The road to 90: The amazing story of Michael Ayodele Osinaike

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He was born to Mr and Mrs Albert and Jemimah Osinaike from Ijebu Imusin, Ogun State; and was the first and the last child.

His mother’s attempt to have another child when he was about four years turned tragic as she and the baby died in the process. His father did not remarry though he lived to age 74 before he died in 1974.

Today, Michael Ayodele Osinaike, that only child from the loins of Albert and Jemimah Osinaike is 90.  He clocked 90 on July 8.

But the strain of tragedy seems to have trailed him too; catching up with his wife of 31 years when she died on March 18, 1995. Just like his father he refused to remarry as a mark of honour for his late wife.

Reasons for praise

It’s however not about bad news for Osinaike; an educationist by training. He has reasons to roll out the drums and thank God for his love and care over the years, God has blessed him with the gift of good health, good children and grandchildren and an amazing community of family and church people who have been sources of inspiration for him.

According to him, living to good old age in good health has nothing to do with “our ingenuity, holiness or adherence to any healthy lifestyle. We only amuse ourselves when we talk of certain healthy lifestyles. They are good to follow but I have since found out that beyond the good lifestyle, only God can explain why a man lives to old age or dies young.”

He however follows medical counsel. “God has blessed me with a daughter who is a Clinical Instructor at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital. She has personally taken interest in my health and has done everything to ensure that I am good and fine. Her contribution to my life is invaluable. I pray that God will continue to keep her and all my children and their families in Jesus’ name”

But beyond good health, he believes the God factor is critical in a man’s life adding however that it is not how long a man lives but how well.

Trip to Jerusalem

One of the defining experiences in the last lap of his years was his trip to Jerusalem. “I had always wished to go to the holy city and had been saving money for the trip. My daughter, Oluremi visited me one day and I shared the dream with her; that I would love to travel to Jerusalem. She was excited about the decision and promised there and then that she and her husband would sponsor the trip. That was how we began to plan. I got the form and followed all the process of getting visa and all the formalities for the trip.”

He eventually travelled. The trip increased his faith in God and also gave him the assurance that what he has studied so far in the Bible are real. “Going to Israel made the Bible real to me. I can say that the journey opened my eyes to the reality of the Bible. We visited so many places in Jerusalem including the birthplace of Jesus and many historical and Bible related sites.”

The Jerusalem trip was however more than that for Osinaike. He recalled that before he travelled, he was diabetic. “I had been diagnosed as being diabetic before I travelled. But to my greatest shock, by the time I came back from the journey, diabetes had disappeared. I was surprised when I went to the hospital for check up and I was told I was free from the disease. That is one significant thing that happened to me after the journey besides the joy of walking on the same ground that Jesus walked while he was physically here on earth.”

Two surgeries

Just about a year to his 90th birthday, he had to undergo both hernia and eye surgeries.

“I had always had this hernia right from my childhood. But I was managing it with herbs. That went on for many years until I had to visit a doctor in 1956 at the Ijebu Ode General hospital in Ogun State. He was a white man. He examined me and said that the hernia was harmless that I could live with it, that there was no need for surgery. And truly, I was living with it and I did not experience any pain or discomfort. But by the time I clocked 80, my scrotum began to swell and the swelling increased by the day.

“But still I did not feel any pain apart from the fact that it was swollen. I was living with it like that. But it got to a point that it became embarrassing. My daughter got to know and she insisted that I had to undergo surgery. At that point I was thinking of death. I had given up hope of living because undergoing surgery in my late 80s was like embarking on a suicide mission. We eventually settled for the surgery in a sophisticated hospital in Victoria Island.”

The experience of the surgery, was a wonder to Osinaike who confessed that things have really improved compared to what obtained many years ago.

He was shocked by the wonders of medicine. “I was in the theatre and was to undergo the surgery. The doctors were chatting with me and I was watching the scene in a screen as I laid on the bed. I was carried away with the conversation with the doctors and before I knew what was happening, I had slept off. I woke up to realise that the surgery had been done. And it took them hours from what I gathered. I did not feel any pain and no discomfort. It was so magical. Things have really changed. I am grateful to God and I must really commend the doctors too. God is using them to make life better.”

He came out of the surgery, better and then he had to go through another surgery. This time his left eye had cataract. He could not see with it. “That too was a miracle I must confess” said Osinaike. 

The eye surgery was done at the General Hospital in Ajegunle-Apapa. “Honestly, I had my fears too and was really apprehensive. I have heard stories of people who go blind after such surgeries. But I had to do it because my children wanted me to do it. I got to the hospital and was assured that all will be well. I was taken to the theatre. Just like the case with the hernia operation, the surgery did not cause me any discomfort.  The operation was quite smooth. But days after the operation I was down for about two weeks. But thank God for the medical personnel. They rose up to the challenge and my health was restored completely. I saw the hand of God in the two medical procedures. Today, I have cause to give glory to God for his mercy and for making me enjoy good health.”

He reasons, “It is not money that makes life sweet. If you believe in God and you are prayerful, God will be gracious to you even in the face of challenges. I can testify to the goodness of God in the last 90 years of my life. I am the only child of my parents. But God has compensated me with long life and grace to see my grandchildren in good health while also trusting him for grace to see my great grandchildren before my transition.”

Marriage

Osinaike who holds a diploma in education from the University of Lagos said his marriage with his late wife, Tinu Osinaike, was one of the best things that happened to him in life.

Recalling how he met her, he said, “I used to see her with a cousin of mine whenever I went to Imagbon, another Ijebu town to visit my auntie. But I was not thinking of marriage. But then I saw my late mother in a dream who told me the lady I used to see at my auntie’s place was the person I should marry.”

He woke up from the dream confused. By then he had started going out with some other girls in the neighbourhood. But he had not discussed marriage with any one of them. After ruminating on this strange encounter, he summoned courage and proposed marriage to Tinu who did not object to his proposal.

They eventually got married and lived together for 31 years until her transition in 1995 after a brief sickness.

Since then, Osinaike has remained single. Ironically, his late wife had suggested to him when she was alive to marry another wife so he could bear more children.

They had been blessed with five children, one died. His wife felt being an only child, her husband deserved to have more children. But she could not have more children because of the difficulty she often encountered during child delivery. She then suggested to her husband to have another wife.

Osinaike would not fall for that. “I was surprised when she made the suggestion. I did not fall for it because I had made up my mind not to have more than one wife. Her death did not change my decision. I think God has been good to me. Besides, my children are doing a good job of taking care of me. I am grateful to all of them especially wife of my first born, Mrs Hope Osinaike who has been responsible for cooking for me all these years”

A member of Christ the King Church Ajegunle Apapa, Osinaike says life has taught him many lessons. “I have learnt to be content with what I have. That is one of the greatest gifts any man can have. We started in a rented one-room apartment, and then a shop to it and lived there for many years before we were able to build a house here in Lagos apart from the one, we built for commercial purpose. Living in a one-room apartment was not the best. But I was content with that because that was what my income could carry at that time,” he said.

Contentment, he states, “does not come easy. There will be temptation to compare yourself with your mates and think they are going farther than you are. There will be the temptation to want to think God is not fair to you. But when you are content with what God has given you, he will make room for more. People get involved in many hurtful things because they want to get rich quick forgetting that all these things will come and go. At the end, it is what we did with the gifts and calling of God while here on earth that will matter.”

Another crucial lesson according to Osinaike is, “never try to impress anybody. Do what God has given you the grace to do. Don’t impress anybody and don’t try to be what you are not. Life will go on anyway with or without you. Don’t compete with people and don’t try to outsmart people. We all have specific grace to do things so why try to be like another man?”

He reasons further that anybody that will enjoy life should also learn to forgive easily. “It may be hard to forget but if you forgive from your heart you will forget with time. Life is too short for us to carry the baggage of hurt and hate.”

He added, “procrastination is the killer of time and destiny. Don’t say I will do this; I will do that. Get to do it. Don’t push till tomorrow what you have the capacity to do today.”

His love for Ogi

Osinaike’s best food is pap called ogi in local parlance. He takes the meal every morning apart from Sunday for almost all his life. What is it about this morning meal? “I fell in love with pap because that is what I grew up to see my benefactor take while I was growing up in Ijebu-Imusin. He was always taking pap in the morning though we ate other food. He had good health. I did not see him fall sick.

“I now concluded in my heart there is something about it. So, when I began to live alone, I cultivated the habit of taking pap in the morning and that has been a tradition for about 70 years now. The only day I don’t take pap is Sunday. When I fast during the Lenten period, that is what I use to break my fast. This has helped my health to a large extent. But the point is that I could have died in an accident. Long life is not a function of one factor. There are several factors that come to play.”

Service to God

He said further that service to God and humanity are key elements that are crucial in life. “There is no how you can live a psychologically balanced life if you fail to serve God and your fellow human being. The church environment provides a great opportunity to serve God. There is also need to render service to humanity. Serve people by helping them and providing solutions to their needs as God gives you the grace. That to a large extent has helped me to have a balanced lifestyle,” he said.

Still talking on lessons he has learnt, he said, “Anybody who wants to succeed in life should not joke with his immediate family. Your wife, your husband, your children are very crucial to your existence. In my case God blessed me with a wonderful wife and good children. The education of your children and their moral well-being should be your priority. I tell people that one of the ways to live long and live well is to carry your immediate family along. You must not harbour any secret but rather live a life that is transparent in all your dealings.”

for the biography of Pa Osinaike follow this link;https://drive.google.com/file/d/10jDn2qRqtzJ7XRAvWdwvOb0DYPx9bph9/view?usp=drivesdk