By Adeola Agoro
“Wale Bob-Oseni was my friend. He shopped for me when I first moved to Maryland. I met him through my oga.
“We are all mourning.
“Femi has killed people. He was greedy.
The youth corps members, na those ones pain me pass.
“I’m chatting with his sister as we speak. Confusion everywhere.
“They had just met at a party in Abuja o. They exchanged numbers.
“Wale told him he was into real estate. This isnt true. Wale liked business.
“My 2cent is that he probably was looking to market the properties in Yankee.
“As at last year, Wale was driving Uber. Na normal guy. But he likes hanging with rich people.”
The narrator was soaked in grief as she went on and on about the Wale Bob-Oseni that she knew.
Grief has a way of making one remember every little detail of the departed we would have taken for granted while they were alive.
All victims of the ill-fated 21-storey building in Ikoyi have gone to the world beyond. Their pictures are being marked with RIP (Rest in Peace). It is however not known whether some of them will actually rest so soon because if they wanted to rest in the first place, they wouldn’t be at work that day.
As the narrator above said, the needless deaths of those corps members is really devastating. People’s children that they toiled to send to school would disappear under the rubbles of a house just like that! What would one tell their parents? That God knows best? That every happens for a reason?
What reason other than carelessness, desperation, greed or vain confidence on the part of a man that made him build what he had been told wouldn’t stand the test of time and made him gather so many people to go down with him, including those innocent souls!!
Some things are just so sad.
For those who were at work when it happened, one may say well, they were going about their daily bread when death came calling.
How does one explain those who went there on sightseeing? It wasn’t the housewarming ceremony and it wasn’t an inspection, Femi Osinbona was just a showman who muct show everybody that had the time (and those who didn’t have the time) to come and see.
Reminds me of the song,
Come and see o!
Come and see!
Come and see what the Lord has done.
Come and see what the Lord has done!
Femi Osinbona was a real showman. He showed the incompleted house to everybody – the dancing Kabiyesi, the pastors from different churches, old and new friends and even enemies. Everybody just must see what the Lord was doing in his life. It wasn’t so much about marketing. It was just a way to show off. Or how would own explain pastors preaching on the pulpit about him and the blessings of God over his life? It appeared at a stage that he was becoming the biggest thing to happen to real estate.
It sounds to one like a new found wealth. The likes of the Adenugas, Dangotes, Wale Tinubus and co will engage the services of professional builders, commit everything into their hands and go quietly to the sites for supervison with more professionalsl, not money-hungry pastors. Which serious pastor will go to the top of a house under construction to be clanging bells and singing? What was all of that for?
Why didn’t he invite Pastor Adeboye or Bishop Oyedepo?
So, some workers on the site went down with him. Poor souls. They died in the course of work. But then, how does one describe the deaths of those who went to see what the Lord has done for another person only to die along with the showman? So sad.
This is a big lesson to us all. We don’t have any reason to be at the construction sites of our friends until the job is over and certified to be safe by the right authorities.
When on building sites, let us insist on being given helmets and jackets. These are safety procedures. Things happen that one cannot explain.
We should beware of showmen at all times. Always question why people want you to be where you don’t have any business. It’s a thing of integrity to face what you have to face and leave what is not important at every given time.
Wale Bob-Oseni was on his way to the airport (jeje, as my people will say). He got a call from a friend he just met at a party through the high ranking oga mentioned in the narratives. He was obviously impressed by the things the developer had told him. And he was also too timid to say he had a flight to catch. He wanted to ‘belong’. He changed his route and met death in the most unlikely places.
May God not let us be at the wrong place at the wrong time, amen and may the souls of all those souls who died in that unfortunate building collapse travel well.
For those of us still here, may we be saved from showmen who have nothing real to offer us, amen.
