I never took bribe in all my years as comptroller of Immigration – Akindoye Akinyemi

A former comptroller of Immigration, Akindoye Akinyemi, 79, tells ’NONYE BEN-NWANKWO about his life experiences

So many people may not know that you are closer to 80 than 70, what is the secret of your agile looks?

It is just the grace of God. If God gives you a vision, he gives you the energy and the potential to back it up. The truth of the matter is I am stronger now than when I was in the service. I work longer hours now. My day usually starts at 3.30am and I don’t get weak. So I think it is God that gives me the strength. And for the past nine years, this has been my routine. God has been so faithful; He provides energy, strength and vitality. I don’t even know what they call headache. If I am fagged out, I just sleep and after one or two hours of sleep, I would recuperate.

Did you become a strong Christian because your father was one?

My father had a very strong influence over me in every way. The time my father took Christianity to our area was the dark ages. His parents even wanted to poison him because they thought he was a betrayer. He even lived in the forest for three days. But he and three others brought the Methodist church to our home town. I have a heritage. You will offend me if you stand on my way with God. My father told me that the only thing that will always make God to be close to you is for you to behave right. You can never take what doesn’t belong to you. He raised us to be diligent and to be honest.

Was your father so rich that he could afford to send you to school back then?

Yes. He had a big cocoa plantation. He had five wives.  But the wives were the people he used in the farm. There were no labourers.  He was a hard worker.  The plantation was a fortune, so he had money to pay for our education. But our mothers took care of our food and uniform.

You went to work at the Federal Ministry of Transport after your secondary school, how did you get the job?

I went to my sister in Kaba (Kogi State). I was looking for a job and my sister told me she heard there was a vacancy at Inland Waterways. I dressed up and went there and I met one man. I didn’t know he was the head of the establishment then.  He asked me who I was, I told him. He asked me if I was a member of his staff and I said I wasn’t. I told him I needed a job and he said I should come to his office. That was how I started. I didn’t know anybody.

Really?

Oh yes. I never knew anybody. That is why I cannot take a dime from anybody to offer the person a job.

But during your time, teaching must have been fashionable then. How come you didn’t toe that path?

All my siblings were teachers and reverends. I was the only person who opted not to teach. I just felt I should do something different.

How did your journey to immigration start?

When I was working at the Ministry of Transport, Inland Waterways now came to Lagos. All of us were brought to Lagos. I had to start looking for a house. I was doing my work very well. I was posted to the classified registry. It was there that I read in our gazette of a vacancy at the Ministry of Internal Affairs for immigration officers. My rank then qualified me to apply for the job and I applied. I went for the interview and I was taken. That was how I became an immigration officer.

How was life as an immigration officer?

Immigration became all I knew. When I slept, it was immigration. I was the first in many things during my service years. I introduced fellowship in Minna. It was a taboo then. The emir liked me. There was a time I went to him; I had 19 vacancies to fill as a comptroller. I told him that if he didn’t give me eight women out of the 19 to fill up the slots, I would return the slots to headquarters. I knew I couldn’t do that but he didn’t know. He and his chiefs sat and talked about it. Eventually, I went back to him after a couple of years and he thanked me for bringing light to their community. He said they had agreed that females should work. All the female staff I had then were from Gboko. The people of Minna never allowed their females to work. They would always put them in the family way immediately they finished their Standard Six. But God broke that jinx.

How did you feel when you rose to become a comptroller?

Comptroller is the peak of the career. It is either you make yourself a good example or a bad example when you get to that level. There is so much power when you get to that level, in fact, you are next to God. There is nothing you cannot do. But if you are not disciplined, you will be destroyed. In Minna, I never drank, smoked or chased women. I never stepped into the officers’ mess for once in my three and half years as a comptroller. I experienced a lot of strange things while I was there.

Things like?

There was a time one man brought three fowls for me. They had tried to compromise me in many ways but they couldn’t get me. The fowls looked very nice. I didn’t want to kill any of them so I decided to keep them and feed them. I was living in a six bedroomed apartment.  I put the chickens in the boys’ quarters. The next morning, I went to feed them, I saw only two.

So what happened to the other one?

Till today, I wouldn’t know. The doors and windows were closed. I was the one that opened the door. I still closed the door and went to work. By the time I came back, one of them was just hitting itself on the floor. Eventually, the fowl died. The last one started crying like a human being. I had never experienced such in my life before. What if I had killed and eaten those fowls?  I never slept in Minna during the weekend; I would always come back to my family in Lagos unless I had something to do in the city. People didn’t like my style and they wanted me killed. But God saved me.

But it is generally perceived that men in uniform are usually corrupt, weren’t you tempted to take bribes?

I was very disciplined. I found out that when you bribed me, you would have automatically turned me into a robot. You would have taken over my thinking capacity. You would want me to do your bidding. I wasn’t trained for that! No! I was trained to be a professional. I am sure I never asked anybody for a dime. If you come to bribe me, I would certainly spoil that job for you. I spent six years as a comptroller. I pray a lot. I wouldn’t want to spoil my Christian life. Why would I want to spoil my relationship with God? God helped me to overcome everything.

You retired voluntarily two years before your retirement age, why?

God asked me to. It was on a Tuesday at 9am. I had just established the medical service for our immigration officers. I found out that most of our officers were corrupt because they either had sick children or their wives were sick and the doctor would ask them for money before he could treat them. So I decided I wasn’t going to ask these officers not to be corrupt. I decided to provide medical service for them. I had a doctor and three nurses in our clinic. I used to ask for drugs from multinational companies and they were giving us free of charge.  So at 9am that Tuesday morning in 1998, I still had two more years to go. But God just told me I was fulfilled in this office. And I told God I didn’t want to go anywhere else. I reminded Him I just came from Minna back to Lagos and I would love to retire in Lagos. I thought He was telling me it was time I moved to another state. But 45 minutes again, the voice came again and was more specific. The voice told me I was fulfilled in immigration service. I just opened my drawer and tendered a letter of voluntary retirement. How could a comptroller of immigration just resign? It was new! But I knew it was God that told me to resign and He had never failed me.  It wasn’t even as if I was ready to retire. But there is a testimony. Six months after I had resigned, (Olusegun) Obasanjo had become the president and then, everybody from my rank upwards was removed and they heard about their retirement on the national television. They didn’t send letters to them. I would have been one of them. So that is why I always do what God wants me to do.

But you must have told your wife before you retired…

She thought I was mad. She asked me if I had asked God before resigning. I told her it was God that asked me to resign. Would I have told my children that in my career, I was forced to retire by the government? Some of those people who were retired are still suffering today.

You recently lost your wife…

Yes, she passed on few months ago.  There was a time she had an accident and we treated her for 13 months. The doctor came eventually and said he would have to amputate her leg. I told him to discharge her. I was angry. That same day, the Holy Spirit told my daughter to send a ticket to my wife. The leg they would have amputated took only two weeks to heal in America. Later, she was diagnosed with cancer. We didn’t know she had a lump in her breast. It looked like a rash. It was later we discovered it was cancer. She eventually went back to the US for treatment and she came back. The stuff grew again and she went back to the US. On May 2, 2016, the doctor told me that she had four hours to live. I smiled and told him that where their medicine failed would be where God would take over from. I took her home. The person they said would live for four hours lived for four extra days. The fourth day, she greeted and thanked everybody and she went into deep sleep. She slept like a baby. I was happy. I felt she was getting better. I decided to use that opportunity to bathe and brush my teeth. I was still brushing my teeth when my son ran to me and was screaming. Before I came down, she was gone. When it finally dawned on me she was dead, I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t eat or sleep. The children would make food and I would flush it in the toilet because I didn’t want them to find out that I hadn’t touched my food. On the third day, something just told me to pick up my bible. A passage came to my mind, I opened it and it read that in everything, we should give thanks. I was asked to open to another passage which read that in everything, we are more than conquerors through Christ that strengthens us. Another passage came with a strong warning and it read that if I didn’t thank and praise Him, I would not see His love. I had to surrender. That was how I was able to manage the situation. From that day, I could eat, sleep and do everything. When they tell you that some men usually die immediately after they lose their wives, it is true. Some men find it difficult to cope. God loves me so much and decided to save me.

How did you meet your wife?

She came to look for visa to America. I was already an immigration officer. I asked her to come at 11am and she was there at the exact time. It captivated me. It is very rare for people to keep to time in Nigeria. Everything about her impressed me. At our third or fourth meeting, I still hadn’t given her the visa. Getting her a visa was not a big deal to me but I just didn’t want her to get it. I eventually told her I wanted to marry her and she agreed. We were married for 33 years. She was wonderful. When she wasn’t at home, the house would be empty. She was a great disciplinarian. She loved people a lot and she worked very hard.

But are you fulfilled doing what you are doing at the moment?

I am so fulfilled. You have to put all your strength in everything you do.  But I have never felt this way before. I run this vision with so much passion. God just singled me out to do this job. He looked at all the people my age and decided to choose me.

So how did you start this NGO, Akindoye Akinyemi Foundation?

I was going to be 70 in 2007. But before then, I was taught in my church that you can ask God questions. So I decided to ask God questions before that birthday. I asked God what he wanted me to do after 70 years. I knew God sent Abraham out when he was 70 and that was when he became known and prosperous. So I asked Him again what He wanted me to do. He didn’t answer me the first day. The second day, I couldn’t eat or drink. I was restless. But at 2.30am on the third day, He said He was satisfied with my service but from now, I should serve Him and humanity in the areas of the widows, their children, the elderly and the needy. I woke my wife up and told her what God just told me. The following morning, I dressed up and went to Cannan Land, my church. I was so enthralled that I had a new job in my hand. As at 2007, I can modestly tell you I was making more than N5m a year in my immigration consultancy job. I was making money.  But when this project from God came, I was so excited. I didn’t know how to start; I eventually started with 15 widows. Since then, I have not looked back.

You mean you stopped that consultancy to face the NGO?

I did. There was no way I could do the two. God didn’t ask me to do the two. Since then, I have never lacked, I have never begged. I have never failed to pay members of my staff every month.

So what do you do for the widows?

During my 70th birthday, I had told my children, fans and friends that they shouldn’t give me any gift item but they should convert the gifts to money. I opened an account for that. That birthday brought so much money. We had enough and I had to also include my own resources. We first started by giving the widows N25, 000 each. We did that for about two years. But then, I remembered during one of our meetings, one the widows came to share a testimony. She said the money helped her in a long way when she was burying her mother. It was a testimony to her but to me, it was disheartening. We had given her that money for her to get herself settled. Anyway, we had to stop giving them money; we decided to be training them. Why give them fish when we can teach them how to fish? So we started teaching them how to make soap, beads, hats and bags.  A widow tells us the area she has interest and we see how we can help her. We have empowered over 1800 widows.  We have never asked any of them to pay any money and the foundation is open to all widows irrespective of religion or tribe or age.

So how do you get the funds you use in empowering these widows?

He that sent me to do this has been providing. Somebody from nowhere would always help out. There was a time our grand patron, Bishop (David) Oyedepo gave us N1m. He has done that more than once.

We heard you received an award recently?

Oh yes. The National Youth Association of Nigeria gave me an award for an Outstanding and a Well-done Accomplishment. I fear this God o. He can make anything happen at any time.