Alhaja Modinat Adedibu, the First Lady of the Adedibu Molete School of Politics and the Queen of the Molete Palace during the reign of her late husband, Alhaji Lamidi Ariyibi Adedibu, has reflected on the legacy of the man widely regarded as the strongman of Ibadan politics.
In an exclusive interview with Ibadan City ANNOUNCER, Alhaja Adedibu took our team down memory lane, sharing personal insights into their love life and she met her husband, whose name remains synonymous with grassroots politics in Ibadan and beyond.
“I can say it’s the work of God to some extent; I don’t have any regrets, I believe he was God sent to me. I married him at a very young age; he was almost 40 years older than me.
Nobody introduced me to him, he met me around my family house in Idi Arere, Ibadan. I have an elderly brother working with my late husband then, so, that very day my brother was in his car and they were going along my street, and I just saw the car reversed, my brother came down and said to me that Chief wanted to see me. I was confused, because I don’t even know who Chief is, and honestly, I’ve not heard about Adedibu before in my life, I don’t know him. I was very reluctant to meet whoever that Chief was, so I just left. But I think God has prepared me for him, because he kept coming and I kept running.
The first time my husband came down from the car and walked into our house, I hid behind my mum, then a neighbor of ours then, came out, saw him and started hailing him, it was at that point my mum and I were confused, because we don’t know who the man was, and that was because my husband was an engineer by profession, so we don’t do anything politics. My husband greeted me and my mum, he told my mum he came to see me, he came with my uncle, and he asked me to escort him out, so I did. He came again in the evening that same day, he came again very early in the morning the next day, and I was angry, because I have a guy I was dating.
But because my neighbours already saw him with me, they kept telling my mum all kinds of things, telling her he was a dangerous person, that he will kill me if I don’t marry him, and my mum was scared, she started begging me to leave the man and not collect his money. When my husband heard about this, he stopped coming, but he went to my elderly father, who was the imam of Ibadan, baba Sadiku Popo Folorunsho, and those people have been troubling me to bring my husband. And now, I don’t even know why I was rejecting him, I thought of his age, and he was also a bald man.
My elderly father called me, and said Lamidi is your husband, I was so angry that I told him that if he has a female child, she should give her to him. He sent for my mum, spoke with her, and told her to talk to me, but my mum was really scared because of what she has heard, but later, I gave in to pressure and that was how we started.
