PUNCH
Ninety-year-old Prof Olayinka Olatunji retired as a lecturer at the University of Lagos. In this interview with BOLA BAMIGBOLA, he spoke about his love for Physics and experience as a teacher from primary school level to the university
How does it feel to be 90 years of age?
First of all, I must say that I wasn’t expecting to live up to that because, in the last one and a half years or so, I used to pray to God to let me see the next day. I was not praying about seeing next week, or month because I was not sure that I would get there. To cut the story short, I did a series of medical tests and the results gave me the main reasons why I am celebrating my birthday even now, days after I clocked 90 years. I have been under medical examination for quite some time, for about five years after my wife passed on.
When were you born and how did you know your date of birth because the level of literacy must have been very low at the time of your birth?
I have a literate uncle who was my father’s elder brother. He was an old student of Wesley College, Ibadan; he had a record of our birth dates. My father is the late Phillip Olatunji. He was a trader and a farmer. He died when I was 14 years old and I was the eldest of his 13 children at that time. My mother is Victoria Idowu Olatunji from Ileobe Compound in Imesi-Ile and her story is an interesting one.
Can you share it?
Yes, her father died when she was just three years old, and the family had to borrow money for the funeral. She was mortgaged for the money spent on her father’s funeral. Back then, they had a system whereby you borrow money, and they will attach you to the person who lends you the money. You have to work for him/her for free. It is a system of slavery and she did that until she was about to get married because they couldn’t pay to secure her release. School was an uncommon commodity in those days. My uncle who registered my birth and one of his younger brothers were among the first to get educated in Imesi-Ile around 1900.
