He believes difficult times prepare one for a happy future. Barrister Rotimi Edu, the promoter of Quicklink Insurance Brokers Limited and President, Lagos Lawn Tennis Club, Onikan, Lagos Island, in this interview with Femi Ogbonnikan, talks about his background, his marriage, among others.
What was your upbringing like?
Growing up was not easy for me, at all, because it was a bit rough, going to school in those days. And I give gratitude to my mother; she is late now. She was responsible for my educational foundation, along with her elder brother who happened to be my uncle. The two of them struggled to make sure that I had a good and sound education. Athough the schools that I went really had no names, but I don’t think it is the school that makes the success of a student, but it is what the student himself or herself wants. Even if I didn’t go to the likes of St. Gregory College or Igbobi College, but I still made sure that I was going to come out in flying colours. I was able to gain admission and to also do my tertiary education, and still got Chartered, wearing two professional caps- that of an Insurer and of a Lawyer.
How did you meet your wife?
Well, I wouldn’t say I met my wife accidentally, but it was divine. At that time, at the Polytechnic, I was doing truancy, and not lady truancy. I was not involved in girlfriend or boyfriend issue and I didn’t even have time for her, because there was no way I could invite her to the house, because I was staying with my uncle. I will wait until everybody slept before I will pack the couch in the sitting room to sleep. So, where did you want to bring your date? And even when I had, one street brother like that would say, bring your girlfriend to my apartment. When we take them down, he would entertain them, and unknown to us this man would start dating them behind our backs, because we were not as buoyant.
All we would realized was that, sometimes, when we wanted to go and see him, he would not open the door for us; only for us to catch him one day, that he was already dating one girlfriend of ours. So, those were very interesting periods, because I had time for politics. I had time for my study and that was it, then. So, at that period, we rallied and even formed a club. We called the club, “jaje” (meaning, eat from the meal), because all we did was that when we were leaving home, we the poor ones would put our spoons and forks in our pockets. Then, if any of us should go to the cafeteria to buy food, we would be hiding; we would allow him to finish buying the food, then we would bring out our spoons and join him.
And the rule was that, you could not say no, no matter how hungry you were and no matter the quantity of food that you had, we would eat it together. What we found out was that, after eating, one of us would say bring more rice and before we knew it, we were all well fed. So, that was how the “jaje club” started. Part of my truancy too was fight I had with the ‘kegites’. I could remember the ‘Chief of the Kegites Club’ at the Lagos State Polytechnic. He was telling me to keep filling his calabash with palmwine and when I was doing that, I just took my own turn, which was an abomination; using the calabash of the Chief. So, when he turned the table at that time, I had to pour the palm wine on him and I was ‘de-kegged’. When they ‘de-kegged’ me, other friends just said no, “this is our friend, we have been together”. After the ‘jaje club’, we now formed another club called ‘the bottlers’.
As ‘the bottlers’, we were drinking beer. So, we would get drunk before them, and before they finished drinking their palm wine, we would have already gotten drunk. We were problems to them, all the time. And it was interesting and we always had fights with them. So, when I met my wife was when I lost my uncle and I had to move to Ikorodu campus. She was also studying Biochemistry, but her own campus was in Ikosi, Ketu, Lagos. She was staying with her friend in the campus in Ikorodu. So, it was when I went to Ikorodu that I met her; I thank God, she is the love of my life. We courted for about six years and, then we got married.
And we thank God today, that we are blessed with two kids, twins after 25 years of marriage. I will not stop, saying that, so as to show the glory of God and His mercies over us and it is only from God, that children can come. We thank God that eventually we got there. If there was no love, I don’t see how a couple would be together for 24 years, without having an issue outside of wedlock. Some people don’t even get up to ten years and they end up divorcing or having issues outside their matrimonial homes. But for us we came together and it eventually came to pass. Nigeria is in recession, how is the insurance business coping? Well, insurance business has come to stay. It has improved far, far beyond what it was before. It has also gone more international, in terms of standard.
The best practice is now available in the insurance industry. Customers and consumers’ claims are settled promptly. We have a lot of improvements, but the only problem is that during the period of recession, insurance is always the last choice on the scale of preference. But people forget that it is at that time that they should take up insurance because whatever they have that is left for them is well protected by insurance, such that if there is any claims, they would not feel the recession badly, as it would have been without insurance. So, my advice is that, people should take up insurance now, protect themselves, protect their lives and property, because in a period like this, if you lose anything, you are not likely to gain it back without insurance.
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