Uzamat Akinbile-Yussuf is the immediate past Commissioner for Tourism, Arts and Culture in Lagos State. She served as Commissioner in charge of four different ministries between 2015 and 2023. The trained pharmacist who turns 50 recently in this interview speaks on growing up among older male siblings and how her tough and very strict mother prepared her for politics and public office. Excerpts:
If you look back and what you’ve achieved so far, what does fulfillment mean to you?
To God be the glory for what He has done in my life in the last 50 years, it has been marvelous. I came from a very humble background, from a royal lineage and a disciplined background. I always tell people, when you come from a humble background and you are disciplined, then you have got the best to start off your life with. My late mother of blessed memory was a very tough woman. I happened to be the first daughter with five senior guys. You can imagine when you now have a tough woman with five senior brothers. It was not fun; that is just it. The man who would have showered all that love and given me the best of childhood, died so early. I was about 12 years old when I lost my father. My mother made me to be strong and independent woman which I enjoy today, because of the kind of training she gave to me.
That has enabled me to train my children in the same manner. I realize now that the way my father pampered me, if I had grown up that way, I may not have been who I am today. My father showed me love; he pampered me. I would have become a spoilt child if the man had not passed away, because he saw me as his own mother, and he transferred that love to me so much that nobody could touch, or do anything to me. He addressed me like his own personal princess. So, I had a special place in my father’s heart. That made my mum to be so jealous, as I shared everything at home before my father passed on. But my mother was able to bring the best out of my life. She shaped me, unlike my father who tried to pamper me.
How about your foray into business?
My mother was a trader and she taught me how to be an independent woman. She encouraged me not to get any paid job in my life. ‘Work and work and depend on your own strength’, that is the way my mother used to tell us. I came from a polygamous home and I do not see anything wrong with polygamy, maybe because I love my father. I think I enjoyed the life we used to live together with my step-siblings. We love ourselves. I can’t remember any time my father or my mother, or my stepmother had issues that concerned us. So, we lived together in our own house as a very large family. I enjoyed my growing up. All of us were sleeping in the sitting room, we played together, and most times, slept off while playing. At the same time, when it comes to religion, we don’t discriminate in my house. Whether you are a Christian or Muslim, it is none of anybody’s problem. My father was a Muslim while my mother was a Christian until later in her life when she chose to become a Muslim. My father never forced her to become a Muslim.
Whichever religion you choose; it is your way of life. Just be true to yourself and be kind to people in the community. We all chose the way we wanted to live our lives. I chose to be a Muslim. In fact, when I was with my mother, we were going to church together. Even when I was in the University of Ibadan for my first degree, I was going to church until later in life when I decided that I would not go to church again, I wanted to understand more about Islam. I willingly became a Muslim. My father had 13 of us, and to the glory of God, we are all together. We love ourselves. We respect each other’s decision, and value each other.
What were the challenges you faced in the course of your journey so far?
There have been so many thorns, especially when I lost my father. It was like the walls wanted to crumble on me. He was my pillar of support in life. I could not imagine a life without my loving father; the world turned against me because I used to get everything from him. The man passed away when I was still in secondary school. We were eight from my mother to take care of, and it became very tough. I would have dropped out of school when the man passed on, but I promised my father that I would make sure that I graduated from the university. There was a time my teacher reported me to him that I was not serious, so he came to visit me in school. He felt disappointed and I promised him that I would graduate from the university. So, the promise I made to my father was echoing in my head, that I was going to be a university graduate. I decided that whatever it was going to cost me to be a university graduate, I must achieve it. Yet, it was very tough, I had to be running from one place to another to get my school fees.
Did you finish your course as a biochemist?
I did not finish as a biochemist. I left when I got married. I needed to relocate, and at that time, I had got admission to the University of Lagos to study pharmacy. There was no need for me to stay back. The same year I got married, I also got admission to study pharmacy. I think I left UI at 300-level.
How did you cope being newly married and your study as a student?
It was a tough one I can tell you, but when you are determined, you will succeed. I was able to combine both, and here I am today as a proud pharmacist, and a proud mother.
Was there any incident as a married woman, that almost stopped you from achieving you goal?
I can’t remember any, because my drive then was that I wanted to be a pharmacist. I could remember when I had my second child, the third day I left the hospital and I went straight to school. My mother was crying at home that I had to leave a baby and go to school, and I said the baby would not die. So, I pursued my dream passionately. I love my son and I knew nothing would happen to him between the time that I would go to school and return. So, instead of me sitting down at home breastfeeding the baby, I extracted the breast milk inside a bottle, and I would leave it inside the warmer for him. I made sure he had sufficient breast milk that would last till I return. Despite my schedule, I carried out exclusive breastfeeding. Sometimes, if I had to stay in school, one of those staying with me would bring my child to the school in a car, sometimes, they would leave the following day, while I continued my classes. I was able to manage the situation, though it was not easy. I got married 1997, got admission in 1998, same year I had my first child. I said to myself, if I could not finish Biochemistry, I can’t afford not to finish from school of pharmacy again which had been my dream. To the glory of God, I was able to achieve that.
How did having five male siblings ahead of you, prepare you for politics?
I was born to be a boy, because I was nurtured by boys. I was in their midst, so I know how tough it was growing up with them. That enough prepared my journey to face anybody in life because my brothers were very tough. That really prepared me. If I could face them in my house and survive, then, I can face anybody. I have never been anywhere that a man would now be a threat to me. My perspective to gender issue is that we are all human beings and equal. If I can survive the tyranny of my brothers then, there is no way any man can stand in my way of progress, simply because I am a woman. I also don’t feel threatened at all and that actually prepared me for the journey in politics.
(vanguard)
