By Banji Ojewale
January 17, 2025 would have marked the 41st natal anniversary of Solomon Kayode Ojewale, the young man who was beginning to be noticed as a regular name in Nigeria’s vast media space, online and main-view. He was a migratory writer. One time he’d be in The Guardian, The Punch, The Nation, Nigerian Tribune, or Vanguard, all in Nigeria’s south, or another time up north in Daily Trust, Leadership or New Nigerian.
Kayode also had a promising presence in the online publications: Premium Times, Newspot, Sahara Reporters etc. He wrote and read lustily. On a number of occasions, he would query me: “Dad, what’s going on? I haven’t seen you write lately.’’ Sometimes, he was a monitoring spirit, searching for my articles on the internet and railing at the ubiquitous devil in the print. He also preyed on books. He took from me a book on John McCain, once a US presidential aspirant, which Emeka Eluem Izeze, former MD of The Guardian, loaned me.
Kayode’s articles were regularly run by Alausa
Alert, a publication of Lagos State Ministry of Information, edited by the
versatile Tayo Ogunbiyi. At a time, we projected a joint collection of essays
by himself and Ogunbiyi.
The young man ardently desired a future with the
media. So he took a professional course in radio production and script writing
at the Radio Nigeria Broadcasting School in Lagos.
Finally, he was approached by a business
newspaper in Lagos to serve on its editorial board. The editors reckoned that pinning
the prolific contributor exclusively to their desk might be more profitable to
the paper than having him shared with others in the industry. The offer seemed
OK for Kayode; it would give him a ready, regular and recognizable platform to
express himself on hot-button issues.
Still, the deal wasn’t consummated for some reasons. Kayode was a civil servant, on full time employment with the Public Relations Department of the Lagos State Traffic Management Agency, LASTMA. He troubleshot for the organization a lot. In succession, his bosses, Mahmoud, Olumide Filade, Taofiq, Mrs. Aluko, required Kayode to leverage his pen and bond with the editors to step in with a write-up in defence of LASTMA. He obliged always; but he was careful not to compromise principles of mutual goodwill. So he did it daintily, without taking his cordial stand with the journalists for granted.
Now, would he be able to answer to the true professional and nonaligned calling
of the member of the editorial board of a reputable medium and remain in the
service of LASTMA? There’s far more to being offered juicy contracts because of
your current running or past performance. Those hiring you are more moved by
what you’d give them from the moment of your joining them after exit from your
old station, scarcely excited about the exploits that made them notice you in
the first place.
These were some of what we were considering when a concatenation of health incidents set in for Kayode and hindered a logical resolution of the puzzle. First, a call from his wife, Bunmi, on Wednesday July 4, 2024, that Kayode was gravely down with cough and unsettling breathing issues. She was taking him to a private hospital in their neighborhood at Alakuko, Lagos, she told me. There, her husband’s condition deteriorated.
Bunmi, herself a professional nurse with a degree in the discipline, suggested
a switch to Olabisi Onabanjo University Teaching Hospital, OOUTH, Sagamu, Ogun
State. Bunmi had worked there until recently. She was familiar with the
facility and was fully convinced her husband would receive much better care
there. Indeed, Kayode also had a history with OOUTH, having undergone
successful medical procedures at the institution in previous years.
But suddenly on the night of Saturday July 6,
2024 at OOUTH, Kayode lost the struggle against the complications of irregular
breathing, dragged from life into death, leaving behind a son, Othniel Oluwalonimi,
(barely 5 months old then), his wife, parents, siblings and in-laws. We all and
his friends along with other loved ones have long since been comforted over
this huge loss. Kayode was a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. He believed in
His Word that if you die in genuine salvation, it’s only a temporary physical
deprivation. Your soul lives on in perfect joy and repose in God’s presence in
Heaven. That’s an eternal state. Bereaved believers are therefore not to mourn
inconsolably.
Colleagues at workplaces, childhood friends and those
with whom he attended Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, LAUTECH,
Ogbomoso, have offered profuse eulogy endearment. Fashakin, Yeye, Kola, Sunday
Ogunsola, Yemi (Baba Ibeji), Fisayo, Segun Hammed, Samson etc. say affable Kayode
touched their lives not only in the campus, but also away from its environment.
They fondly referred to him as Professor, “because he had the carriage of a
prof.’’ One of them said Kayode led him into writing for the media. He has
since showed me some of his published works. One of his closest pals said their
late friend was the one who always checked on them one by one, and reminded them
to felicitate with each on their birthdays.
He was also known for that in the family, serving as our PRO and point man on our WhatsApp platform. If you needed the stats and pictures of an old family event, Kayode was the one to turn to. You’d get the info while rounding off your conversation. He could sometimes play games with this great gift. He would drop embarrassing ancient pictures of you which you thought had disappeared with time.
At other times, if a young person
in the midst of older ones acted big and felt he had arrived, Kayode would move
in and cut him to size by pointing to an elderly woman and announcing, “Young
man, hope you know that woman over there was the one who circumcised you!’’ He
meant no harm in his pranks. Kayode had a kind and accommodating heart that
didn’t allow him to hurt anyone with his gibes.
I was a ‘victim’ of one of his sportive
surprises, when years ago he conspired with some editors and had them publish his
article on my 71st birthday. It was no small embarrassment when I woke that
morning to a tumult of calls and messages. I got to know later that they were
responding to Kayode’s stealthy tribute.
We used to call Kayode ‘Old Man Kayus’, because from his early
years he looked like his paternal grandfather. The name stuck. Till Kayode
passed on, Dapo Olorunyomi, publisher of Premium Times, would always refer to
him as Old Man, dropping Kayus. They
were good friends, a bond built from the late 80s in Ilorin, Kwara State, where
‘Uncle Dapoh’ used to drive Kayode and Lanre, his elder brother, around town.
Solomon Kayode Oyedotun Adigun-Odi Ojewale wanted
to read Medicine, for which he was given admission at a private institution in
one of Nigeria’s southeastern states. Somehow, it didn’t work out, and he went
for Pure and Applied Chemistry at LAUTECH. He graduated in November 2008 and
was posted to Bayelsa for his NYSC in July the following year. He served in
Asamabiri. His experiences there are documented in his book, Asamabiri:
A Youth Corps Member’s Experience.
Unfortunately, the 12-chapter book wasn’t published; a blundering
bureaucratic bullock bred by the NYSC authorities stood in the way of the work,
whose conclusion foresaw the food crisis now pillaging the land and recommended
a strategic solution: “Asamabiri can…be
the food basket of the Niger Delta if the authorities harness its agricultural
products. Its potential is enormous, waiting to be tapped to the full realities
of full economic activity and industry. Government and the private sector must
join hands to move into Asamabiri and turn the area into a developed and
prosperous region. This way, we can truly talk of diversifying the Nigerian
economy and freeing it from dependence on oil.’’
*Ojewale, an author, mailed this
piece from Accra, Ghana.
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