stupor and suddenly dumbfounded.
"You re looking at me"as she greeted him warmly
"Yeah.Funny."
"Are you buying fuel ?"she retorted
"Nope am from Lagos.I was stunned at this place"pointificating the while complex.
"This place!What happened ?"
"Our old house was demolished for this filling station to stand"she didnt even reply blackpower looking at him like a log of wood.
Suddenly he called his sister"Hello sister"then she spoke "So you reach ogbomosho safely.We thank God.What happen now?"frenzy again"But i told you there shall be no accident.You fear a lot .I will arrive home safely.See,i saw a strange scene at oloko"
"Our house,what was the strange thing?"
"Daddy wura had bulldozed the house"
"Bulldozed!You mean oloko the house we grew up bulldozed?Uhmmm!You re joking !It cant be!"she mocked
"Iya ayo mide!i said oloko was bulldozed and now he built filling station on it in top of the land"
"Bulldozed now a filling station in the land.What rashness?But why did he do that?"
"You should know better at least you re closer to Daddy than we do.Didnt Daddy tell you?"
"What? You mean in respect of the nonsense demolition?"
"Yes but somehow related"
"How ?i dont understand?"
"Daddy said he contributed money and also sent busses back home to aid the construction.Since he didnt want any clash between us and his children he chose demolition and built filling station instead"
"He suspect Daddy might have briefed us"
"Exactly.I was even talking to station attendant selling fuel.That on this land our old house was formerly erected before the station was built.She was just looking at me like a ghost."
"Eyah.Olowo ana tiku o tilo!It is well.Try and go back to Lagos.ok"
Then he hung the phone moved back to factory through isale afon from family house in okelerin.
The deceitful cousin was a fetish brother to Daddy Congo who later turned prayer warrior and aided by the spiritually hungry son Sunny a stronger prayer warrior since the youth exudes more pride and strenght.
Blackpower had recalled old annecdote how soft drink revenue in Lagos was diverted by baba eko for boozying and womanising .They could hardly pay workers salary and to pay alajiki the transport company in ogbomosho sometimes was a problem .Are they truly Gentlemen and not controversies ?"blackpower had reminisced in his studious library recalling his childish memoirs.
Daddy Congo also sought spiritual assistance from long estranged brother the first man to open and control the keys of Nigerian central bank in those days of early independence.He lived at felele layout in ibadan when Daddy Congo used to visit every weekend to seek prayers fasting in respect of spiritual attack against white power and Black power his last two children.Daddy odo ona had twelve beautiful children and often present in their prayers where they formed a family church.In the weekly visit they discussed a lot . Daddy Congo unveiled why he entered into the business with the deceitful cousin baba eko when queried by Daddy odo ona
"You re not supposed to enter into the business with him,he was fetish and his mother a super witch . You need prayers also for blackpower and whitepower."
"Brother i dont know i did because we were very close growing and was the only child of her mother.So it was natural and so when fruito started it was natural to bring him along."
"A shamanist,a fetist man?"
"Please help us with prayer.It was a wrong decision.i later knew".
Madam comfort also unveiled how he blasted behind his brother blackmailed,witchhunted and mudslingered him claiming ownership of the fruito factory diverted revenue making it impossible to balance the books.The grievous mistake made by this prejudice of Daddy Congo to jettison his brother Daddy wura for the deceitful baba eko when he wanted to start his soft drink factory was the cause of the bitter hatred between Daddy Congo and Daddy wura in the later times.He had complained behind "You abandoned me for abiodun diabolical person, how would i think of forgiving you my brother?"he grouched in the visit to factory premise to glean on remaining assets to sell after the crash and great migration.Sunny also benefited from some of the remaining assets sold to raise cabbage for impromptu needs.Bad decision altered their joy.
Serious envy altered their beautiful relationship and in those days of the factory struggling operations and low sales,Daddy Congo chose to strenghten his prayer fists resorted to stronger men of god.He became envangelist shortly.
"See blackpower religion killed my brother"As Daddy wura was to remark derogatorily though nothing but the truth later in the home visit by blackpower.Black power had oiled his grease to find solace in atheism corroborated the philosophy of his distant mentor Wole Soyinka shi noted that if we dont kill religion, religion will kill us.What a painful decision from a Black sheep in the family as iya ayomide used to call him.
At this time Sunny rose up in christian faith to support now his older but waning father and went up so much stronger in the ministry work to empower his father's prayer fists.He attended regularly Sword of the ministry in ibadan owned by reverend francis wale oke.He was there for years where he took up pastoral work and that was after he struggled with WAEC like his brother to strenghten his faith.It was the first port of call when he departed home in the eighties.Then subsequently took extramural classes until he left sporadically for further classes in the attempt to enroll at OAU in ile ife.Top sibblings later joined music clubs and played for local churches and debo akinwunmi band comprised of the twins of the Reverend father at the local church late Rev.Adetoye.They toured localities mastered keyboard and box guitar and when he entered polytechics in ibadan to study music jony also joined cupid band under control of enfanterible Henry.He experienced several cheats with the band,survived on family stipends,good aids and passive support from relatives.Shortly thereafter jony travelled to Lagos too to work in a baptist church in festac before he moved to Redeemed church in ebutte meta.Sunny had moved to ijokodo in Ibadan where he was busy with the ministry work.His praying fist was uncommon to the extent he almost raised the dead and of course he did heal the completely paralysed man as he called him 'baba ajanaku'in those days in his death bed.His cousins were fed too from sacharrin business revenues.When the fruito factory crashed the lots of chemicals such as citric acid and sacharrin in the lab became sort of survival revenue for the Laniyan family.When Sunny left school and nothing to fall upon he fell upon the chemicals business and survived with it in ibadan alongside the ministry engagement.He lived a fasted life and returned home occssionally often in night labour to pray against the witches and wizards and their craft in ogbomosho behind the family problem.He saved his parents more years on earth than would have been possible.They could have died in their fifties and sixties and did creditably laboured in the prayer room for his four cousins and two wives to travelled overseas.
The afonja family were prominent in oyo State and their father was prominent in the house of representatives in the second republic before he fell back into obscurity.Sunny prayed fervently for the man to return back on his feet from obscurity and also laboured till he secured him divine favour and some of his white friends remembered his days in america as good historian and must have motivated Black power to also gain mastery of american history in addition to his own father's influence and late aunty deola who travelled to study aeronautics in america before her untimely death.The first daughter of afonja bukky did the unthinkable studied aeronautics too in the uk .In those days Sunny in getting home like Daddy Congo,jony and flora would narate events at home optimistic that someday fruito factory would bounce back in Lagos.
However the afonja friends had their own plan to ditch Sunny who thought could migrate with them to USA and be family saviour.So,one day his white friends remembered him and gave him visa to visit america .Instead of heaping accolades on Sunny blackpower's second oldest brother he heaped accolades on his second child Remkem as the spiritual arrow head of their pyrhic victory.
"Daddy afonja you re back on your feet.You re back from obscurity to go places again."sumbu enchanted expected to be included in the travelling plans to ni avail a typical yoruba character.
"Sunny i appreciate your white feelings.But remember you and my son did the wonderful job.Not only you."the old man departed to denver, colorado snobbed Sunny and when he reminisced this ugly pain blackpower ferociously blasted his brother Sunny
"See now what you have caused yourself and the family at the time you re supposed to support your weary father you laboured away your spiritual strenght for the ingrate cousins and their father.That period was in vain.Had you used your spiritual strenght for the family adequately well factory would have been revived and Daddy would have done well in Lagos.See yourself.You thought you re the saviour of the family."Sunny stony faced still remained adamant.The ingrate cousins left Nigeria without paying him back to meet their father.Remkem was a womaniser at the ibadan polytechics where he studied computer engineering and later worked at ITT in Lagos shortly before his travel and blackpower stayed randomly with him in ogba.The little stipends he have valuable more or less like spite to the inconsequential aid sunny given them during ijokodo era.Sunny had prayed for him to get born again.Then they crisscrossed almost all the best ministries in ibadan and across Nigeria.Black power could recall how Sunny was fond of pastor olubi johnson and Pastor adegboye at THP ministry ,brother of pastor george adegboye owner of popular ministry in ilorin both charismatic pastors.His prayers paid off for the afonja family. Remkem secured green card to meet his dad and took his brothers with him excluded dayo and adegun .One sibling an invalid odunayo later died.Afonja too died in america and they brought him back home and his estranged wife was butchered by marauders in her house. She had departed from her husband due to irreconconciliable religious differences between husband's baptist prejudice and deeper life faith of mummy odun ayo.Remkem came home last to bury his wife's father.
Shortly after the cousins travelled blackpower's eldest brother a keyboardist at Redeemed church of God a weaker but steadfast prayer warrior and a musician through involuntary help of pastor kunle ajayi Pastor adeboye music minister at Redeemed church in ebutte meta was fortunate and miraculously also travelled to UK through student visa.Student visa was later banned.It was a great celebration for the family now in Lagos struggling to find their feet let alone even thought of reviving the soft drink factory.Progress was irregular but steadfast though irreconconciliable with accelerated wishes of the most ideal plan.There was absolute clarity when three decades thereafter Black power,white power and flora became shareholders in their newly registered company.With ambition to revive the soft drink projects jony shortly stopped sending foreign currency from overseas and sibblings had to rely on father's income back home in addition to their meagre income.Black power was passionately blogging and writhing in writing enterprises.The proceeds of private placement was humbling and rejoiced with brothers when several bllions first raised for midland COSMOS plc bombarded the company accounts.
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