I am the second son of my father; my background is in Sociology, Communications and Law. I am a global pan-African Diasporan with interests in wine, law, media and politics. I have quite a lot of siblings. My dad had 12 children. Most are lawyers. One is a medical doctor, another is an environmental engineer, and one is a professional life coach and author.

My dad was a very hardworking, strict and generous person. He was also a family man and loved his mother to the moon and back. He treated each of us the same, and he believed so much in education and the welfare of the people.

He loved life and he was highly social. He also loved reading and settling land disputes. He partied very hard when he did so, and he loved to laugh out loud. He was a kind and happy person, but mostly always serious. He also loved his food.

I miss him calling me on the phone and saying, ‘Pele o!’ I miss him insisting that I visited him once he arrived in South Africa or Nigeria. I miss his voice. I miss his counsel; I miss his wisdom and, above all, his booming and raucous laughter. I miss his essence and calmness.

The family misses him, but as they say, time is a healer. We miss him, and to keep his memory alive, we have immortalised his name. In January this year, we initiated the Jelili Omotola Prizes for best students in three law subjects at the University of Lagos, Faculty of Law, for N5m for 10 years.

My fondest memories of my dad were when he drove us to Ijebu-Ode in his Volvo 244 DL and the air conditioner was on full blast and it was raining outside. Dad would always stop to buy suya in Sagamu. I also enjoyed most of my visits to Abeokuta’s Olumo Rock and Bar Beach, Apapa Amusement Park and Leventis Stores in Surulere, Lagos. Those were the fun times. Oh! I must not forget the table tennis games we played at Aiyesan, Ijebu-Ode.

Even though he worked at the University of Lagos for 29 years, we never lived on campus for a single day. I attended the University of Lagos Staff School and travelled daily from Surulere to Akoka. We did, however, live at Owo Palace in Ikate, Surulere, in a triplex with two neighbours who also lectured at the University of Lagos.

He had the typical African style of parenting. He was very strict, but he hardly shouted. Also, he would give you a very long rope to hang yourself. When he decided to beat us, it was a very painful affair because he would use whips or canes. He sometimes used his size-10 slippers.

He enjoyed using ‘kneel down’ and ‘stoop down’ as punishment tools, and he would give gifts to reward children who did well, especially in their studies and chores.

My father strongly advised his children to be steadfastly wedded to education. He used to tell us to use one qualification to exempt ourselves from another qualification. He also instilled the idea of independence and told us that any tough experiences we were going through were a training ground. I will never forget his famous saying, ‘Society has nothing to offer you’. He believed that one had to do everything for oneself.

He was extremely busy as a lecturer, academic, author and later university administrator during his days as a vice-chancellor. Even though he was always busy, he still created the time to discuss welfare issues and academic pursuits with every one of his children. He kept his eyes on the ball. He was also lucky to have a large family, so we always leaned on each other and our grandma, aunties, uncles, children and cousins. This was the Omotola family model.

As a lawyer with a doctorate and later professorship, he was a stickler for rules. He always quoted the law and always sought to enforce rules. One of his famous sayings was, ‘I pay your way, I dictate your way’. When we moved to Isolo in 1984 from Surulere, he imposed a return home curfew of 6pm. By imposing the rule, he wanted us to avoid the danger of keeping bad company in the area in the evening time. This rule brought us, the older children, into great conflict with dad.

He once told me that he did not mind if all his children studied Law. So, five of us studied Law, with two having Master’s degrees in Law and one studying for a PhD in Law now. My niece is also a lawyer.

He believed in two things profoundly: scholarship and prizes. Having been a beneficiary of many prizes and a scholarship from the Western State of Nigeria to pursue his PhD, he was keen on the same. When I was at the Nigerian Law School, Bwari, Federal Capital Territory, he insisted that I should get prizes on my way out. I am not as brilliant academically as my dad, and frankly, none of us is. We are smart, though, but he was more intelligent.

I graduated from the University of Lagos long before he became a vice-chancellor, but he was the Dean of the Faculty of Law when I graduated. It was always a subtle kind of pressure that we ought to do very well because dad was a professor, but most of us were not studious like dad. However, we did our best. As children, we had a lot of distractions, as most children do. I particularly was very playful. My report cards as a child used to have the words ‘very playful’ emblazoned on the same, and it used to annoy dad so much. He knew I was very brilliant but too playful.

His tenure as the vice-chancellor was described by many as the best in the 61-year history of the University of Lagos. On many occasions, I am humbled and proud to be my dad’s child. My dad did a lot for students with the work-to-study programme, the internally generated revenue programme, the four water boreholes and many other programmes. In fact, the 5,000-seater hall he built was named after him in 2017. Dad told me that he built the hall because he was sad that some students took their exams while standing. Dad said he ran for the vice-chancellor position because he knew he could do an excellent job and he did very well as many accounts have proven. In fact, when he started on May 8, 1995, as vice-chancellor, his first port of call was the security post, where he discovered that they had no toilets. He proceeded to build toilets for the guards soon after that.

When he became the vice-chancellor, I was in the United Kingdom. He visited the United Kingdom as a vice-chancellor a few times and he spoke about his plans for the university, especially student welfare and the need to raise the university to the best global standards. I knew that dad would make a great impact because he was trained for nine years in the United Kingdom. Dad attended the University of London, Queen Mary and Westfield College for his LLB, BL, and PhD and was called to the bar at Grays Inn.

My father was a workaholic. The few times I was in Lagos after I returned to Nigeria in 1999 to attend Law School, my dad was always busy day and night. To see him became very difficult unless one went to the Vice-chancellor’s Lodge. We, his children, were already used to dad working flat out. Even on Saturdays, dad would receive visitors over land disputes almost every week. He was always busy except when we had events and Muslim festivals in Ijebu-Ode, Ogun State.

He was asked by former President (Olusegun) Obasanjo to resign as vice-chancellor of the University of Lagos and he did so on September 19, 2000. After my dad resigned, he was appointed a distinguished visitor at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa between 2000 and 2001.

The accusations levied against him by his detractors were many, but the two that I am aware of are, first, the Korean distance learning programme and that he over-commercialised the university. The Korean issue is the one that gained the most notoriety and likely strengthened his enemy’s hands.  I never had the opportunity to discuss the Korean issue with my dad, but the issue of over-commercialisation was a red herring. How can one be accused of over-commercialisation when most universities struggle to pay members of staff, who then resort to strikes that cripple the university? I do recall dad telling me in London when he began his tenure that the registrar was destroying minutes of council meetings. There were many challenges that Jelili Omotola, the first-ever lawyer to date to become a vice-chancellor, faced.

He felt that his removal was vindictive and motivated by some forces, which were hell-bent on removing him because he had secured a second term as vice-chancellor. It is public knowledge that dad had powerful detractors. Dad was not a soft option either, and as a lawyer, he fought back and tried to stay on. When your enemies have direct access to the President of the country and his ears, you know you have your work cut out for you.

It is not news that dad was at daggers drawn with the then pro-chancellor of the university. There was also a busload of petitions written against dad by a group of 12 professors, which were regularly published in newspapers under the heading, ‘Enough is Enough’; as it is said in Law, Res Ipsa Loquitur (the thing speaks for itself).

No human is free from criticism. Jelili Omotola was not a saint and neither was he a devil or a thief. Dad built his first house in Lagos in 1975 and the family home in Isolo (five buildings on two plots with 25 rooms) in 1984. He only became vice-chancellor in 1995. His record of excellence dwarfs the muffled noises about impropriety. Why would a university name its biggest cash cow after a man whom some accuse of corruption? Please go and inspect his record. He was vice-chancellor for over 2,000 days, so the records are there. His most significant initiative apart from the internally generated revenue was the work-to-study programme for students and his ability to empathise with colleagues and students who needed assistance.

No one likes to be removed from office, but they often get removed. Power, as they say, is transient. Even (former South African President) Thabo Mbeki and (former President of Zimbabwe) Robert Mugabe were removed from office by their parties. Dad was a high achiever, often setting great benchmarks in academia and the legal profession. As a former vice-chancellor, senior advocate, professor of Law and life bencher, he was sought after by many institutions and bodies. According to some reports, dad settled down at Wits University in South Africa very quickly and was instrumental in the entry of MTN into Nigeria.

Before he passed away on March 29, 2006, in Lagos on the eclipse day, he had planned a visit to South Africa. Dad and I had been discussing one of his interests, which was to open a hospital in Lagos.

My most fervent wish for my father to have done before he passed away was first to have documented our family history from at least his own grandfather to his time. Secondly, I wish he had written his autobiography.