By Nkasiobi Oluikpe - Lagos
Chief Peter Atanda Bajomo
For the younger ones who have a bias against most traditional stools, Chief Peter Atanda Bajomo, the Baale of Saala, Iju Grade II, has demystified the Baale stool that he presently occupies, saying there is nothing fetish or diabolical about the stool in Yoruba land.
“It is just like any other position of leadership that confers a lot of responsibility on you as the leader,” he says. “Besides that, it doesn’t change anything in you. You are just the normal human being that you were before your installation. The only difference is that if you truly know your onions, it confers more honour and respect on you. There are no secret activities or shrine attached to it.”
Bajomo, a retired assistant chief executive officer of Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), was installed the Baale of Saala some eight years ago when his predecessor passed on.
According to him, it never occurred to him at any point in his life that he was going to be a Baale. But fate saw him stepping into the shoes of his predecessor when he died. Besides being the next eldest surviving personality to the late Baale, the community saw in him, leadership qualities capable of navigating them to greater heights.
Ever since, he has been presiding over the affairs of his community as judicious as possible without any complain from his subjects.
He started as a Baale Grade III. Because of the manner in which he handled the affairs of his community, he won their love and saw himself promoted to Baale Grade II, next to the Oba, and now becoming a member of the Ifako Ijaiye Local Government Chieftaincy Committee.
Without a spike of the knowledge of how he relates with his subjects, a brief interaction with this reporter, brings out the maturity of a good leader who freely relates with everybody irrespective of class and without the paraphernalia of royalty.
“People are very free to come to me. If there are traditional rulers who frighten people, I don’t fall into that category. I open my door wide for people to feel free to relate with me,” Bajomo reveals.
“If you scare people away, how would you be able to represent their interest before the authorities,” he asks. “I am here as their representatives and to arbitrate over their affairs. I am like a father to them and they are like children to me. A good father looks for the welfare of his children and that is what I am doing for them to the best of my ability.”
Bajomo joined the LUTH management as a clerical officer. He rose through the ranks to become the assistant chief executive officer until office politics saw him being demoted from Abuja, an experience he recalls with bitterness and refers to as the saddest day of his life.
Bajomo throws a light into what being a Baale means to him. “It is a position that bestows on you a lot of responsibility to people in your domain. You are there to protect their interest in every way possible. You are their mouthpiece to the authorities. In the event of a pressing need that requires the attention of the authorities, you stand as the connecting link or middleman between them and the authorities.
Take for instance, if there is a road construction job to be done in your area. After rubbing minds with your people, you will be the one to carry their desires and complains to the authorities. Even though in most cases, we don’t get responses to these requests, as the local government will tell us, the state has not made provision for it or that they have not received money from the Federal Government. But at least, you have to play your own part.
Human beings, it is said, are the most difficult set of animals to handle. While one may be tempted to dwell on the royalty conferred by the office, truth remains that it is not easy to arbitrate over sensitive matters without being tagged as either partial or taking sides.”
But like Bajomo rightly puts it, “your duty is to foster peace between parties. It doesn’t matter how close any of them is to you. You just have to be as fair as possible to all. But you also have to recall that you cannot do anything without God. Like the Bible says, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.
“If you have the fear of God you will understand within yourself that God alone is the final arbiter to issues. You will always remember to ask Him to direct your affairs.”
Sometime, he says, “we are even more afraid of human beings than God because they are the ones we see. But remembering that there is a God who oversees all our affairs, you will be afraid to do anything that is unjust.”
Speaking of his life before his installation and the reaction of most of the younger ones towards traditional stools, he states: “It is true that the younger ones are being skeptical of some traditional stools. But in my own case, before I became a Baale, I was a Christian, teaching and preaching at the Sunday school. I was involved in all the church activities. But people believe that the moment you become a Baale, you will be serving another god. That is not true.
“My becoming a Baale has not removed anything from my relationship with God. I still worship him the same way I was doing before my installation as a Baale. In my home this morning, I did morning prayer. It is a regular routine here. Nobody can exist or live without God, if he decides that you are not going to live beyond today, you don’t have the power to alter that. So it is paramount that we acknowledge God in our lives, irrespective of the position we find ourselves. Even before you are born, He already knows you and what you will become in life. In fact, to be honest with you, I am even closer to God now than ever because He is the only one that has been sustaining me in this position. If you have God, you are already armed and you have nothing to fear.
And if you think being a Baale makes him any less a mortal, you are mistaken because he is a complete family man who, but for health implications, watches football match with his family when it suits him.
“I have problem balancing the game and my state of mind. When I have an interest in a particular team, my mindset would be for that team to win. Unfortunately, my heartbeat increases when they are playing. So what I do is to leave the place and busy myself with some other things and will only be asking about the scores.
“I have about two friends who, while watching a match, collapsed and died. One of them is Mr. Ajala, my former colleague at LUTH. In fact, instead of sitting there and having my blood pressure rise, I would prefer to go and take beer.”
Letting us into what used to be New Year celebration in those days, Bajomo says, the only thing he and his contemporaries knew then was that on that particular day, they were going to eat rice. That was all; they never even knew they were transiting from an old year to a new one.
Bajomo was the last child of his mother, born when his parents were already nearly their wits end in life. So he had to be raised by his elder sister who was resident with her family at No. 60 Ibadan Street, Ebute-Metta East. There he grew up with his sister’s children with whom he was eating from the same plate.
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