Just yesterday, I visited my Mother at Lawanson, one of the block of flats lying opposite the branch of Union Bank situated at Lawanson Bus Stop.

We were deep into a chat that borders on resolving a little family friction, suddenly we heard the voice of a lady. She started shouting “Gbaja this! Gbaja that!” I whispered to my Mom “That should be one of those ladies on drugs littering your space here”. My Mom rejected my assumption. She insisted that the voice she was hearing sounded too familiar, and beckoned on the lady to come right in. The lady sauntered in, still with an unstoppable rehearsal of her “Gbaja this, Gbaja that” slogan, now heavily amplified by her baritone voice.

Once in, I told my Mom again “This lady couldn’t be alright”. Mom told me that “You are dead wrong. Gbaja ran her crazy”. I kept wondering how, and that was within myself. I didn’t pose that as a question to my Mom. Suddenly, the lady flew up from the sofa where she sat, now into another round of what I considered as another round of hallucination which developed into a monomaniac dance. The lady was dancing and singing “Gbaja ni, Gbaja ni, Gbaja ni” (as rendered by King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall in one of his serenades of the Honourable Speaker of the House of Representatives). Her dance steps were right on point and coordinated, and I began to get interested. When she was done with her dance, she turned to me and said “Uncle, you’ve been looking at me. I am not mad o, but I am just not able to hide my joy each time I remember what Femi Gbajabiamila has done in my life”. I then asked her “So, you’ve been doing all these just because someone rendered you a help?” She blinked her eyelids at me and said “O jù bèè lô o”.

At that point, she began to tell me that she had always thought that to reap benefits from Politicians, you must be one of them. She told me that she never knew Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila from anywhere, but that some of his representatives came to Anjorin market at Lawanson to collect names of Market Men and Women who needs assistance for their businesses. The lady stated that she complied by dropping her name, though she almost didn’t, because of the cacophony of doubts from the utterances of some of her colleagues at the market.

She told my Mom and I that she got a huge sum of N100,000 at the last Constituency Empowerment that was done by Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila at Teslim Balogun Stadium, Surulere. The lady told us how the money became a saving for her in settling a part of the school fees of her daughter who attends one of the federal Universities. She also told us how she used a part of the money to restock her soft drinks retail business, and how she has become the cynosure of all eyes at the market at the moment.

Do you know what she said as her last shot at us? She said “Bòbò Gbaja yên le yà eyàn ni wèrè” meaning “Gbaja can make one to become insane”.

Kudos to Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila!
God bless him!

Osunmo Abiodun