Gabriel Igbinedion’s Shocking Confession

The Esama of Benin Kingdom, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion has revealed his best kept secrets at 83“I owe my life to God Almighty. I thanked Him for keeping me alive. Secret of good health Long life is in your palm. The first thing is your stomach, that is, what you take through your mouth to your stomach. All of you, 30 years old, 40 years old, you know me. You have never heard or seen Igbinedion going to the bar to drink. I inculcated that habit in my children too.”

“Drinking is good, even the doctor recommends that you take brandy or wine but not to the point of getting drunk. Everything in life is about moderation. Before you say anything out, think twice about it, especially the consequences. And long life is guaranteed if you have rest of mind. Do not do anything that will shoot your blood pressure up. Growing up There are kids who suffer while growing up but I did not suffer.”“My father died when I was nine years old. I inherited a house in the village and six cocoa plantations. My mother was a big trader, selling fish. I will not say things were not rough but I survived.   In this town, I sold kerosene for seven pence for more than three years when I was a houseboy and I went to fetch firewood from the bush five times a week.”

“I remember one day when one of the sons of my boss, who was about eight years, defecated in the sitting room where I usually slept and the mother called on me to go and clean it up. All these were what God wanted me to pass through in life to be able to get to where I am now. I have been through a lot but God saw me through.”“In the 1940s, when we were under the British colonialists, I served in Ogbomosho as a police officer. I had my Opel Record car marked WEG 243; I also served as orderly to the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s wife. I was deployed to Awolowo but his wife snatched me from him and I started driving her car.”

“When I was growing up, I worked in Leventis Motors. One particular Christmas, I was driving on Sapele Road when I saw a Greek entrepreneur who asked his security guard to mix red mud with water and start sprinkling it on the people there because they were scrambling to buy soft drinks from him for Christmas. I got annoyed. I went to him and told him ‘I will compete with you’. The following January 3, I left the country to go and bring Canada Dry and I located it opposite his office. I do not like seeing people suffering.”