Otunba Olabiyi Durojaiye (8 February 1933 – 24 August 2021), a proud Yoruba son and solid Nigerian patriot, just succumbed to COVID-19 — a fatal feat not even the harsh Abacha gulag could claim.

For his post-June 12 pro-democracy activism, as a National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) hierarch, Gen. Sani Abacha tucked him away for 560 days — almost two years.

Despite that trauma, he never flagged: not in his democratic belief; not in the rightness of his cause, despite the hefty short-term cost.

Yet for him, absolutely no sense of entitlement.  Just an abiding service and yet more service.

That can’t be said of many of his NADECO/Alliance for Democracy (AD)-era peers, who thunder without a care, even if the house must crash, burn and bury all.

A proud and eminent Yoruba son.  Yet, not for him that gangling, preening ultra-nationalism that blissfully forgets the big picture, in the fit of the moment.

A proud exponent of restructured Nigeria, and its unapologetic Yoruba push. Yet, the cross-ethnic hate, which has defined that campaign of late, and Otunba Durojaiye were two parallel lines!

The two would never meet: not in his illustrious life that just ended.  Not in another life that would be an absolute blessing, given how the last panned out.

All his life, loyalty, conviction, moderation and wisdom were his lot.

In 1992, he lost the Social Democratic Party (SDP) presidential ticket to Basorun MKO Abiola.  But he defended MKO’s mandate as if it were his very own; as if his life depended on it — at that glorious juncture, when it became the people’s sacred will.

In 2003, he succumbed to Obasanjo’s South West wonder — and gone, with electoral plunder, was his AD Ogun East senatorial seat, to PDP’s Tokunbo Ogunbanjo.

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Yet, to his progressive tenets he stuck till death: no sweet kiss of convenience with subversive conservatives, even in the worst of political wilderness.

But again, that was loyalty too stretched, for many of his peers.  The pull to grandstand is just too strong, despite huge strategic costs to their endangered cause.

Little wonder: at death, he listed among the few moderates; and even, the fewer wise; among his once revered conclave, now consigned by hubris to screech but get little.  Yet, in old glory days, corralled everything, even with a baby’s sigh!

Otunba Durojaiye’s death couldn’t have come at a worse time.

Yes, at 88, he lived into ripe old age.  As a professional banker and lawyer, he lived a life of excellence, honour and fulfilment.

As a seasoned progressive, a social democrat of first rank, melody not threnody, ought to greet his exit; for it was a life well-lived.

Yet, chroniclers of the Yoruba, and their ever-bristling and bruising wrestle with the rest of Nigeria, can’t fail to note the peril of the season.

All of a sudden, the elders are proudly rash.  The youth, fashionably reckless.

With Senator Durojaiye gone, who will calm the rash and tame reckless?  Who will put on the leash, those who think less, growl more, as if there won’t be tomorrow?  Who?

But beyond politics and ideology, Senator Durojaiye’s death, from COVID-19 complications, is umpteenth reminder, of the potent danger, of this pandemic.

Yet, what you see around is COVID-19 denial that borders on the suicidal.  Sweeping vaccination is still a dream. But prevention protocols are observed in the breach.

Vaccine-scepticism too, is tops among the herd.  So, either by preventive protocols or via vaccine-driven immunity, the herd is endangered, in the COVID-19 front!

But the Durojaiye family, as the Gani Fawehinmis at the passage of their son, Mohammed, have announced their patriarch exited via COVID-19.  Laudable!

Both have done their duty to their compatriots.  Those who have ears, let them hear!

Adieu, the Ijebu Igbo Titan!  Tell the Apamaku, the great Abraham Adesanya, fellow survivor of the Abacha scourge, that you got the baton and breasted the tape without blemish or stumble. Adieu!

 

Tinsel’s Fred dead for real 

The funeral bash for Fred Ade-Williams, lead character in DStv/M-Net popular soap opera Tinsel, was quite a piece of work!

Fred, a coastal aristocrat and cinema buff, boss of the elite Reel Studios of Tinsel Town, revered patriarch of the Ade-Williams aristocracy, went home in sheer class: the classic Yoruba owambe — haute couture, dazzling aso ebi, good music, sumptuous food, classy wine, dance without end!

On August 26, Victor Olaotan (1952-2021), who played Fred in that soap, passed on!  How art imitates life!

In Tinsel, Fred died from the fatal bullets of Caesar; a criminal who held Reel Studios staff hostage; after a security breach that implicated Amaka Ade-Williams (Funmi Holder), Fred’s adopted daughter.

Fred fell into a coma for a long time before succumbing to death.

In real life, Victor Olaotan died after a five-year “trap” in his body — to borrow the sad- but-relief tone of Julia, his wife, who nursed him through it all, in the classic “for better, for worse” gripping, marital real-life tale.

The end all started in the course of a day’s work, for the consummate thespian: en route to a movie set, an auto crash would confine him to a bed, for the last five years of his life!

Again, how art imitates life!  But art or real life, Olaotan was a joy to all.

When Tinsel debuted with its short takes and calm pans, not a few mistook Fred for Joseph Abiodun Babatunde (JAB) Adu, the Bassey Okon of another great TV soap, the unforgettable Village Headmaster, of an earlier era.

With time, it was clear Victor Olaotan was no JAB Adu (1932-2016).  Yet, Fred Ade-Williams would seize and keep viewers imagination as prim-and-proper aristocrat of Tinsel Town, as  Bassey Okon did, as  the irrepressible soul, doctor, dispenser and chemist, all rolled in one, of the transit, rustic, pristine village of Oja!

Little wonder: years after leaving Tinsel, the story is still wrapped around the Ade-Williams and their mutations!

In personal affliction or triumph, in sadness or joy, Victor Olaotan was a joy to all.  That’s the golden consolation his wife and family must take from his passage, at 69.

In a creepy, eerie Nigeria, that loves hate and hates love, Olaotan died an unfazed, unbowed ambassador of love and joy!  It’s a memory to ever treasure!