PASSING TIME WITH ...

REWARD OR REPRIMAND. A fourteenyear-old Deremi Ajidahun feared the latter following his father’s unexpected early morning summons to the car. Regarded as someone to be revered and not trifled with, Deremi was left to wonder how much trouble he was in as they pulled up outside his mother’s boutique where she traded in fashion and textiles. “In our custom, whenever a child does something wrong, it’s the mother’s fault, so I thought we were both going to be scolded. But then I was marched next door into the leading watch boutique in Nigeria,” he says.

Watches fascinated Deremi – something he shared with his father who was an avid collector, but seldom discussed. Deremi would spend hours peering through the window of this German-owned boutique, sometimes disappearing inside. “People would look for me everywhere, but my mother always knew where to find me. I remember that the watchmakers used to be dressed in sterile white.”

Happily, the anticipated reprimand for any nuisance behaviour materialised in a reward that marked Deremi’s introduction to premium-brand watches. “My father asked them to present a watch to me that he knew I liked. My mother must have told him. It was an Oris Date with a black dial (probably 36mm) on a stainlesssteel strap. I loved that watch and kept it for the longest time. I lost it with a few others I owned when I went to university in Switzerland. It still pains me today.”

His father later gave him a gold Longines as a dual 16th birthday and confirmation gift, but sadly passed away by the time he turned 18. “That was very sad, but I did get to inherit his collection. The first significant watch I bought was a Cartier Santos when the model with the steel bracelet came out. I bought it with a good portion of my school fees, so I guess it showed my addiction to watches at that stage. The Santos, the Longines and a Rolex I inherited from my father were part of the second collection I lost several years later, again in Switzerland,” he notes. Timepieces in Deremi’s current collection range in value from $300 to “an infinite amount”. He enjoys wearing them all –diamond and tonneau watches, round and square watches, and smart and sports watches. “I’m happy about that. It tells me