As a child, I seriously wanted to be a carpenter

I woke up this morning looking at my vision board and kept thinking of this man, I decided to do Google search on him and above topic is one of the topics I found about him, I find it very interesting and thought it wort sharing.

He is one of my mentors, I met him in 1998 in Ibadan at Educare Trust Development Center Bodija, since then my thinking about youth development and my environment change completely, he has touch so many life and mine is one of them. 

Enjoy the interview below by Yinka Fabowale. 

Nigeria’s legal icon, Aare Afe Babalola (SAN) dubbed him “Mr. White”, but not, perhaps, on account of his “Oyinbo” looks. Indeed, Dr. Tony Olatokunbo Marinho is of a proud Nigerian parentage and heritage, although born of an Irish mother.

He is so called because wherever and whenever you meet him; you will find him in a white short-sleeved shirt and a pair of chinos trousers!

Of course, with a thriving medical practice in Ibadan, Oyo State capital, Marinho could afford a rich wardrobe of assorted fabrics and accessories.

However, the fact that he cared less so is just the point that reinforces the thought that his middle name should have been lettered M-O-D-E-S-T-Y.

But Marinho is not so modest in his passion for his profession, medicine, and two other things that engage his interest – writing and advocacy for youth development into which he channels his time, energy and resources.

Besides trying to usher in new lives into the world as a gynaecologist and ultra sound expert, Marinho is an arts enthusiast, newspaper columnist, author of many books in various genres and astute campaigner for investments in youths.

An acolyte of Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Marinho serves as executive secretary to Educare Trust, a non-governmental organisation with a youth centre based in Ibadan, which he co-founded. In this encounter, you meet a physician, who sees his heeling mission as going beyond clinical diagnosis and treatment to encompassing the Nigerian society, with all that ails it.

Lets take a voyage back into your childhood, how was growing up like?

Well, I was only at my birth an innocent bystander. I knew nothing about it, but I was born in Dublin. My father was studying medicine then and after that we moved to England. I came home in 1956 for the first time. I went to Saint Patrick’s, Yaba. And then went back to England, because my father went back to England to study psychiatry. He later came back in 1960. In fact, we all came back in 1961. Thereafter, he was at Yaba Psychiatric Hospital, where he eventually became the Chief Consultant. And I went to Saint Gregory’s. My grandpa and my dad also went to Saint Gregory’s. In fact, one of the upsets of my life is that my children couldn’t go to Saint Gregory’s, not because they were dull. Two of them are boys, but the issue was the school had been run down totally, having been taken over by government. It was very messed up. So, we couldn’t sacrifice them just for tradition. But right now, we’ve got the school back and we are building it up again. I did my A’ level at Saint Gregory’s and then I was head boy. Then I came to U.I. (University of Ibadan) to read medicine.

Did the fact of your dad being a doctor influenced your decision to go into medicine?

You can’t always tell the answer to that question, but I had initially wanted to be a carpenter, then I wanted to be a policeman, then I wanted to be some other things and I finally decided that I wanted to do medicine. I was afraid of taking up medicine, because I was scared of giving a patient the wrong drugs. You see so many drugs, how do they know which one to use for a particular person? So, later on, I decided that medicine was what I wanted to do. And that’s why I came to study medicine.

Carpentry, for a son in a middle class family?

When a child is a child, he is a child. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are in life. You have interests when you see other people doing a job. In fact, I think maybe wanting to be a policeman was because of one gentleman called “Fynecountry”, who was a fantastic police officer on our road from Yaba to Ikoyi. When going to school every morning, he was often stationed around Apapa Road. He was always supervising his boys, making sure the traffic was moving. So, I supposed such things impressed me and I believe I will never forget that gentleman. I think my father actually came to know him. They were friends or something. I have forgotten what the circumstance was, but I felt that must have been it. And also, when you watch television and you see policemen solving crimes cases. So, there is nothing wrong in wanting to be a policeman. Everybody has to do the job that is available, one way or the other.

Why gynaecology and obstetrics?

I was very fortunate in medicine. When I finished I had the option of doing almost every subject that I came around and it was actually quite difficult for me to choose what I wanted to do. But we had some wonderful teachers like the late Prof. Paul Hendrickson and Prof. Ojo. So, all of them were good examples. But, I like to use my hands and what we say in obstetrics/gynaecology is that we use our hands and our heads; medical people use their heads and don’t use their hands, and the surgeons use their hands and don’t use their heads (laughs). But that is not true anyway, but that is the idea. Also, I thought having done medicine like dad I should do something else, so that there will be no overlap, so it would not be like ‘follow-follow” too much if you like. That was how I ended up being a gynaecologist.

Women who come to your clinic here to do ultrasound call you “Oko Oloyun” (Pregnant women’s lover). How is it to deal with such a throng?

It’s a very humbling thing to deliver a baby, because when a woman asks you: “Will I deliver safely?”, you cannot answer that question. So, you tell the patient when you come to post-antenatal clinic in six weeks time after the baby had been delivered then I will answer that question. Yes! Because it is such a dangerous time, it is such a frightening experience, and also a joyful one. It is full of emotions and everything all at the same time. And of course, all you need to do is to have a circumstance where either the baby is lost or the mother is lost. You know how painful and how dangerous this process called delivery is; very frightening experience.

As senior prefect you couldn’t have been a prankster, or were you as naughty as other boys?

It was Catholic school, and there was discipline, but I did what I had to do in school. I will call myself the “middle of the road” guy. I was not smoking in the toilet and I was not jumping the fence. Well, not all the time though. That’s me.

You are an author and writer of many books, at what point did the interest in literature set in?

I did art as far as I could in school. I mean art subjects. For medicine, you have to choose physics, chemistry and agric or zoology for A’level. So, that restricted your outlook, but in the university in those days, the arts community in Ibadan was an exceedingly exciting one. Soyinka just got these people all over the place- Tunji Oyelana and all these people. My uncle, Sumbo Marinho was there. So, I fell into the middle of that, and I was acting on stage. I was doing a set of plays; we did Nigeria, we did Importance of being honest, we did After run time. We did all sorts of plays, even as medical students. So, we had that.

I did my house job in Lagos and youth service in Jos. While I was doing my house job in Lagos, a man was brought into my clinic dead and I was asked to certify that he was dead. The first thing it taught me was exceedingly important. So, there were no questions to be asked. And I did that. I succeeded in actually certifying that he’s dead, with the signs on his body and I made the record and certified him dead and that was the end of the case. But that was what led to my first book, because that was the book about somebody being brought in dead and somebody else accused of his murder and so on, eventually being prosecuted. So, that was the first book I wrote called, The Victim. It was actually called, Enter the victim. It took seven years to be published.

 How many have been published?

There is Enter the victim. There is April Fool, a book on apartheid in South Africa. There is Nene as well as the Bobo series. There is Tell it to Mr. President. And my latest one is Wristwatch, which is a collection of short stories and poems.

What moves you to write? And what are your concerns?

Annoyance! Annoyance! Because potholes should not be on the road – when you have seen a victim, when you have buried a victim of a pothole accident or you have stood by his bed while he died and you could not do anything, or you are operating on him to save him and he still dies, then you know that you must say something otherwise, they will think that it’s just a pothole. It is not a pothole; it is murder waiting to happen. And it happens. What about the kids who died, because there are no drugs or other medical consumables? I have operated with my hands before, because there were no gloves. They said they couldn’t afford to buy gloves in the hospital. I have operated with a torch before, because there was no generator and if you don’t help, the patient will die. And yet you know some idiots have all the money. There was a time we had a commissioner who said we should not write “out of stock”, when there are no drugs. At least they (patients) won’t know the difference between antibiotics and panadol. So, we should give them panadol and they will go. Of course, you know what I told him? I told him not on my watch. The truth has to be told, because you must make it uncomfortable for those that are comfortable by stealing our money. If they are uncomfortable like us, then we will all be uncomfortable together and we can begin to solve our problems maybe. Who knows?

Has your career as a writer been worth the while financially?

No! Not at all, it’s worthwhile when your nephew said to me he’s read my book. Yesterday a lady came to me and said: ‘Are you the Marinho that wrote that book about South Africa apartheid?’ She said she still has the book. And she’s had it like 15 or 18 years, if not more than that. That is what satisfies me. A child walked up to me and said to me: ‘Are you Dr. Marinho?’ I said yes. She said: ‘I have read your book in school.’ So, I said: ‘Oh! That’s very interesting.’ And I asked: ‘Have all your classmates read it?’ She said yes. I said: ‘How many copies have they read?’ He said: ‘I brought one copy and they read it all round.’ Then I said okay. So how do you expect to make money like that? The joy is that they read the books. But if you want to make money, you have to be very well connected.

You are more of which of these three? Tony Marinho, the doctor; Tony Marinho the writer; Tony Marinho, the activist advocate of youth development?

Well, I must say that I didn’t know the answer to that question until now and I am going to answer it probably for the first time correctly. I am first and foremost a doctor. My doctoring has allowed me to see the wonders of God and the suffering of our people as well ass the needless death and damage unleashed on our people. It has also provided me with a living. It has allowed me to educate my children and it has allowed me to engage in my passion, which is writing and other passions, which is Educare and the youth issue, because it consumes a lot of fund running an NGO.

The other ones are passion. My medicine is a passion too. It’s really a passion and I inherited that from all the people who are my teachers. My father was a very passionate psychiatrist also. I went to him one day and said: ‘Daddy, how are you coping giving your drugs free to patients?’ You know he was not charging….all the patients would just come and take his drugs. In psychiatry all your patients are already long term so you know them very well. So after some time you will know that they don’t have the money for drugs and all these. I said: ‘What is the matter? Are you going to make a living out of this?’ He said: ‘Thank God, you are a doctor. Very soon you will learn.’ So, I have learnt a lot in my life.

How are you able to manage your time given your pyramidal schedule-clinic to Educare, then home?

I do like to work and I know patients come to see me, and it is wise to be at site when they come. Patients get very upset if they are expecting to see you and you are not there even if they haven’t got an appointment. When I’m not here, it’s often because I’m giving a lecture at UCH or U.I or I have something like an assignment. But I got that discipline again, perhaps from my teachers and my father. And I believe in when it’s time for work, it’s time for work so I can get here at about twenty or quarter past or twenty past seven every morning. And I usually close around four. When I was working in Oluyoro, my children were always the first to be dropped at Marylway. And then later I now decided I get a car to take them. And I came by myself to Oluyoro. You are either like that or you are not like that. Some people will come at nine. That’s the way they are made up. Afterwards, I used to go to Educare, but now I’m trying not to, because I’m not a youth anymore and I want Educare to grow on its own. There are wonderful people there. I want them to take control. So I made a point of not interfering. I am not going there because things have got to move on. When you see people representing a youth organization and they are over 60 you will begin to wonder like, ‘What are they doing there?’  That one is on Educare. So, I will generally go home after all. What you are asking indirectly is how do you find time to write when you’re doing these things? And it is very simple. Usually by my side I always have a piece of paper on which I’m writing relevant thoughts or relevant ideas. So I’m writing down some things.  In the evening when I get home, I collect all these papers and I disassemble them, and I put them on my laptop. But I will have the TV on. I generally communicate with the TV, because I write a weekly column and therefore you need to have news. So, you need to be updated. I have the television on when I’m writing and so that allows me to write. If you get inspiration at 3 o’ clock in the morning, you write on your blank sheet of paper when there is no light.

Do you socialize?

Yes of course. I have a group of friends. We meet pretty regularly.

How do you relax?

We friends sit down and watch TV. I am not the football type, so I don’t watch football, we watch TV, talk about old times and the times to be and share a drink or two as the case may be.

You are an associate of the Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka. How did that friendship come about?

I met him during my U.I days. He was an icon to us then. And I think his Nobel Laureate came in 1986. We had known him since 1969 when I got into U.I. And my uncle, Dr. Sumbo Marinho (now late), Tunji Oyelana, Femi Fatoba; you know there was that group he had brought up and he had gone off to live at Ife. So there was still that link and we knew him. So, Soyinka was up there for us forever and ever, even though he used to drive that tiny little mini-car around that time. So, we were one of the followers. I won’t say I’m an associate of him; I would just say I am one of those who appreciate him.

Soyinka is one of those people who have been consistent. I actually believe that in an intelligent society, he should have been given since the Nobel laureate, an annual grant to do whatever play, whatever film, whatever thing he wanted to do, so as to build up the body of work.

By the Federal Government or who?

He has a state. He has the Federal Government. Why not? How many laureates has Nigeria got? You give so much money to useless cousins. Once a person has achieved a scientific or artistic or medical excellence, they should be able to be given grants, because every time they represent the nation abroad, they’ll say from Nigeria. What more do you want from a Nigerian than having him as your leading light in the outer world? What happened? We got Americans to do “Fela.” You know the Fela international play that came to Nigeria. Weren’t you upset? I was very upset. We had the late Steve Rhodes. He only died a few years ago, we have Soyinka, we have Papa Akinwunmi Ishola and others who could have come together and do the authentic play because they knew, when he was a baby. Then we now sold our soul to America, and we said to them: ‘Do an opera on Fela.’ They couldn’t see that was a financial goldmine. Ipi Tombi came when we were students, from South Africa. Have we sent anything there? What is the matter? We had artistes, who will fund them. You have to go and beg the banks, go and beg some telecommunications firms and so on to give you two million, when Federal Government could have said: “Take N50 million and go and get it done.” Soyinka can’t steal their N50 million, whereas, he could have done an excellent job. But who is going to do it? Sometimes I agree that we’ve lost it. We never had it anyway…that’s it.

What has life taught you?

I’m frightened that the suffering that people are going through aren’t easing at all, except for the grace of God. And therefore, you must always do your best to help ameliorate that problem in other people and help them through their problems, because of their health. Every big man gets a loan, so you must give loan to other people. You see now all the big people are borrowing money from those banks. That is why we cannot borrow money from the banks except for 26 per cent interest or something. In other societies you can get five, six or seven per cent. Nigeria has become such a difficult place to live. Our people have had to suffer so much in order to sustain themselves. Back then there was water in the taps, we didn’t have generators, the telephone worked, the transport was really good. In fact, they just opened the expressway in the 70s – the Lagos-Ibadan. People are telling you that it is the population that is not allowing it to work, that there are too many people. It is not the population; it is the incompetence on the part of those who take over the power of government. There is corruption, the incompetence, the neglect – those who are there are not doing the right thing and finally, there is greater amount of selfishness. They see their position as a place to cause obstruction to others. And that is why you have all these NGOs trying to solve little problems here and there. And when you do that government removes its eyes, chops the money and goes somewhere else. That is really the most painful thing. You’ll even think, maybe for the fact that we are all buying generators and managing, sending our kids to private schools and we are doing this and that. If only we can all stop doing all these things. We decide that we are not using generators.

If Ibadan–Lagos expressway is not good, we can all decide to boycott it for five days. If we decide to say this road is bad and we’re not going to take it and we boycott the road, then the government’s attention would be drawn to the fact that there is a pothole on that road. They must fix it! Not just because the governor’s son is getting married or the local government chairman’s father has died and they want to repair the road. You repair it for the citizens of Nigeria. In other countries, the politicians respect their citizens. Here we make our citizens to be gods and when these citizens are gods, they are now insulting us and we are surprised. But we are the ones that said: “The citizens become gods. Ra n ka dede sir! Chairman! Distinguished!! Honourable!!!” What is honourable there in what you are doing? You are doing something dishonourable. You are stealing my money and you are not repairing my potholes. We don’t have that love. And it is even affecting the medical profession and others. The patient is suffering. You have no drugs to give. You give the patient a list to go and buy drugs at midnight. Where is he going to buy the drugs that time? So you are running a hospital and you don’t have emergency facilities available.

Then you should close and not run that hospital. In England they don’t allow you to go to certain hospitals at night. They will say this is emergency hospital. Today, emergency between 6 and 8 o’clock in the morning, go there. Then that hospital is the one that takes care of all the emergencies coming. It has the drugs; it has the needles and scissors. When you get there you don’t have to buy oxygen like you saw depicted in my book, Nene. But we haven’t gotten to a stage like that. We are still busy doing something else. I don’t know what we are doing, but what we are doing is not good.

YINKA FABOWALE, Ibadan - www.sunnewsonline.com