Mr Gedion Akinde Ayu , the first man ever to construct a storey building in TIVLAND .the structure he built, first in 1961 and another 1975, which both today stand close to St Andrews Secondary School Adikpo with the inscription, “Tiv first sense 1961” is still alive and resides in Adikpo Kwande local government.. Ayu told me in an interview recently that he was born to Pa Timin Ayu in 1938. He started his elementary school at NKST Primary,Adikpo when he was 8 years....when he reached in standard 4, the highest level that the school offered at the time, he was taken to Zaki Biam where he did his Standard 5.He finallycompleted his standard 6 at Mkar, obtaining first school leaving certificate.
Elder Ayu eventually Mkar Middle school for his secondary scool. He was to continue up to Form Two before he moved to St Georges College, “P O BOX 70 “ Enugu. In Enugu, he was made to repeat form two , but could not further due to financial constraints. So in 1956, Akinde Ayu dropped out of school and returned to his father’s house at Adikpo where he built his house.
Since he could further his education up to GCE level and become a doctor there after, as he has dreamed, Ayu decided to make use of the experience he got at Enugu in another field. He has revealed that, while he was there, he noticed that life was quite different from what was obtainable in Tivland. It was not only by the availability of educational and employment opportunities, but commercial activities. To him ,The business sense of the East was a novelty,; it was then not common in Tivland , so he took to business rather than teaching and other clerical works that people on his educational cadre were wont to choosing. Since then, he was going from Adikpo to Onitsha for stocks ;provisions and assorted goods for his store which he sold to Adikpo people.
He started this business in 1959, three years after his return fromEnugu. That year, he demanded from his father, a portion of land for his personal homestead. He actually chose where his two storey buildings stand because of its strategic location for his business initiative; his father agreed . When he had finally settled with his wife, he concluded in his mind that it was time to build the house of his dream.
One of the other things that caught Ayus attention at St Georges college, was a Two storey building which served as part of their class room. He saw that the room was only standing on wooden planks. And so thought he could replicate same. What he did different in his case was the usage of 100% MUD throughout the building that has no rod or pillars supporting. In 1961 when Ayu built the first house, he was just 23 years!
As we shall all expect, Ayu was opposed bitterly, even by the church, government agents and family members. Also all people who were closed to him discouraged him. “They told me it was impossible to build that kind of house as I was imagining, that I should just swallow my pride and give up, but since I believed in what I was doing, I continued” , Ayu said. Some people even went to the TOR TIV and demanded that he should be stopped from building what they called a dangerous house, but Shagbaor Ako Dzungwe told them that, it was wrong to stop such an experimentation, that Ayu should be allowed to go ahead with his project, after all he was building for himself. So from October 1961-February 1962 the first house was completed.
WHO WERE HIS LABOURERS? “No body, since everybody was against me, they could not be part of such project. Some even stopped passing this way, for reasons I up till now not know. They never just even wanted to see the building”. So Mbakoson Esther Akinde, his wife who died in 2009, was the only labourer, “she was the one fetching water for me while I did the rest of moulding blocks and building”, According to Ayu.
Only when constructed that, it became a thing of pride, that could even be mentioned in songs. One of those who popularised the building was a composer from Mbakyan, Amende, he has long died. According to Ayu, he died before the second building which he built in 1975 was erected. Amende said in one of his songs that Adikpo was London of Kwande because it had “aa yogh asha aondo kpaa”. It was this good reception that his 1961 efforts garnered that gave him the confidence he had for erecting a second one which pockets of labourers came around to assist.
He has emphasised that, no cement was used in the two buildings, no rod...only planks support the buildings, inspite of the fact that they have been standing for years, with occupants.
Somewhere else for this great feats, we would have been looking at a celebrated man, yet he is obviously ignored with his monument. The man looks unkempt; a sign that he is managing to live. He confirmed this , “ since people connived and broke into my stores and carted away with my stocks so many years ago, I have been living at the mercies of God. He alone provides for me”, he said.
Ayu who has long parted way with NKST, calls himself OR U PASSEN LOHO U MHIDE U YESU ; He believes the world will end on 21 May 2011. He said he was influenced by an American preacher. MY Research reveals that the preacher in question is one Harold Camping, the owner of Family Radio, in USA. He believes/ preaches that the world will end Between 21May - October, 2011, when the final destruction comes.
Ayu had a dream in 1979 about Obasanjo and he has also linked the meaning he was able to get from the interpretations of the dream with Camping’s prophesies which he first heard in 2007 after so many years he has had his dream ....He said God had shown him in that dream that the world will end round the second coming of Obasanjo as the president of Nigeria.
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