He was conferred with a merit award last weekend. I say it’s a well deserved honour.
Chief Akin Popoola is the recipient of a couple of chieftaincy titles from two communities. He is the Osi Mayegun of Osiele, Abeokuta as well as the Otun of Otan Ayegbaju.
Because of the two titles I normally refer to him as double chief.
But with this merit award which can be called the mother of all awards, one could safely refer to him as a triple chief.
If I’m not mistaken, he is the first school mate I became friends with in Ebute Meta. He is friendly to a fault.
We did all those things young boys were fond of together. One that I can not easily forget is watching the Indian movie, ‘Love in Tokyo’ at the Central Cinema on Lagos street, Ebute Meta.
The reason I won’t forget it is because for one reason or the other, we decided to pay for the popular seats. The popular seats were uncovered. The cinema also had covered seats.
But we had to practise the economic act of opportunity cost. We had calculated that after the film show, we would hurry to the popular ‘Iya Kisun’ who sold fried fish, yam and akara.
However, no sooner had the film show started than the heavens opened their bowels.
It rained cats and dogs!
So much was the rainfall that it had refused to stop even after the film show. Of course, we had to find our way to the food seller.
When I went to the US, he accommodated me. One interesting thing about that is the fact that he fed me, clothed me and even enrolled me in a gym.
But one thing about this guy, sorry Chief, was that he would just call me to go and dress up.
Igboro ya niyen!
And he did all these without any complaint whatsoever. To him the Yoruba saying that, ‘Ore ta ba ri tipe, ka bere pe bawo lo se da’ was irrelevant. I had access to the whole house.
The fact that the oldest secondary grammar school in Nigeria deemed it fit to invest him with a merit award speaks a lot about his personality.
It’s a matter of giving honour to whom it’s due.
I say congratulations!
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