It was a few minutes to midnight. Then, the folks who man the rail lines between Maryland and Washington in the United States of America had slammed the access to the train station against late night commuters. “WG,” he said casually, “let’s go”. He picked his car key and a 40-minute journey was underway. Some not too disapproving smile panned the sitting room.
What if some hooded guys in DC blocked this man? Or if anything happened to him at midnight? Ladi, as he calls his wife of uncommon dedication, the Lord of the Manor, seems to be ruminating as my intruding presence made Dapo Olorunyomi, aka Dapsy, leave his wife’s arms some minutes to midnight. She managed a smile and waved him bye.
What manner of a man will leave his family a few minutes to midnight, just to help a JJC in DC? But Dapsy cares no hoot. If the goal is to deny himself of sleep, money and comfort to straighten out your path, he is game. A Greyhound bus at the Union Station was where he emptied this nocturnal visitor. North Carolina was my destination.
The following day, I attempted to make some heavy weather of this courtesy through superfluous thanks. Just to appreciate this unusual being. Typical of him, he deliberately downplayed his heroic sacrifice and made light weather of the huge help. This was in Washington, where every minute weigh in huge dollars. A few days before, he had abandoned his busy itinerary to drive me to Gen Alani Akinrinade’s (rtd) home, for an interview published in The NEWS magazine. He didn’t toss a map at me like your typical Washingtonian would do.
That was in 1999.
Close to a decade later, he had summoned me to a point close to Louis Edet House, the Police headquarters in Abuja, yielded his car and eloped into another.
And throughout Abuja we meandered round the city, in a seemingly disorderly fashion, but as it emerged, calculated order-until the duo were done with their discussions. It turned out that some demented goons with access to state powers, mean and merciless in taking out folks like the man in question, were after Dapsy’s guest, a patriot, one who had served Nigeria at the detriment of his physical and psychological health, friendship and bales of tempting lucre.
In those two hours when we scoured Abuja’s streets, avoiding –in mathematical precision, all police checkpoints in the city, the ingredients and bureaucratic ‘scrolls’ that eventuated in nation building news copies, was the subject of the duo’s encounter.
Such is Dapsy’s love for his fatherland that he once quipped: “But is it a crime to love your fatherland? Is it a crime to love your nation?” -apparently bewildered why a cell in a government he was serving will seek to do him in. Then, the media reported the case of some gunmen who wanted to take him out. “But we will continue to do our best. All I know is that good will always triumph over evil”, he concluded in response to himself.
Such reassuring elan, it seems, lay at the root of his unexplainable risks for this nation called Nigeria. Dapsy seems to have some unshakeable faith in God, nature and some ethereal forces that the good in his good, his exertion for this good, in this immensely blessed but mismanaged nation will always trump whatever risks lay on the risky paths which he often trod.
Which is why you will catch Dapsy, at times– racing to Abuja from Lokoja at some hours to midnight, just to pave a path for a young fellow. Or do a stop by in Lokoja to broker a discussion, see an old family member or ask after your health. And doing this with a reassuring mien like God has assured him that he will take off the bad boys off the road.
And which is why Dapsy will go and confront Gen Oladipo Diya (rtd) when the late Gen. Sani Abacha was new in power and the ‘interimists’ were just trying to gain a foothold and ask: “Sir, with due respect, are you guys not being naïve with your perception of the late General Abacha?”. Angry at BAT who brought him into Diya’s presence, Abacha’s deputy will ask, “Why bring this kind of man into my place”.
Abacha was to ensnare Diya three years down the line. Dapsy’s words seemed to be prophetic. Dapsy, Bayo Onanuga and their colleagues in The NEWS magazine were at the head of a titanic battle that ensured that Diya did not bite the bullet. What mattered to Dapsy and his colleagues was justice and the common good.
Such streaks of courage are why only the six odd men of Dapsy’s mindset: Babafemi Ojudu, Bayo Onanuga, Seye Kehinde, Idowu Obasa and Kunle Ajibade and Kabiru Yusuf will spurn Buhari’s counsel. Buhari? Yes, General Muhammadu Buhari’s admonition that they should be wary of Ibrahim Babangida as The NEWS magazine began its crusading genre of journalism in 1993.
Then, Bayo, Dapsy, Ojudu and Seye had finished an explosive interview with Muhammadu Buhari in Kaduna. Buhari had sat Dapsy and others down and lectured them on security and the new phase the nation was entering, as they began the patriotic but perilous business that was the publication of The NEWS and Tempo news magazines. It was not long before Buhari’s fears began to manifest; first in dozens of arrests, arson and questionable deaths of journalists. Kunle Ajibade lived to tell his stories in Abacha’s gulags.
Dapsy’s courage is steeped in history. His late friend and banker, Mr Adeola once recalled one of such encounters about 17 years ago. Not a fashion buff-and he protest with his wears – often, Dapsy’s wife, Ladi, once poked fun at him as she scoured their house for just one trouser for him from a pile. Some fashionistas could worry about that.
Dapsy had emerged asDapsy. The Principal of his secondary school-somewhere in old Kwara, was up in arms and slammed a fatwa against his entrance into the school premises. Forever calm and always radiating an inscrutable peace in an ocean of chaos and confusion, Dapsy shot out: “I had a slight. I had a slight.” It was the young lad’s own riposte. For a secondary school student, in the back waters of Kwara, the late Adeola recalled, this was too good an expression. The principal allowed the protesting lad to be carried shoulder high.
There are a lot of good things to say about the self-effacing gem of a soul that is Dapsy. So many bits and pieces of him that it might fill another volume. His native wisdom, perennial bother of not exposing the seamy sides of good men and women-even when they screw up. It is a strangely excellent trait that only a Dapsy could balance.
Forever patriotic, forever looking at the bigger picture, Dapsy’s constituencies broaden into a vast amalgam of colour, generation, religion, ethnicity, profession, class and race, in a fashion only Dapsy could explain. If he is not discussing how to train the next generation of professional journalists, who will have ethics at the heart of their trade, he would be bouncing ideas on the role of data driven copies, how that could foster accountability in public space and strengthen democracy.
- Gbadamosi, a Deputy Director, is of the Communications & Servicom Department, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS.
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