By Ademola Adegbamigbe
He saw the way I looked woebegone that day in 1995 at Tejumola House, Omole, Ojodu-Berger Road in Lagos. That was where Tempo, where I started my journalism career, operated from. It was one of the strategies by the ICNL management to form a mosaic of operational centers to beat Abacha and his Praetorian Guards, who were baying for the blood of our bosses and their staff who showed him pepper with what they were writing.
“What is the problem, Demola?” Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi (Dapsy), one of the founders of TheNEWS, Tempo, AMNEWS, and PMNEWS (and now publisher of Premium Times), asked me. “I just secured a one-room self-contained apartment at Abule Egba. I want to buy a mattress, but my money is not enough.”
I fished out my I.O.U. form for him to sign, after which I wanted to take it to our Accounts/Admin section (where Mr. Idowu Obasa was the high priest), about three kilometres away, to collect cash.
“Don’t bother going there,” Oga Dapsy said, waving me, a bloody reporter who was still wet behind the ears, to a seat. “How much do you need?”
I told him.
He stretched out his leg where he sat so that his blue pair of jeans could create enough room for him to dip his hand in the pocket. He brought out the money and gave it to me. I prostrated flat and ran off to Ogba. When I wanted to return the money, he asked me to keep it.
This is one aspect of Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi’s multi-dimensional life—his empathy is legendary.
Like a palimpsest, Oga Dapsy has many other layers. He can bring stories from inside the granite, a gift that proved invaluable when the military held Nigeria by the jugular.
He is also a teacher, even if he does not sit beside you or stand before you in class. His life and writings are open textbooks. Let me explain and make a confession.
He is such a highly intellectual, philosophical, and perceptive writer that when I am suffering from writer’s cramp, I would go and pick up some of his old cover stories in TheNEWS bound volumes. One of my favourites is “The Spartan’s Limit,” his preface to an exclusive interview with the late General Muhammadu Buhari in 1983.
As you read, you would be transported (as a form of time travel) to 1953, when Buhari was a school pupil. The description is vivid.
Check this out:
“The Spartan’s Limit
One sunny afternoon in 1953, first-year pupils of Katsina Middle School were sweating it out in an arithmetic class. Mallam Baraya Gombe, the teacher who doubles as headmaster, was prowling the narrow passage between the blackboard and the class, his hulky frame casting a frightening shadow on the class.
One of his pupils was missing, and Gombe, without prompting, knew who that could be: Leko, the truant, was at it again. Suddenly, as the teacher was trenchantly stressing his point, a tall, skinny, gangling frame burst into the class, his face plastered with smiles. Gombe was mad with rage. Who was this lousy fellow, late to class, still grinning, still naughty? He thought. He reached out for Leko, the famous hockey player, soccer centre-forward, and the school’s 800-metre record holder, who had never hidden his disdain for school, and delivered a horrendous slap on his face.
Muhammadu Buhari, Leko for style, in later years an army general and former Nigerian Head of State, learnt his first lesson in discipline, order, and rules…”
Sir, I wish you a happy birthday. Your intellect will not whittle down.
