SECOND EDITION
Continued from last week
CHAPTER TWO
THIS CHILD DID LEAVE AND THRIVE
Ibadan was and still is the largest metropolitan city in Nigeria nay West Africa. Moshood’s stay in this land of “china in the glass” as one African poet once described this metropolitan city, was indeed a transition and also a transformation. He was lucky to secure a good job with Barclay’s Bank, which was one of the most famous banks then operating in Nigeria. Established in the seventeenth century in Scotland, United Kingdom and named after James Barclays in the 1770s, the bank commenced operations in Nigeria in 1925 as Colonial Bank Limited following in the heels of Standard Bank (now First Bank) of Nigeria Limited in 1894. As a colonialist bank, most if not all its top echelons were Britons. In 1956 when Moshood, fresh from high school was employed by the bank, it was one of the best companies to work for in pre-independence Nigeria. Much later, the bank was to change its name from Barclays to Union Bank Nigeria Limited in 1979 as a result of the ownership structure which changed eight years earlier when some of its shares were transferred to indigenous Nigerians. With the promulgation of the Nigerian Enterprises Promotion Decree in 1972 when the then Yakubu Gowon military regime acquired over fifty percent of the Bank’s shares, Union Bank Nigeria Limited began its ascendancy to the Big Three of Nigerian Banks in terms of age, assets, dependability and liquidity. The other two were First Bank Nigeria Plc and United Bank for Africa (UBA). Between 1925 and 1970, Union Bank (Barclays Bank) already had fifty-one branches in both the North and South of Nigeria. Ibadan branch which was situated at Dugbe area was one of the largest branches after Lagos where its headquarters and corporate offices are located.
Not much activities of Moshood are recorded during the nearly quarter a decade he worked with Barclays Bank. His relationship with his heartthrob, Atinuke Abiola continued until his father called him in 1958 for a private tête-à-tête discussion.
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| Pix 8: Union Bank of Nigeria Pix 9: Union Bank Office, London. formerly, Barclays Bank |
Moshood had now assumed the responsibility of finances of the family. He made it a point of duty to visit Abeokuta every weekend and returned to Ibadan the following Sunday evening. Most weekends, Papa Salaudeen used to see Simbiat with Moshood so one day, the old man demanded from his eldest son who the beautiful girl was. Moshood explained his old man the little he knew about Simbiat and her family. Pa Salaudeen had been thinking of late of having grandchildren. He was now eighty-five years old, a feat in a country where average life expectancy was about thirty years in those days. Moshood too was twenty years old and should be planning to wed and give him a grandchild. So armed with the information given him by his eldest son about Simbiat the old man commenced investigations into the young girl’s family background.
Marriage in Yoruba land, indeed in most African culture is not a unification of two individuals but two families. The belief of Africans is that marriage is a sacred institution which should not be left to just two young individuals professing “love” for each other rather the involvement of two distinct families who should understand themselves for the healthy relationships of the two prospective husband and wife and most importantly for the health of the society. When a young man fell in love with a lady of his choice and both desire to marry, the young man informs his own family. The latter demands the dossier of the lady complete with the family background so as to ascertain the type of family and home the lady came from. At the same time, the lady too informs her own family about her intention to marry the young man and her family begins investigations into the type of family and home their daughter is planning to live the rest of her life. This practice resembles the modern day “background checks” employers conductive on a prospective employee to determine suitability for job in USA and other parts of the Western world.
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THE AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF
CHIEF MOSHOOD KASIMAWO OLAWALE (MKO) ABIOLA
CONTINUES NEXT WEEK WITH EXCERPTS FROM
CHAPTER THREE
MOSHOOD ABIOLA’S BREAK WITH POVERTY
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