Elder statesman and Afenifere chieftain, Chief Ayo Opadokun has revealed how Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu saved Yinka Odumakin’s life…
“When I say he is an ingrate, I must substantiate it. People like me don’t just speak without facts. When he started coming to me, one day he came with his left hand very heavy. And he told me that he and his wife bought a land somewhere and they went there for inspection. It was after visiting the land that his hand started swelling up.”
“He said he had visited surgeons both in UCH and in UNILAG, but they were yet to give him a date when the hand will be operated upon. Meanwhile, somebody introduced a magnetherapist to Odumakin in Ijebu- Ode. So, he went there and had to be in that place for about three months. I will still go there to visit him and give him money.”
“Somehow, he returned from that place, but the hand did not heal up. He came to my house. About two hours after he came, that arm broke apart, blood was gushing out in large quantity. The blood that came out of Odumakin that day was more than a gallon. My steward Segun was there and he is still with me today to corroborate my claim. If not for Segun’s courage that night, it was going to be difficult for me in that house. The bloodstain was just so much.”
“Even Odumakin himself had been totally soaked in his own blood. With God’s help, we managed to contain the situation that day because with the amount of blood he lost, what would I have said if he had died at my place?”
“A week after, his wife Joe Okei-Odumakin called me that that hand had started issuing out odour and that it was becoming problematic in their home. She also told me that the magnetherapist in Ijebu-Ode had recommended that if they could visit India, perhaps the unorthodox practitioners might be able to do something about it.”
“Then I was still in Obanikoro and there was no mobile telephone like we have now. I had to send this gentleman here, Comrade Popoola Ajayi to go to Odumakin’s place and give him a letter because immediately after my discussion with the wife, I called then Governor of Lagos, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and discussed the whole issue with him. He then told me that if that was what I wanted to take care of Odumakin’s hand, I should ask him to write a letter to that effect in request. So, Popoola took the letter to his house.”
“Now, the wife wrote the request letter and went to the governor’s office but they won’t allow her to see the governor. So, when she called me from the governor’s office, I had to talk to the ADC that I have already spoken to Tinubu over the matter, so she should be allowed in. And that was exactly what they did. You can also confirm from the wife if I lied on this.”
“Immediately, she came in, Governor Tinubu invited his Commissioner for Health and his Commissioner for Finance to go and do whatever they had to do in order to get both Odumakin and his wife visa and other necessary things needed for them to visit India.”
“I was told by the magnetherapist that they will nothing less than N2million for the whole treatment. And that was exactly what Governor Tinubu did and Odumakin travelled a week thereafter. He was the one who told me his experience in India that out of the five doctors, it was only one that said let them open the hand first.”
“The other doctors were asking the wife to sign that they will need to amputate the hand. But one of them insisted that they should first of all open the hand, perhaps maybe not all the two bones had been affected.”
“Fortunately for him, only one of the bones had been affected and the surgery was successfully carried out and the hand was not amputated. That is why till today, he cannot stretch the hand. But what do we see today? There are no evil things Odumakin cannot say about Tinubu and Opadokun. Let his conscience be the judge as he is reading this. Do we deserve such from such a man? That is to show how ungrateful and mercenary that young man is.”