I Met My Wife In A Bookshop, Thanks To My Reading Habit

                                             Gbenga Daniel

Rising from meetings with his political and business associates, as well as friends and well-wishers who had come to celebrate the yuletide with him and keeping an interview appointment, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, immediate past governor of Ogun State appeared impossible.

 His Asoludero home, GRA, Shagamu, was like a Mecca of some sort with the crowd that seemed to be departing as others were arriving. But OGD, as he is fondly called, beaming with smiles, had time to spare for all, and did not keep the reporter waiting. In this interview with Femi Ogbonnikan, the erstwhile governor relives his experience when he was young, how he met his pretty wife, Yeye Olufunke at a bookshop in Ikeja, how he settled for a single wife, his role in the formation of UPN in 1978, how sheer providence made it possible for him to assume the number one position in Ogun State, among others. Excerpts

What was your upbringing like?
It is nothing unusual; born of a disciplinarian father, who was a clergy man. I attended Mission Schools, first in St’ James Primary School, Oke-Ado, Ibadan and Baptist Boys High School in Abeokuta. So, you can read it from that. Hard-work was a skill in the house and whatever we do, being thorough was also part of what father taught us. Of course, it is quite normal to perform well if you want to be on the good side of your dad. Of course, we went to boarding houses and when you went back home, you would have to go and give a good account of yourself. The training was that, okay, you must come first in class. So, if you didn’t come first, you didn’t come second and you didn’t come third, then you were not there at all. That was how far it was.