Segun Gbadegeshin
LAST week, the focus of this column was on the community, an entity founded on a common bond that unites a people despite whatever surface differences exist, and its importance in the lives of individuals and the nation. Among others, there are differences of biology, gender, age, and politics between members of any community. Sometimes, these differences get accentuated and exploited, and thus, become too divisive for the full potentials of community to be realized.
Using my Okeho community as the springboard for that discussion, I appreciated the leading lights of the efforts to mobilize the sons and daughters of the soil for the development and progress of their homeland.
As I hinted last week, like many other communities, Okeho suffered that fate of a community demobilized by political divisions in the first and second republics. But, thanks to the efforts of these leading lights, our people have come full circle to embracing their commonality and realizing that it trumps political differences; and, with a renewed unity of purpose, they are now working together as one indivisible people.
Sadly, as helpless mortals, some events and occurrences are out of our control. We are puns in the hands of fate. Thus, at a point when it appears that we are smiled upon by providence, something that befuddles the mind happens in the next moment. In our confusion, we ask questions: What? Why? Why now? Unfortunately, we have no intellectual resources to provide answers, and despite our occasional agnosticism, we turn to the one who knows best.
This was the plight of Okeho community in the last six weeks when we lost one of our leading lights, a community icon and his matriarch of honour, Chief Gbade Adejumo and Mrs. Esther Olutola Adejumo, both of whom transited to glory within two weeks of each other, and are being celebrated this weekend.
I define a community icon as one who recognizes the commonality that is central to community life, and makes a demonstrable, purposeful, and supererogatory effort to further the common interests of community members despite all odds. Ever since I knew him, right up to the moment he breathed his last, Chief Adejumo always excelled as a community icon.
Since the late 1950s, I have followed the brilliant educational and professional career of Chief Adejumo, looking up to him as a role model. He was two years ahead of me at Baptist Secondary Modern School Koso, Iseyin. Remarkably, after graduating from that school in 1958, Chief Adejumo chose to study privately for GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels, which got him admitted to the University of Ibadan. That was the first and the last case I know of a Modern School leaver, without further institutional training, going straight to the university.
After graduating with a B.Sc. Economics from the University of Ibadan in 1971, he joined the Western Region Public Service in October 1971, working in several departments, including Office of the Governor, Trade, Industries and Cooperatives, Establishment and Training, Finance, and Local Government. He rose to the position of Director-General (Permanent Secretary) before retiring in 1992. All along, he ensured that the community benefitted from wherever he found himself serving. He was recognized for his services with a chieftaincy title as the Mayegun of Ijio.
Okeho Strategic Development Foundation is an initiative of some development-minded indigenes. They trusted Chief Adejumo with the Chairmanship of the Foundation on account of his leadership credentials. He did not disappoint. From chores as regular as directing a meeting, to activities as momentous as offering advice to the Onjo of Okeholand on important community matters, to developmental projects such as granting loans to businesses or awarding scholarship to students, Chief Adejumo led the Foundation with distinction and integrity.
During the 2017 Okeho Centenary celebrations, which I recalled last week, we noticed with satisfaction a renewed enthusiasm of our youth and professionals for the development of the community. Young visionaries initiated discussion forums for strategic mobilization. Volunteerism was at its height. Not wanting to miss the opportunity of engaging our up-and-coming professionals, they were encouraged to set up committees for their favorite projects from education to infrastructure, from health to the environment. They did, and a flurry of initiatives and developmental activities followed. To coordinate the committees, Chief Gbade Adejumo was requested to lead a Strategic Elders Committee to serve as a buffer between the committees comprising young people and the elders in Egbe Omo Ibile. He agreed, and he worked hard on the project before the onset of his illness.
In early July this year, I called Chief Adejumo to discuss a community assignment relating to an opportunity we had to apply for a grant to deal with the incessant flooding in the community, an annual disaster that had claimed many lives. We had to put a proposal together with appropriate engineering drawings. Without pressure, he volunteered to contact an indigene of respectable professional pedigree and put the two of us in touch. He did, and within 24 hours, our engineer set to work, producing an outstanding proposal.
Shortly after, Chief Adejumo fell sick and was in hospital. Even in his pain and with a dire prognosis, he did not stop thinking about the community. I knew he was not well only by accident. I had called to update him on the progress of our proposal. But even as he was in pain, his first question to me was about the status of our proposal. He was still in the hospital when he appended his signature to the final proposal before submission. A few days later, he passed on, serving his beloved Okeho till the last minute.
Chief Adejumo was on his sick bed when he received the sad news of the transition of Mama Biodun, Mrs. Esther Olutola Adejumo, his wife of more than fifty years. Less than two weeks later, he joined her, and we have good reasons to believe that they are both now in a better place.
Mama Biodun was a matriarch of honor, always welcoming visitors to their home with a smile. As an undergraduate in the early 1970s, I spent an entire summer vacation with the family in Ibadan where I had a vacation job. I enjoyed to the maximum the warmth of Mama Biodun’s hospitality.
A virtuous and hardworking woman, with a commendable strength of character, imbued with the fear of God, Mama Biodun’s loyal support contributed in no small measure to the successful career of her husband. Equally important, her unquantifiable love and devotion to the fruits of her womb was the foundation of their outstanding successes as family men and women and as professionals. Through them, she lives on and her immortality is assured.
October is a special month in the annals of Okeho history. On October 18, 1916, Okeho warriors declared war against British colonial government. On October 19, 1916, they set the Native Court ablaze and things escalated from there on. The colonial government responded harshly and put an end to the insurgency. Okeho was forced to relocate back to its present site in October 1917. I am almost sure that the planning of the funeral for this weekend was done without attention to this history. That it happens this way however is powerful testimony of Chief Adejumo’s love and devotion to the community.
To underscore the appreciation of a loving community, in faraway Maryland, USA, at Alafia Baptist Church in Mount Rainier, a Commendation Service will be held simultaneously in honor of these couple who gave their best to others and who served their community passionately with love.
“We are often tossed and driv’n
On the restless sea of time,
Somber skies and howling tempests
Oft succeed a bright sunshine,
In that land of perfect day,
When the mists have rolled away,
We will understand it better by and by.
“By and by when the morning comes,
All the saints of God are gathered home,
We’ll tell the story how we’ve overcome:
For we’ll understand it better by and by.”
—Charles Albert Tindley
O di arinnako; o di oju ala firi!
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