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MODUPE OGUNLESI, MD/CEO Adam & Eve Store
Tell me about your 50th Wedding Anniversary Thanksgiving Service and the reception held in your honour. How did you feel when you saw all your old friends and family members and everybody gather to celebrate the day?
Happy I felt, happy. And you know people said, ah, Emo eeyan gan.
Nobody there was a stranger. They were all people that knew us. They had been on this journey with us, you know. And it was nice to see all come together, and of course we had friends that we hadn’t seen each other, they’d seen us, but they hadn’t seen us for 20 years, for 30 years. And they met at the event.
It was a lovely, very enlightening, happy event, and when the Priest was talking I was shocked that, Wow, I didn’t realise you knew me that well. His sermon was very good, and very elevating, you know. Because later I called him, I said, ah Papa, me, all these for me? And he said, you deserve it.
When you see somebody trying to do what is right, it is right to hold them up so that people can know that it can be done. I thought that was very, very nice of him to say, you know. And then we got to the reception, because you must remember that in the reception there were 3 generations that we were trying to reach.
The grandchildren, our oldest grandchild is 29, and the youngest is 14, 15. So they had said, ah, are we going to be bored? I said, my daughter, you are the bridge between the three generations. So what are we having, you know, and I think they all enjoyed themselves, everybody.
And I enjoyed myself a lot. You know, it was a light atmosphere, it was friendly, you know. So it was fun.
At all the parties that you’ve held over the last few years, especially your Christmas parties, you’ve had the same set of friends that I’ve known for the last 30 years, 40 years. I can actually close my eyes and guess the people. And seeing them again, I was like, how have you been able to sustain the same circle of friends, the same old name that’s been there for you for the last several years?
You know, as you get older, I can’t imagine what will break a friendship.
Because we don’t need anything from each other, apart from friends, you know. Because when you start asking favours from friends, favours that for one reason or the other you assume they should be able to do and they cannot do, then you start getting mad at them. But you don’t know what anybody is going through.
You don’t know what anybody is going through. So we see each other. Because the important thing is when you meet a friend, when you leave, you should be happier than when you came.
And I think that is what people miss when they are thinking about friendship. If I have a real problem, I can discuss it with you and know that it won’t go further. But it’s not every friend you can do that with.
You know which friends you can open your heart to. You know which friends are just, they make you laugh. And therefore, the friendship continues.
You have some, you know, there are different kinds of friends. But after some time, you know your friend, you know the kind of person they are. So you know what to expect from the relationship.
The only person that I will not stand upsetting is my Husband. And my Children.
My children, even less so. Because when you go to their house and I’m going to my house, so what is the big deal? But my husband, I have to be happy with my husband because we are living together. And you cannot be upsetting me and we are living together.
But for friends, whatever you say, whatever, you know, provided when we come together, we play, we laugh, you are lighter when you go. That’s the whole point of friendship, is to make you feel better. To make you feel lighter.
Because when you carry too much burden, that becomes an illness on your body. So you need friends, you laugh with you can go to the theater together, we can have lunch together, you can just sit down and gist, that is friendship. That’s the big deal.
Talking about your understanding of marriage, what in your upbringing, growing up, prepared you for that institution?
My parents.
My parents were very happily married. As a matter of fact, we all learnt one thing. When you say, I’m going to tell my mum, and then you tell my mum, and you say, but don’t tell daddy. And you finish your talk. Five minutes later, my mum gets up and she is going to discuss with her husband. Or you go to daddy and say, this, this, this. Yes, yes, yes.
Then he goes to my mum. So when they are looking at the problem, it is a joint front. And also, I would say, when you are thinking of marriage, the two people don’t have to like the same things.
But your moral compass, what is right and wrong, is what is important. You have to have the same idea of what you think. Once you are on that same line, it doesn’t matter if you think differently, if you want different things.
Because the bottom line is there. So my parents, I think they brought us up well.
My father had no siblings. So we were like his entire world. And that’s why my mother and us, we knew we were the closest to him.
And he would fight in your corner. Oh, he would fight in your corner. So you get used to expecting the man to fight in the corner of his family.
And I think it’s very important that the woman makes the man realize that you, you in this family, you are the protector of every single person in this family. And that is how you earn respect. It is not money.
It is not just being a provider. But for you to know within yourself that if push comes to shove, this is the person standing in my corner.
I think we got that from our parents, which has given us a lot of confidence.
Because as you said that, yes, of course. I feel like we say it. You know, it matters.
And that’s that’s why I say generally, parents give us that confidence because I have a one on one relationship with every single member of the family. Even the extended is not any.
We know each other very closely, which is fantastic. And that’s what I would advocate that you must tell your child, especially your Girl child.
How to manage that. Don’t hide yourself. Don’t hide yourself.
And you must be ready to accommodate each one of them as a part of you.
Over the years in all the interviews I’ve had with you, you always exude a lot of Confidence and I wanted to know how you built that Confidence, how you are able to take a position, stand by it and articulate what you believe in?
Again my parents. You know the funny thing, they were both teachers, although at different levels, but I cannot seriously think back to ever being beaten by either of them. I will always remember one thing that stayed with me.
I could not have been more than six or seven and I fought in school, probably seven, eight. I fought in school and I beat up the boy. Now, my father was already permanent secretary in the Western region.
So they could not really punish me, but they needed my parents to know what I did because I think I hurt the boy. So my father now called me and said, what could have happened? And I said, ah, the boy, the boy abused me in a language that should not be said out. I said, what did you say? so I beat him and I beat him properly.
My father said, you beat him? So where is he reaching? This is what he said.
No, he said it with his mouth. Where is it writing on your body? He said, where is it now? I looked at my body. No, he just said it with his mouth.
He said, something that is not visible, that is nothing, but you dragged yourself into the gutter with him. Because the fighting means that all the education in this family that you have received means nothing. If anybody, any vagabond can drag you into the gutter with him.
What are you talking about? He said, no. If you cannot pull the pig out of the gutter, you cannot descend into the gutter with him. Rather let it go.
If you cannot drag him out, rather you educate him and bring him out of the gutter. Or you stand where you are and let it go. So as a child of seven, I thought about it.
I thought about it. And since then, there’s nothing you can say that will make me speak contrary to how I would speak normally. Because this CWO, talking to men, you are running with a group of women, they will say anything, they will talk anyhow.
And people will say, you are so patient. And I keep on remembering, I will not be dragged into the gutter with you. I will not be dragged into the gutter with you.
And that is it.
