Hon. Tunji Bello, today you are 65. I have never met you face to face, yet you answered a stranger’s text, corrected an injustice, and stood for what was right.
Soon after I opened my restaurant in Agege, patronage was high. One Friday, some Kick Against Indiscipline, KAI, officials walked in. They introduced themselves and said they had just passed by, noticed the new restaurant, and decided to say “hi.”
I entertained them.
The following Friday, they came again. We served them amala and gbegiri, with the drinks they asked for, and I gave them some money for the weekend.
They kept coming every Friday, and we kept entertaining them.
On their third visit, they asked to use the toilet. I directed them to the bathrooms at the back of the restaurant.
That same day, one of them advised me to construct a urinal on the gutter for customers’ convenience. I did.
On their fifth visit, I did not serve food, give money, or offer beer. I told my sales girls to serve them malt drinks instead. They drank, and left. It was a Friday, as usual.
Then, at 10 a.m. on Monday, they came back and dismantled the urinal without even greeting me. My workers told them I was inside my small office in the kitchen. They ignored them, pulled the structure down, and damaged the iron sheets and planks.
I immediately sent a text message to the Commissioner for the Environment, Hon. Tunji Bello. He did not respond right away. I was not disappointed. Hon. Bello did not know me.
But later that evening, he replied. He asked me to go to the KAI General Manager at Alausa the following morning.
I went. The Commissioner had already spoken to the GM before I arrived.
The GM welcomed me warmly and asked for the names of the officials. I gave them. About the urinal, he said the officers had deliberately misled me so they could keep extorting me. It was against the law to erect a structure on a gutter. A urinal could only be built beside the gutter, with a pipe draining into it.
The next day, a senior officer brought the two culprits to my restaurant for me to identify them. I did. Then they started crying and begging me not to let them lose their jobs.
I asked them, “Do you remember how you’ve been emptying traders’ wares into your truck and collecting money from them every Friday? Will you continue doing that?” They promised to stop.
So I called the GM and begged him to drop the case.
Hon. Tunji Bello has done many other things for me since then, and we have never met.
Today, he is 65. I wish him the very best.
May your remaining years be filled with peace that does not shake, health that does not fail, and honor that does not fade. May God continue to open doors for you, protect your household, and reward you openly for every quiet good you have done for people who cannot repay you.
Happy 65th birthday, may you celebrate many more decades in the land of the living.
©️ Dupe Olaoye-Osinkolu
