By Adekunle Adekoya
When we move forward by a mile, it seems we always do something that will make us take backward steps for 10 miles. And so, it was alarming and distressing to read reports of cholera outbreak in our country again, especially in Lagos, our most sophisticated showpiece of urbanisation. Many have died, and more are hospitalised as a result. I thought we’d heard the last about cholera; I remember the epidemic that raged in our country in the early ‘70s.
No less than six people fell to the cholera epidemic in my little village of Gbawojo, nestled in the forested plains of Ijebu North-East Local Government Area of Ogun State. It was 1971 and I was in primary school in Sagamu, at Wesley School, Oko1. From our school gate we could have glimpses of the courtyard of the Akarigbo’s palace. The Akarigbo of Remoland then was the late Oba Moses Awolesi, Erinwole II.