Editorial
Between the 1970s and mid-1980s, his was an authorial triumvirate, with O. A. Lawal and Adekunle Aromolaran (now the Kabiyesi, Owa of Ijesaland), that shaped the scholarly minds of the many starry-eyed, battling to pass their ordinary and advanced levels Economics and Government, en route to securing university admission — and therefore their future.
The trio of Oyebola, Lawal and Aromolaran were the way: you couldn’t pass these subjects unless you passed through them — aside from J. L. Hanson’s A Textbook of Economics, the foreign text that, back then, ruled the waves with this local triumvirate.
“Oyebola na crook o,” rhapsodised in colourful pidgin, one of those starry-eyed wards, studying for his Higher School (A/Level) Economics, at Government College, Ughelli, now in Delta State.
He had just savoured the author’s lucid prose and masterful breakdown of economics concepts, “Oyebola na grammarian o …” Such was Oyebola’s impact on that generation of youths, who today are in commanding positions in the polity and economy.
Before the authorship years, Chief Areoye Oyebola, who died in his sleep in his Ibadan home on March 9, was one of the first set of graduate-trainees of the old Daily Times. It was a visionary project of the iconic Alhaji Babatunde Jose, the most impactful media manager of his era.
Though that scheme ended in a debacle, consuming both the visionary and the envisioned, over a tumultuous change of guard in the Times’ editorship, it was not before Oyebola had edited the paper. It proved the vision’s clarity by positioning Daily Times as the clear leader, in the newspaper market of that era.
After Daily Times and Oyebola’s exit rumpus, the first graduate editor of the newspaper would become a commissioner in the defunct Western State (now Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ekiti states), with capital in Oyebola’s native Ibadan.
But it all started at the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo, where Oyebola was the head of department of Economics, after he had graduated from the University of Ibadan in 1964, with a BSc in Economics.
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But in-between teaching and mentoring his young wards, Oyebola, a great lover of writing since his secondary school days, would contribute articles to leading newspapers back then: Daily Times, Nigerian Tribune and Daily Sketch.
Indeed, it was his writing forays that led him to the Times job in 1968, where he was interviewed by another Nigerian media icon, the great Henry Kayode Odukomaya.
Indeed, from teacher to editor and to state commissioner, writing and vigorous thinking would appear the defining essence of Oyebola.
When he died on March 9, he was author of some 26 books, among which was his famous Blackman’s Dilemma, in which he bellyached on the developmental stunt of Black Africans, and how to get out of that bind.
That chore came with the added angst of Oyebola the Pan-Africanist, not able to reconcile why the rest of the world was advancing but Africa was retarding.
Sadly though he lived long, he never cracked that riddle, until he breathed his last, with virtual pain in his heart. Indeed, granting an interview to mark his 80th in 2016, he declared Nigerian leaders had morphed from visionary leaders to blind rulers.
Though in that interview with Nigerian Tribune he declared himself personally fulfilled, coming from a “nobody to somebody”, he was sad and angry at the sorry state of his beloved country, particularly since he had anticipated this contemporary rut, in his famous book, Blackman’s Dilemma.
It really must have been tough for the late Oyebola, starting life thinking the world was at the feet of his country, and exiting life feeling those high hopes were nothing but high illusion. Yet, he played his part and well too.
Oyebola, in all his life endeavours, lived a life of value, value and more value. It is a lesson to the Nigeria from which he exited, enveloped by so much venality, of wealth without work. He lived a good life, and left a worthwhile legacy.
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