In 2018, @profosinbajo visited Nyanya market, Abuja to monitor the impact of the TraderMoni scheme, a mild shock greeted him.
Chinaza, whose mother owned a store at the market, and had promised herself to tell the VP what she thought of him from his appearances on her TV and other media, made her way through his security and grabbed his hand.
Amidst the presence of a security detail, and an extremely large crowd, she tugged at the VP’s hand ceaselessly, insisting that he visited her mom’s store, and telling him about how much he inspired her to be courageous and reach for her dreams —
an ideal that she unironically put to effect in reaching out to him.
Fast forward to two years and some months later...
Chinaza sits with her Mum in the Presidential Villa, with a man who has now come to know her as a “daughter”.
Almost three long years since their time of contact and a few correspondences later, Chinaza is on her way to The University with dreams of becoming a Medical Doctor, and the ideals that she has picked up from observing The Prof. Up close and afar are unchanged.
Courage, selflessness and a thorough dedication to work still weigh heavy on her heart. Coming in contact with the people that inspire you sometimes makes the dream more worthwhile. Either-way, go for it.
PS - She also took another picture with The Prof to show the people who thought the initial picture — which she has kept as her WhatsApp Display Picture for two years — of her holding his hands in the market was photoshopped. Take that haters, huh? 😆
Images from 2018 In Nyanya Market are all by @novoisioro
Today makes it exactly two years since @profosinbajo and his entourage escaped a helicopter crash unscathed in Kogi state, during a flight back to Abuja last year, knowing the next day would make it a year since,
I finally got a chance to ask him what I felt and thought when it happened a year earlier.. I said, “sir, permit me to ask you this question. What gave you the courage to carry on with the campaign immediately after such a life-threatening crash?”
He said “Honestly Tolani, it was my passion for the people. I just couldn’t let them down.”
Shocked, I fell silent, staring at him with my mouth ajar! Just some days earlier, the same kind of crash had claimed the lives of my mentor, his daughter, and seven others
Around 6pm on a Thursday evening last year, a memo that required @profosinbajo to be in another country in less than 24 hours came in. I watched as our ADC delivered the message and I was expecting some shock from him about this being so last minute
but what I observed with my camera was quite the opposite. Instead, he replied with a calm, “what time are we leaving?”
Boarding the plane, I observed the luggage officer carting boxes of briefs and files.
Curiously, I asked “who gonna’s read all these?” he laughed and replied, “e be like say you know know oga. E go finish this thing before we land.”
After almost a year & a half of documenting @profosinbajo, perhaps the most reinforcing lesson that I have been able to pick out is the one of building strong, healthy habits that help to guide your life.
It would be an unusual day if I didn’t walk in on him in intensive study.
Initially, it wasn’t too surprising because, after all, he is an academic, but seeing how consistent he is with it — especially during this pandemic — provoked some thoughts.
Series 1 of 2
If his example is anything to learn from, it is that successful people have a plethora of great habits that they submit to daily, regardless of inane distractions or actual genuine excuses.
1. In the middle of a praise event, I got a call from a close friend and his question was “Tolani, is it true Kobe is dead?” Immediately I was like, "heck no.. it must be a joke... Kobe ke.. Kobe die? nah never that". Then, I left the event and went straight to twitter
and there it was.... Kobe, his daughter Gigi and 7 others had died in a helicopter crash.
2. Upon realizing it was true, Tears came down uncontrollably, I was heartbroken, devastated & just confused. He literally had just sent me a message saying he was expecting autographed copy of my books a few days earlier when he saw an image I had posted of the vp in his car.