For the first time since the death of his bosom friend and business associate, Deji Omotoyinbo in his frankest interview ever, shares pieces about the life and times of Deji Tinubu and why the legacy of the erstwhile chairman of Lagos State Sport Commission would be immortalised in this encounter with MORAKINYO ABODUNRIN
He collapsed and died at 52 on his besotted football pitch but Deji Tinubu, former chairman of the Lagos State Sports Commission, had the physical body of a 40-year-old that was virile and ruddy few months before his demise.
This much was disclosed by his well-known friend and business associate, Deji Omotoyinbo, while speaking about efforts to immortalise the legacy Tinubu left behind in different spheres of human endeavours – especially in sports and media communications.
For the time being, Omotoyinbo is yet to come to terms with the untimely death of his co-founder of sports broadcast organisation, SportsVision – a novel media they launched in 1998.
“There was no premonition that Deji was going to die and there was nothing like that,” Omotoyinbo with an emotion-laden voice opened up to The Nation at the SportVision office in what is his first interview since that unfortunate incident of 25th January 2018. “Deji was full of life; and he was the last person you’ll expect to collapse while playing football. Football was his life and his life was football.
“I knew Deji as far back as 1974 when we were in the secondary school at Ibadan Government College and he was always playing football and even when he was in the UK, he was always getting guys together to play football.
“For all the years we’ve been together, he always had his soccer shoes and kits in his car. He was always playing football and was always teasing me that I was no longer playing football because I stopped years ago, when I felt my body could no longer cope because I had a bad knee and was getting old.
“But Deji was fit; in fact, a couple of years ago, and I think that was sometime in 2017, we ran comprehensive medical tests when we wanted to take an insurance policy.
“He actually had his own medicals before me and one of the doctors who conducted his medicals had met me at a radio station and the first thing he said was, ‘Mr. Omotoyinbo, I hope you are as fit as your friend.’
“According to the doctor, DT had the physical body of a 40-year-old and that showed how fit he was.He never stopped playing football and the only time he stopped was the day he collapsed and died on a soccer pitch.
“Deji was the kind of person that would warn you when you’re adding weight; he was a fitness freak and would warn others about their health status. It was such a surprise that he died the way he did.”
Indeed, Omotoyinbo and Tinubu were like Siamese twins – simply inseparable in almost all aspects of life – since their interest cut through similar routes with their well noted avarice for sports, especially football, as well as media communications.
Yet, Omotoyinbo reckons death struck his friend like a thief in the night since he was miles away from the scene of the incident where the affectionate TM took his last breath.
“I was actually at home at the close of work the day DT (that’s what I usually called him) died,” declares Omotoyinbo as he fought off his emotion this sunny afternoon. “Earlier in the day, he had told me that he was on his way to Epe, where they were to have a retreat for Lagos State Executive Council and permanent secretaries and you know he was a special assistant on commerce to Governor Akinwunmi at that time, but it was Temisan Okomi (who is a younger colleague but very close to the two of us) that actually called me that he was hearing something about TM (team manager) that he was playing football but fell and died.
“Frankly, I dismissed it because for as long as I knew Deji, playing football has been his life and I just told Temisan not to worry about such news and that I will make some few calls. I then called his number and it rang a few times without anybody picking it. By that time, I was already panicking and fearing the worst.
“I didn’t want to call Bode (Oguntuyi) because I didn’t’ know where he was, his own state of mind, and in actual fact, I didn’t want to be the one who was going to break such a side news to him.
“But, I put a call through to Akin Alabi, who is also one of our directors and they both belonged to the same group, that played football together mostly on weekends. Apparently, he too hadn’t heard anything and only said Deji had gone to Epe for the retreat.
“By that time, my phone had started ringing and everybody wanted to confirm from me what was happening. Moments later, Akin rang back and when I picked I could hear Akin wailing; then I knew the worst had happened.
“Akin then confirmed that Doctor Kay who was in Epe and happens to be on the same WhatsApp group with him and Deji confirmed the bad news. The kind of heartrending scream I let out attracted my neighbours and about the same time, my wife was coming down from the stairs with the same news apparently through her friend who is a wife of one of the commissioners at the retreat in Epe.
“I was motionless and the call started coming through from virtually all parts of the world, especially from members of our class group because we all went to the same secondary school, Ibadan Grammar School.
“But I just couldn’t believe it and refused to give any confirmation until another classmate of ours called that he had spoken with Wale Tinubu (Deji’s brother) who confirmed his death.
“It was a crazy night and the kind of night I don’t want to experience again in my lifetime, because I just couldn’t sleep and was just answering calls from virtually all parts of the world. I couldn’t trust my emotional state to drive to his home and had to call my brother and few other close friends because it was something so hard for me to deal with. It was just one hell of a crazy night.”
Yet even in death, Tinubu was indeed a truism to the saying that ‘being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind and Omotoyinbo noted his friend was indeed a gift to humanity.
“I think one thing that made DT stand out was his heart,” Omotoyinbo says after taking a deep breath. “He was such a kind human being and I have never met anybody who meant so much to different people across board; and I can’t figure out how he did it.
“He had a heart of gold and if he could donate his eyes for another person to see, he would have done it.
“You cannot believe the number of people he was helping financially and how he did. Honestly, I do not know; he was such a kind person and I feel some people actually took advantage of that.
“He never held malice and even when you have an argument with him; it’s dusted with him once it’s over. He was such a jovial person and I think he would have been successful if he’d taken to comedy; he also loved to play pranks.”
But DT doesn’t joke with his work as attested to by Omotoyinbo, saying his late buddy had this uncommon puritanical devotion to duty as if the last job was going to be his last.
“When it comes to what we do, DT was such a detailed person. For instance, he barely has three minutes on his own segment (World Soccer Report) on Sports Express, but sometimes he would come to the studio with seven or eight sheets of papers about everything he wanted to say. Sometimes we made joke of him but his argument was that he needed to cover every angle since he doesn’t know where questions may come from. Everybody who saw him on television or listened to him on the radio would attest to the fact that he was such a detailed person that there was no question that you asked him that he never had a coherent and impressive answer for.
“But the best thing about him was his good heart and he poured his heart out to anything he touched.”
They say time heal wounds, but Omotoyinbo has yet to deal with the emotion of the loss even one year after the demise of DT, insisting that everything still looks surreal.
“I still feel that his death has not happened. Sometimes, I feel he was just playing prank and that he would walk up into the office one day. We still have this feeling that he can just show up.
“Dealing with the emotion of his death has been so difficult and for Bode and other partners, it has been very difficult dealing with it but we have to honour his legacy because he touched so many people in his lifetime.
“He went out in a blaze of glory and I think the wave of emotion following his death transcended even beyond the shores of the country.
“I travelled to the USA just to clear my head after his death, but while waiting to be picked up at LAKS, that is what they call Los Angeles Airport, a guy just walked up to me and started talking about Deji Tinubu, ditto for my cousin and her husband who came to pick me up. So, he was such a nice guy that impacted on so many people who never met him personally and even beyond the shores of Nigeria.
“Frankly, it has been rough and tough but the grace of God has been there for all of us; family members, associates and friends to draw from because DT truly left his mark on the sands of time.
“Despite the fact that he left SportVision to take up public service appointments a couple of times, he died with his legacy unblemished, and that is a source of pride to all his associates.”
It is on the basis of what DT stood for and the respect he earned through a dint of hard work as an administrator and a media personality of note that Omotoyinbo along with his colleagues at SportVision, have now envisioned The Deji Tinubu Memorial Symposium in conjunction with the Lagos State chapter of the Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) to celebrate the kind-hearted guy who passed through life like a colossus.
Omotoyinbo offers: “Of course, a lot of people have done so much to immortalise DT and I want to use this opportunity to thank them, especially his football group, they call themselves Jeunsoke, which is full of top professionals and great guys. They have done two events in his honour; one around his passing and the other one around his birthday on July 31.
“Even today as we speak now (18th January) there is another event at the Teslim Balogun Stadium by the Cycling Club in Lagos, who instituted a competition amongst secondary schools in his honour.
“But as his partners in the sporting fraternity, we want to take it a step further and we felt the way to immortalise him is to have a yearly event in celebration of his life and that is why we have settled for an annual symposium whereby a contemporary issue affecting Nigerian sport is dissected by experts, while we would put that as a policy statement for government.”
The inaugural edition of The Deji Tinubu Memorial Symposium holds on 29th January at the National Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in Lagos under the theme: Combining Education and Sports: Opportunities, Challenges and Solution with former Green Eagles captain and founder of International College and Sport Academy, Mathematical Segun Odegbami, serving as the guest speaker while the Managing Director of Complete Football, Alhaji Mumini Alao, serves as the rapporteur.
“Apart from this, we are also looking at possibly holding what we call Deji Tinubu Media Masterclass around his birthday because of the impact he made in the media, as this would allow us the opportunity to train and retrain upcoming sport journalists so that they can be better on the job.”
In the meantime, Omotoyinbo said SportVision would work round the clock to ensure that their dream with DT of owning the first Nigeria’s multimedia sport channel with t radio, internet and television presence become a reality.
