Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari
on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina,
recently shared photos of his pilot son,
Oluwatobi, flying him from Lagos to Abuja
for the first time.
In an article he shared on his Facebook
page, Femi wrote on how his son dreamt
of being a Pilot at four, how he pursued the
dream and achieved it. Read the interesting
piece after the cut…
Be careful what you dream about, it may
well come to pass. Oluwatobi is my
firstborn, “my might, and the beginning of
my strength.” One day, when he was just
four years old, we were all in the living
room; myself, his mom, and his sister, when
he exclaimed:”Daddy, I’ll be a pilot!”
I looked at him, looked at his mother, and
said casually: “What does he know about
piloting?” For by then, Oluwatobi had not
gone near an airport, not to talk of entering
an airplane.
But somehow, what he said refused to
leave my mind. Just like the biblical Mary,
after the angel told her of the virgin
conception, I “kept all those things, and
pondered them” in my heart.
‘Tobi (as we call him) began to live his
dreams. He needed to see only the picture
of an airplane in a newspaper or magazine,
and he would cut it, file it away, or paste on
the wall of his bedroom. When he was old
enough to manipulate a computer, he
always went to sites where he could read
about aircraft.
I had thought he would outgrow the
passion. But the older he grew, the firmer
and clearer the dream became. “Daddy, I’ll
be a pilot!”
As a growing journalist with growing
means, I got to the point I could go on
vacation with my family once a year. We
started with Ghana. Then South Africa. And
London… Tobi was in secondary school,
and talked about nothing save flying a
plane. Each time we travelled, it was like
nirvana. While I kept looking at my
wristwatch, expecting the time we would
land, my son, and his sister, Tosin, felt
completely at home in the sky.
I had expected two people to baulk, and
talk Tobi out of his dreams. His mother, and
my own mother (Tobi’s grandma, whom he
was particularly close to). But the two
women surprisingly did not dissuade the
boy. They submitted to the perfect will of
the Almighty. Underneath are the
Everlasting Arms.
Never underestimate the power of dreams.
At 18, my son packed his baggage, and was
on the way to Aeronav Academy, in South
Africa. The fees were staggering, but by
then, I was Deputy Managing Director/
Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Sun
Newspapers. The pay was good enough,
and with some belt tightening and lots of
sacrifice, I could afford the fees.
Tobi got to Johannesburg at the peak of
winter. “A cold coming we had of it, just the
worst time of the year. For a journey, and
such a long journey, the ways deep and the
weather sharp, the very dead of
winter.” (T.S Eliot, The Journey of the Magi).
I remember the first email he sent to
me:”Daddy, it’s so cold, I had to sleep with
my shoes on.” Lol. My heart went out to
him, but he that would eat honey from the
rock must never consider the blade of his
axe.
By the end of his first year, he got the
private pilot license. Second year, he got the
commercial license. I was breathing like a
hog under the financial burden, but didn’t
Jesus promise that his yoke was easy, “and
my burden is light?” I kept trudging on, and
one day, at age 21, my son was back, a fully
licensed pilot.
