In terms of age and interactions, this obviously isn’t going to be as robust as what the Maye Olubadan of Ibadan, Oloye Lekan Alabi, would say about Sir Folu Olamiti. These thoughts of mine would also not be anything near the 50 years both men have journeyed together through journalism’s thickets and paved roads. Surely, mine would be a far cry from their very vast and varied experiences. However, regardless of how young, small, or variant, I also have my own Folu Olamiti story.
Interestingly, my Folu Olamiti story isn’t a child anymore. My story has long climbed through the vagaries of adolescence and has, by most legal considerations, come of age. It has graciously clambered high enough to gain very useful peeks at the high platform where journalism seniors thrive, to the glory of the Almighty God. She is done with the crumbs and is set for full motherhood.
My Folu Olamiti story marked her 24th year on August 3, 2023. In womanhood, we have loads of 24-year-old mummies and mothers. In the male gender too, we also have very many 24-year-old fathers and daddies. Then, those who are getting married at the age of 24 would also not be upsetting any legal setups. They are adults.
However, my story would still fall under the Igbo contention that, his or her age notwithstanding, a child would always be a child in the eyes and considerations of his or her parents. This is pan-African maybe… My dear late mother brought it further home because she proved it time and again while she was alive. She would scold my elder brother (her second child) into silence when he interrupted his own senior (her first son) during an argument. It was a pointer to your limits, a call to modesty. She would always remind him that: Okwuru a-anaghi a ká onye kuru ya. In Yoruba, this means: Ila kìí ga ju onírè lo. The okro does not outgrow the person who planted it.
My bully pulpit today enjoys a positive propulsion of the contention by William James that “the greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it.” William James did a lot for psychology and philosophy and, perhaps would be remembered more for what he did to promote pragmatism.
My Folu Olamiti story, as a child of pragmatism, isn’t therefore going to wait for too long in the embryo. Waiting for too long in the embryo would negate the suasion of Edmund Goose who advised in his book, ‘Father and Son’, that people should write their autobiographies before they are too old to remember many things.
My Folu Olamiti story, as a claim, might be a fat chicken today, but it has its beginning in an egg, like a Malawian proverb says. He was the Executive Director (Publications) who employed me as a reporter in the African Newspapers of Nigeria (ANN) Plc on August 3, 1999. I was still dripping with only my National Youth Service experience, having just cut my teeth at The Hope newspapers published by Owena Press, Akure as a ‘Youth Corper’. I had asked my way to the Tribune House, Imalefalafia Street, Oke Ado, Ibadan. I wrote the prescribed tests and at the finale of the employment processes, I had the privilege of seeing more senior Tribune men. I didn’t know who was who and I didn’t know what’s what but I knew that Sir Folu Olamiti stood out − handsome and well-dressed.
Thankfully, I was employed along with other young men and women who met the desired requirements. Some of those with whom I made that class of Tribune 1999 are Sulaimon Olanrewaju, Suyi Ayodele, Jackson Udom, Agnes Ademakinwa (nee Erigha), Seye Adeniyi, Solomon Adewumi, and Kunle Abiola of blessed memory. We were sucked into the thick of astute and absolute journalism with Folu Olamiti in charge. It was a roller coaster kind of experience. We were young, daring, and raring to go and the platform under the control of Olamiti gave us the wings and the wherewithal.
I had a few personal encounters with him when he was at the Tribune House. The encounters were a few indeed because the head is quite a distance from the nose. Igi imu jin’na s’ori and Ila is far from Ife. I was surprised that he knew me beyond what I thought when he stopped me at the passageway one afternoon in October 1999 or thereabouts. “You, don’t you have a shirt and tie?” Surprised, I stopped in my tracks and waited with the others there so Oga could tell us who the question was meant for. I thought he was asking someone among us as we stood. “I’m talking to you Nwaoko,” he clarified. Surprised, I moved closer and told him that I had some shirts and ties. “Then why don’t you wear them to work?” Without even thinking, I said, “I wear them on Sundays, to church.” He had a hearty laugh and just walked away. Years after, I began to wonder why I didn’t say ‘No’ to his question. I might have received shirt and tie gifts. I might also have been damned.
As he walked, we couldn’t but notice his impeccable white dress and a cap worn close to the scalp and bent closely. I got the message. He was not looking anything like the ‘aluta children’ (with a few exceptions) he had only recently employed. I thought he might want us to dress like him, apart from the blatant fact that we all should aspire to the journalism standard he and his peers had set.
On Thursday, November 30, 2023, some of his peers, boys, girls, juniors, acolytes and friends gathered to celebrate him. They came in their numbers from far and wide to Ibadan. It was a gathering that saw the veritable ‘Ibadan Arm’ of the renowned ‘Lagos/Ibadan Press’ come alive. The men and women had come to relive what journalism and friendship meant to them.
Atop the list of these journalism legends was Chief Olusegun Osoba. The place of Chief Osoba in the Nigerian journalism pantheon is secure. That he served as governor of his native Ogun State does not detract from this. All who know Osoba will readily attest to the fact that, even at over eighty years of age, he still lives and breathes journalism.
One of the very gratifying things about the celebration of Sir Folu Olamiti is that the occasion countered the grim description of Nigerian journalists by former military president, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (IBB). IBB described Nigerian journalists as “celebrators of personal tragedies”. But the celebration of Sir Olamiti was none of that. It was the opposite because it was his 72nd birthday and the public presentation of his book, “A Peep into the Past”.
Indeed, it was actually a celebration of success, grace, accomplishments, and milestones in the very interesting, demanding, and often dangerous Nigerian journalism world. The greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that will outlast it. I agree. The celebration of Olamiti by various shades and hues of people has also proved this.
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