Snooper mourns the premature departure of our younger friend and junior colleague in the pen-pushing fraternity, Leke Salaudeen, until recently an Assistant Editor with this newspaper. It is not easy for an older person to be publicly grieving over the passing of a younger man. Yours sincerely has been in denial. But it was Tunji Adegboyega’s moving tribute to his friend—a totally different person— in this paper last Sunday that finally jolted one out of pained inertia.
Leke departed in sad circumstances, in an atmosphere of puzzling national uncertainties and amidst the protracted Covid-19 sledgehammer. When the news began circulating, yours sincerely was so distressed that one dismissed the possibility as another instance of the fake news pandemic which has caused so much global pandemonium in recent times. It took, Victor Ifijeh, the Nation’s Managing Director, to confirm the details and the horrid circumstances.
Leke was as self-effacing and unobtrusive as they come, a polite, well-mannered gentleman journalist. He was a man of profound Islamic faith which he carried with grace and sedate equanimity. He did not appear to care very much about worldly distinctions and the pomp and pageantry that accompany professional self-importance. He was content with his humble lot.
Several times yours sincerely would espy him in the vast newsroom completely absorbed in his work and oblivious of his surroundings. He was a hard slogger and a meticulous master of close marking, the hallmark of all great sub-editors. Often, it would take a gentle pat to jolt him out of his immersion in his work and ant-like assiduity.
But he was not without a boyish sense of humour, even when he tended to avoid the loud and the boisterous. There were times Leke would sidle up to yours sincerely and quickly dump into snooper’s increasingly voluminous side pockets, the local medicinal nuts we both shared and enjoyed together when the occasion permitted. Before you could say Jack Robinson, Leke would have vanished into the shadow from whence he materialized.
There were other times when Leke would slip into my office to engage yours sincerely in meditative contemplation about the vagaries of life and the vanity of it all. Profoundly dissatisfied about the state of the country, he was also not one to start shouting from the rooftop. Not for once in a decade of association did he seek to exploit our closeness. He never complained about anything and never spoke ill of anybody.
Leke took this complete self-mastery with him to the grave. Snooper would have wanted to learn more about the stoic indifference to earthly fame and worldly fortunes. But this was not to be. May Allah take his noble soul into a blissful repose.
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