Yes, Senator Gbenga Ashafa would be 61 tomorrow, July 22nd. This is simply a rare peep into Senator Gbenga Ashafa’s world; and tempting as it is to embark on a more extensive and revealing voyage into the fathomless folds of his private reality and unusual humanity, it is a discourse best saved till later.
Perhaps this cursory sortie into his confidential space will enhance better understanding of the man whose sterling manhood and citizenship of humanity is widely acknowledged by family, friends and even mere acquaintances.
Bareehu …..The Champion
If his dreams last, Ashafa will turn the age to gold. He will challenge resolve and stretch the boundaries of motive, till he chances on glory, at the crossroads where wildest fantasies mesh with reality. From afar, Senator Gbenga Bareehu Ashafa cuts the picture of a man that seems too tightly packed up inside. Some would say he is chock-full of ideas and flights of imagination that are too densely cast to be undone. Unfastening Ashafa thus presents a tasking exercise.
It’s an onerous task to unbolt the hub of who Ashafa is and what he represents; notwithstanding, friends, family and business associates may seek contentment from the fact that a man like Ashafa symbolises the universe’s rarest gift to mankind. This galactic gesture is borne from the universe’s belief in man’s unusual capacity to rebel against the conventional and stun the odds while manifesting as something more than a curse or blight to humanity and the future.
Ashafa is no doubt a rare phenomenon and gift to this generation. While most of his friends, family and business associates are already in the know and appreciate this fact, like the infinite crowd of folk that constitute mere acquaintances to him, they are continually stunned, captivated and humbled by the man, Ashafa’s infectious humility and generosity of spirit.
Those who are yet to encounter the benevolence of Ashafa or profit from it nonetheless share a bubbly enthusiasm for it. At the very least, everybody seems to love Ashafa. Magnificence, order, complexity, mystery and possibilities—the same things that draw folk to their most treasured daydreams lure them to Ashafa. The primary difference is that subtle and blatant idolatry takes a front seat in the flurry of emotion and perpetual elocution of the rare civility and bounteousness of spirit accorded them by Ashafa. Yet Ashafa is forever quick to counsel folk about his ordinariness and thus prevent them from dressing him in what he considers spurious cloaks of a ‘saviour, ‘messiah,’ or ‘deity’ or ‘tin god.’ Yeah, Ashafa, for or his extraordinariness tirelessly seeks to be viewed as ordinary – which makes unlocking his core both a boon and conundrum to anyone.
It is hard to be more specific about the true worth of Ashafa’s humanity because unlike most of civilization’s great, contemporary statesmen and philanthropists, he has something quite different to offer to his several dependants and beneficiaries of his generosity. Ashafa is several things at the same time to everyone and anyone: he is a humanitarian who depicts raw compassion expressed with the greatest refinement and discipline; he is an aesthete with stormy sublimity, unimaginable genius and that famed vision of ingenuity that separates the practiced from the mediocre; Ashafa to most and all of his acquaintances radiates an entirely different reality amid the world’s brutal capacity for ill and insensitivity; his humility and graciousness in his dealing with friends and established foes (particularly on the political turf) alike manifests as a sharp, shrill yet pleasant contradiction to the ugly and vulgar reality that daily becomes the plague of the mortal world. Forgive the seeming inclination to fawn and project the good graces of Ashafa but he is simply all that and much more.
Beneficiaries of his rare humanness and generosity of spirit frequently have wonderful stories to share from their encounters with him. However brief or protracted the encounter is, Ashafa snatches grief from acquaintances and replaces it with joy. Thus the joyful stories they all have to share from their encounters with him.
Ashafa sees a relative in everyone. He believes humanity is simply one large family divided along race, religious and other bigoted lines and his response to this defies the depths of human failings and pretensions to altruism. Ashafa defines ‘family’ beyond the word’s literal meanings hence his tireless bid to erase the established bounds of filial affection and comradeship by ceaseless acts of courage and compassion for the sake of humanity.
There is no gainsaying Ashafa extends compassionate hands of familial love and amity to friends, business associates, passing acquaintances and the needy without reservations of any kind. Thus you don’t have to be related to him before he treats you as a relative.
Folashade…..the deity behind Ashafa, The Great
Neither cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love has done in the lives of Gbenga and his wife, Folashade. Senator Ashafa has been married to Folashade Omobola Ashafa (nee Edun) since 1979. Gbenga and Folashade’s story reads like a dreamy exposition to extraordinary verses of love. Rather than dwell on familiar intrigues and alien realities that render human passion a shoddy and infantile enterprise in the annals of mortal romance, the story of their love becomes the reference point for aspiring romantics. Ashafa and Folashade’s love story is best told in a more substantive format and literary forum hence this only represents a cursory glance at the genesis of their love.
That the duo started out as friends and cautious romantics is a reality known to their loved ones: friends, family particularly.
According to Ashafa, loving Folashade is both enlightening and invigorating; it reveals to him daily, his immense and unpredictable capacity for compassion and high affection. Ashafa never knew he was capable of loving anyone so until he met Folashade. And ever since he met the apple of his eye, he has worshipped daily in the spirit house of her love and elevated warmth.
Living with Folashade is equally liberating; it unearths to him daily the subtlety and clamorousness, and unrivalled ethereality of her love. The longer his stay with her, the deeper and more confounding his capacity to love her and yearn for her love.
Until he met Folashade, Ashafa simply thought of love just another routine human exercise or demand, like eating and entrepreneurship. No sooner did he fall in love with her than he experienced a life-changing transfiguration from disenchanted speculator of love to an incurable romantic. Folashade thought him to discover inwardly, that ingenious facility to knit together a timeless yarn of love that promises to outlive their friendship and their remarkable, simple lives.
Folashade retired as an Assistant Director at the Federal Ministry of Information and Communication in 2005, after 23 years of service. Currently, she is engaged in entrepreneurial and philanthropic pursuits. She is the proprietor of two home ware and gift stores in Lagos. Frequently, she organizes soup kitchens for the elderly. She also hosts an annual Christmas celebration for less privileged children in Ibeju-Lekki.
Folashade could be enchantingly sweet. When she talks, her voice wafts like rose-fragrance waltzing in the wind. In such blissful moment, she metamorphoses into a silhouette of delightful colors captivating everyone in the path of her charm, like an old minstrel delightfully pawing at her mandolin. But Folashade is no minstrel neither does she feverishly paw at the strings of any mandolin; all she has is her charm and her smile – which makes her a woman, mother and wife to die for.
In life, Folashade has been a roaring success. In the business world, you cannot question her place in the comity of Nigeria’s successful business tycoons. And her domestic felicity will continue to make younger people run to her for tips on how to run a successful marriage. Mrs Ashafa is a devoted Christian who attends the Cathedral Church of Christ, Marina, Lagos. They are blessed with children and grandchildren.
The statesman
Neither words nor music nor a thousand epigrams will do, in commemorating the true essence and class of Senator Ashafa. He is a true citizen of the world indeed. He would do any nation proud as her illustrious son considering his heartfelt contributions to his nation’s social, political economy and high art. Timeless anecdotes seep from his being like whirlwinds writing on the grass and inscriptions teaching us that everything and anything about him offer priceless lessons in humility, fortitude and grace. It’s the imagination with which he perceives the world and the gestures by which he honours it that however, stands him apart from his peers in the nation’s political arena.
Milestones of a servant-leader
Senator Ashafa was elected to the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as the ACN candidate from Lagos East in April 2011. He won the election with 222,439 votes, 69% of total votes cast. He was sworn in as a senator on June 6, 2011. It is noteworthy that Senator Ashafa’s district is one of only two senatorial districts in South-West Nigeria, that the ACN won in the 2011 Presidential elections.
Over the course of his term at the Senate, he has implemented several community development projects such as the ICT Training Program, which has trained over five hundred youths in the Senator’s district since 2011. Senator Ashafa has also implemented the Youth Energy Career Program, a six-month internship designed for graduates. Attendees are trained on power and energy systems at the Siemens Power Academy, in collaboration with the Lagos State Electricity Board.
This program is designed to equip mid-management officers with the skill set required to drive the emerging independent power sector in Lagos State. Another program, the Education Enhancement Program provides scholarships to students at the primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education. The Senator’s office also implements a monthly health screening program free of charge, in several local government areas.
His work in the senate
Senator Ashafa has sponsored twelve bills at the Senate and they include: Income Tax Holiday Bill 2011, National Agency for the Preservation & Promotion of Local Languages in Nigeria Bill 2011, Treaties (Making, Procedures, etc.) Act (Amendment) Bill 2012, Criminal Code Act (Amendment) Bill 2012, National Directorate of Employment Act (Amendment) Bill 2013, Harmful Waste (Special Criminal Provisions, etc.) Act (Amendment) Bill 2013, Value Added Tax (Amendment) Bill 2013, Minerals and Mining Act (Amendment) Bill 2013, Advance Fee Fraud and Other Related Offences Act (Amendment Bill) 2014 among others.
Senator Ashafa is Vice-Chairman, Senate Committee on Housing, Lands & Urban Development. He is also a member of the following Senate committees: the Environment and Ecology Committee, Committee on Federal Character and Inter-Governmental Relations, Gas Committee and Senate Services Committee.
Senator Ashafa frequently goes to bat in the interest of under-privileged folk. It is the way he is constituted; he believes in and advocates the principles of fairness, equity and justice for all irrespective of social status, gender or ethnicity. Fulfilling these values and sustaining them is a practical and moral pursuit to the senator. Ashafa is a realist with a hyperactive sense of right and wrong and an idealist who is never afraid to tap into the luxuries and characteristic perks of power and acclaim.
Senator Ashafa is truly a Renaissance man: a Yoruba man who is as comfortable with traditional ballads as he is devising anti-crime strategies for dealing with the mess left by environmental pollution. Whatever his brief and challenges at a particular point in time, Ashafa knows how to charm opponents out of the familiar comfort of their long-held prejudices and in order to initiate and achieve practicable solutions on mutually beneficial planes of reality and shared identity. He practices the politics of reason and redemption. Which, not accidentally, is also the politics of progress.
Shades of greatness
In the din of interminable acclaim and deafening applause that welcomes his arrival to the metropolitan oasis of high society courtesy his sterling achievements in the political world, Senator Gbenga will not rest on his oars. His unflagging spirit continually spur him to seek and attain landmark feats in politics and even outside the business sector.
Unlike many a politician who would rather expend his hard-earned money on guilty pleasures, he devotes his time and money to the betterment of lives, particularly that of poor, disadvantaged folk. So doing, he establishes and perpetuates a rare culture of philanthropy that pleases and astounds many a recipient of his humanitarianism even as you read.
Ashafa believes that, for philanthropy to be meaningful, it has to come totally without strings or expectations. Having grown through a tradition of giving and service in his family; he believes that when one has been blessed with so much, as he has, in great health, intelligence and fortune, much is expected of such person in terms of helping the less fortunate and giving back to the society in general.
A national sweetheart
Due to his ceaseless contributions to society and commitment to the attainment of the good of all, Ashafa has over time become national sweetheart. In appreciation of his sterling citizenship of humanity, Gbenga has received numerous local and international awards. It is also worthy of mention that he enjoys favourable media mention; unlike several other politicians that expend a fortune courting media attention and publicity, Ashafa effortlessly attracts the patronage of local and international media without resorting to shameful manipulations.
His cool, humble demeanor even while he performs great feats that could make any money-bag swoon with pride, continually endears him to global media, civil societies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are often beneficiaries of his philanthropy.
Coming of age
In one’s life, some days and events will always remain epochal and indelible. Though Senator Olugbenga Ashafa, has had many of such in his noteworthy odyssey through life, it will be a different ball game entirely tomorrow , July 22nd, as he turns 61. Not because of any gaudy celebration or outlandish display of wealth, but more because the day will be marked with exaltation of this noble nationalist. Today is the day this pleasant man and self-effacing achiever will appreciate the impact he has made in the lives of many Nigerians. Many people have benefitted in no small measure from the benevolence of his heart and sipped from the fountain of his experience, it is only expedient to extol the virtues of this great man without any recourse to sophistry or gratuitous ornamentation. To know about Senator ‘Gbenga Bareehu Ashafa’s backstory is to know about the forces that helped mould him into the man he has become and who he may still become. Knowledge of this story is necessary. It is essential to celebrating the distinguished Senator of the Federal Republic, Ashafa, and the immensity he signifies.
