The Truck Pusher

By Lillian Okenwa

Everyone knows them. Anyone who lived in Lagos or other western part of Nigeria knows the ‘omolanke’ pushers. Until government outlawed them in major parts of the city, these truck pushers were life savers. They cleared your waste when the waste disposal vans lose your house address. They supply water when your home is not on the list of those catered for by the water board or the taps generally stop flowing. The truck (or cart) pushers carry your goods in the market and swiftly ferry your heavy load to desired destinations.

It was the harsh beginning of life for Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN. There was no hope for him in those days. The future seemed bleak; but an iron-will to live and to succeed propelled him. That never-say-die attitude ultimately marked his life. A life characterised by multiple battles and a propelling force to triumph. A cart-pushing (omolanke) company eventually gave young Ebun-Olu a job opportunity. For over one year, he loaded local gin for sale in a neighbouring village and did a good job of pushing his cart. Sympathizers who witnessed his daily travails, prevailed on his father to bring him home to conclude his secondary education. Frankly, his story is not new but it is one worth retelling.

Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, was born in the rural community of Ilaje, cut away from all developments in the riverine Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo State. His mother, pregnant with another child, died after enduring labour for three days as there was no hospital in the area. It was a breech pregnancy and she needed an emergency caesarean section. Young Ebun-Olu’s mother died inside a canoe on the way to their local government headquarters to seek medical care.

Being a marine community, canoes were the most popular means of transport.Though their major occupation was fishing and young Ebun-Olu learnt very early to fish, he would still follow his dad to the farm, trekking long distances and carrying back-breaking farm produce. Ebun-Olu’s father was also a founder of a local church (Cherubim and Seraphim) and so while still in primary school, Ebun-Olu was compelled to join him for outreaches and retreats outside the village.

On account of his father’s position as the founder of a local church, Ebun-Olu’s father was highly respected and so whenever education inspectors come for inspection, they lodged at their house. The senior advocate recalls; “My mother will ask me to go and sit by the table, so I could look at them. They were always looking well dressed and radiant and we all admired them. My mother wanted me to get an education at all cost. At that point, my father also became interested in ensuring that I acquired some form of education. But unfortunately, my mother died when I was in primary school. I was very young; clearly under 10 or so. She died in the course of child birth. It was very painful because I had to leave my domain to go and stay with my grandmother and that disrupted the kind of peace I was enjoying because it was a polygamous house. My step mother took war against me and never wanted to see me because I was excelling within the family. She would accuse me wrongly, and nothing I could do would ever please her. It became a hot place for me.”

Attempted suicide

When the hostilities of his step-mother became unbearable, young Ebun-Olu attempted suicide twice. “The first was in my father’s fish ponds at the back of our house. My step mother was always starving me and making false reports to my father. So one day, I went to the pond and drank the mud water till I became unconscious. The entire village was searching for me and finally found me inside the pond. They removed the water from my stomach and took me to a hospital far from our village and I was unconscious for seven days. In those seven days, it was my father that took care of me. I guess that was a lesson for him because he had to be there. On the seventh day I came back to life and he vowed that it would not happen again.

When I came back, I had a brief reprieve, but the woman started maltreating me again. For the second attempt, I decided to run away. Around noon, one particular day, I just walked very far into the forest and never looked back. By evening time, my father raised an alarm that I was not at home, so hunters gathered to search for me in the forest, but to no avail as I had walked several kilometres away from our town. Someone reminded them that there was a long bell for the Anglican Church which was what they used in waking up people for early morning service. It had a charming sound that attracts people and it goes very far. So they started ringing that bell continuously and I heard it as far away as I was. It was unusual to ring it at that time of the day, unless something had happened or a prominent person had died. So I started following the sound of the bell because by this time it was getting dark and I was afraid. About some miles to the town, I saw hunters who were searching for me. But looking back now, it could only have been God, because I could have been confronted by wild animals whilst walking around the forest aimlessly and alone.”

Boarding school

Barely 12 years old when he finished primary school, young Ebun-Olu was sent off to Ilaje Grammar School in far-away Atijere, a boarding school where he could be far from the hostilities at home. But his stepmother discouraged his father from visiting or sending provisions. Without supervision or mentoring, denied of basic supplies and financial support, something snapped inside the once pliable young boy leading to his expulsion from school.

Pushing truck

On being expelled from school, he joined a local gin company in a near-by town that conveyed local gin to different communities with a manual truck made with wood and tyres. “I became very well versed in that business and doing the truck pushing. That went on for about a whole year. In the course of pulling and pushing the truck, you had to taste some gin. I was involved in other juvenile activities and I forgot about schooling totally. It was about that time that I ran into somebody from my town; one Mr. Ayetoro Awojinrin. He knew that my mum wanted me to have education, so he went back home and told my dad that his son was not in school, but was transporting gin. That was how my father came and took me back home to complete my education right under his watch.” But the battle with his step-mother was not over. Having completed secondary school, Ebun-Olu’s father, not happy with the civil war between his wife and son, sent him off to Lagos to live with his younger brother and get tertiary education.

I didn’t want to die a timber man

On arriving Lagos, the uncle insisted that the teenage Ebun-Olu join the timber business. For five years he crisscrossed the forests of Ondo, Edo and Delta States, navigating through Ifon, Sobe, Owan, Iguobasuwa, Nikrogha, Koko, Sapele, in search of timber. All the while, his Economics, Government and English tutorial textbooks kept him company. He never lost sight of education. “I didn’t want to die a timber man”, the Senior Advocate said. He became so agitated at some point and told his uncle he wanted to go back to school. With a loan of N22 borrowed from a friend, Adegboruwa applied for GCE and JAMB. His first attempt to study Law, at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife was unsuccessful. A later attempt gained him admission into the faculty on merit.

Expelled again

Expulsion found him again when he led a protest at the university. He was expelled along with 61 other students. “When I look at my past, it could only have been by the grace of God that I eventually got to school and graduated. I would have continued as a timber man. In the university, I was expelled, when we had a student protest against the IMF loan in 1992. The university authorities were not happy and they expelled 62 of us. It was a career truncated.”

The late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN) took up the case of the expelled students and got judgment. “After he got judgment, he followed us into the university to submit it and sat in the office of the Vice-Chancellor, insisting that we should be reinstated because examination was pending. So they reinstated us and we wrote the exams and passed and didn’t miss that academic session. Eventually, when I finished from university and came to the Law School, I was denied admission because the university wrote that I was not a fit and proper person because I participated in students protest. So, Chief Fawehinmi came to the Law School and insisted that since we got judgment, which had nullified our expulsion from the university, they could not use that same expulsion to deny me admission. Therefore, I was admitted and eventually called to the Bar.”

Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, SAN, readily admits that looking back at his life, and all that he had freely benefited from the services of great lawyers, he saw a need to give back to the society through his legal calling. He remarks that, “as a senior lawyer, especially as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), I should now use my position as a model for other younger people and tell them that law is not all about money. Rather, we must see how we can use the instrument of law to challenge impunity, to challenge recklessness, to challenge lawlessness, and direct the path of society for common good.”

Senior Advocate of Nigeria

Along with 37 others, on September 23, 2019, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa was conferred with the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).