By  Godfrey Etikerentse

Chief Jemide who ranked fifth in the hierarchy of the Warri Chieftaincy Traditional Council (he being an Ojoye Oji Isan) transited in a Warri medical facility on Sunday December 12, 2021. His chieftaincy had been conferred on him by his Majesty Ogiame Erejuwa the 2nd, the Olu of Warri, in 1989.

The “Akpuja” attached to the title is “Ikeri”. I had known Chief Jemide all my life; he being about four years older than me.

We grew up together as members of the same closely knit family at Aja Ogbugbu in Koko, the present Warri North Local Government Headquarters. Chief Jemide’s paternal grandmother was my father’s sister, making his father (whom I knew to be an old man at that time) my first cousin.

This relationship was why Chief Jemide affectionately referred to me as Baba Tiey, meaning “little Baba”.

Actually, we were raised to understand that the love for one another in a family superseded any other thing. We were also taught the attributes of good Ishekiri family values by the way our family elders lived.In the early 1940s in Koko, we did not know Chief Jemide’s first name to be “Isaac”. We, his brothers, cousins and relations, knew and called him “Binini”. Please do not ask me the meaning of “Binini” because I do not know its meaning up till this day.

We simply called him “Binini”.  But tarry a little and you will find out shortly in this tribute how this name “Binini”, came up at an event in faraway London, several years after our Koko growing days and how the name has played a strong role in further cementing my relationship with Chief Jemide until his transition.

During our younger and playful days in Koko, the urgent need arose for children to acquire better quality of elementary and secondary school education which was unavailable in Koko at that time. Fortunately, our various parents and guardians reacted positively to that need and made them send the young ones to our relatives who were already living in Sapele and Warri so as to attend schools there. What my young mind first noticed, was that our “Binini” suddenly became missing in action in Koko. Much, much later, I learnt that he had been taken away to join his father in Sapele to go to school.

His dad had established a thriving business there. Then it came to my turn to be “sprung” from Koko to Warri in 1945 or so, to live with my much older brother, Mr. Joel E. R. Etikerentse (now late of course) who was old enough to be my father.  He had graduated from the famous Christ the King’s College, CKC, Onitsha about 1938 and was working at the Resident’s Office in Warri.

He directed that I should join another older brother of mine named Reginald Etikerentse who was already then in the Roman Catholic School, Warri, for me to commence A, B, C.  After a long time, there was still no “sighting” of “Binini” except that I heard from family sources that he had graduated from Hussey College, Warri, and that he was about to be sponsored by his dad to study law in England.

The same family sources informed me that “Binini” had managed to convince his dad who had a reputation of being very strict, that he, ”Binini,” had an urgent business to attend to, before proceeding overseas for his studies and that, that urgent business was to marry his sweet heart –an Oyibo (White) Roman Catholic “Reverend Sister”.Eh! “Binini”, “Oyibo Reverend Sister”? I remember asking myself then. On my further enquiry, before dismissing the information as mere rumour and (“fake news”) at that time, I was told that the name of the “Reverend Sister” was Miss Rose Khalil. On hearing this, I finally dismissed the entire information as pure fabrication. But deep in my mind, I was still anxious to sight or meet “Binini” since there was no better source for me to know the truth of the matter other than “Binini” himself.

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At that time, I too had moved on in life.  I had finished from the Roman Catholic School, Warri and gone on to St. Peter Claver’s College, SPCC, Aghalokpe, near Sapele – the best Roman Catholic Secondary School there ever was and is, in these parts.  I state this seriously because before the end of the first term of our admission into that institution of learning, the Irish Reverend Fathers who were our tutors had rid us of the provincialism of “shorsh”, “shiken”, “sherman”, etc, etc, which we had brought with us into SPCC. Thus, inter alia, our diction and articulation had improved exceedingly. All of us who were students at SPCC, were well-equipped to “take on” the universe at the end of our five years of learning there.

After graduation from SPCC, I, armed with the lessons learnt and the confidence gained there, had been able to teach myself (while working as a young clerk in Ibadan) and passed all the required three subjects at the GCE A-Level, which qualified me to gain direct admission to the University of London and the Inner Temple, London to study for the LLB Hons degree as well as the English Bar.So, in early August 1961, having been sponsored by one of my older brothers – the same Mr Reginald Etikerentse (now late), I arrived in London in search of the so-called golden fleece and by September, I commenced my law degree and Bar studies simultaneously.

Then came early October (I cannot now remember the actual date) I, (all dressed up in my Nigerian made suit and bow tie, which I had learnt to knot in Ibadan) accompanied some friends to a Nigerian dance event in celebration of Nigeria’s second Independence anniversary, at the Islington Town Hall, London. There I was, a new arrival in London (tagged, Johnny Just Come, JJC), at the dance event. I listened to the good sound of the London adulterated Victor Olaiya’s Highlife music being played and which I couldn’t resist dancing to. So, I took to the floor without a dance partner – remember, I was JJC. I was not overawed or abashed.

Instead, I introduced some new dance steps which we had danced to in Ibadan, but which I was sure were new to the people in London. I was truly enjoying myself and just happened to look up, and saw a dark, slim, tall and handsome man dancing away with a very fair skinned lady. I looked more again at the man and lo and behold, that man was “Binini”, the same ”Binini” whom I had not seen for so many years until that night.  Excitedly, I exclaimed “Binini”! “Binini”!!, the slim man turned round and saw me, and screamed: “Hey my brother”!!! My brother !!! and came to embrace me and introduced me to his wife, Rose. On that occasion Ikeri’s reaction was genuine and sincere, that of a true brother, who behaved just in the manner we had been raised as young relations in Koko several years earlier. I was so deeply moved by his open display of fraternal love that I resolved within me that from that day, I would forever reciprocate “Binini’s” affection for me.

“He was my brother, through and through,” I said to myself quietly.

Chief Jemide completed his course of studies and returned to Nigeria about one year after our Islington Town Hall “re-union”. His (their) home in Hydethorpe Road, Balham in South London, where he, Rose (his wife) and Dan (Kevin) his younger brother together with Dan’s wife Edith lived, later became a homely place of frequent visits for me in London. In any case, I did not live far from there. I lived in the Young Men Christian Association Hostel, YMCA, in Stockwell.  I got to know his wife, Rose (who turned out after all not to be “an Oyibo Reverend Sister” but the daughter of a Lebanese father and an Ishekiri mother, who had been raised in the Catholic Convent School, Warri by Reverend sisters in the Roman Catholic Faith).

I became Weyinmi’s Godfather, the younger of the two sons Chief Jemide and Rose had in the UK. I remember falling in the snow while pushing Weyinmi’s pram on our way home from his christening ceremony in the Catholic Church during the severe London winter in 1963. I returned to Nigeria in late 1964 after my call to the English Bar in June and obtaining the Hons LLB degree at the University in July of that year.After we had all got back to Nigeria, Ikeri’s home was my home, whenever I visited Benin (during the short periods he lived there as a State Counsel and later as a Bendel State Congressman on the platform of the United Party of Nigeria, UPN) and Warri, when he worked for Shell.

His wife Rose until her death (bless her soul) made their home the best place to be. Ikeri provided an anchor for me any time. In recent times, my visits to Warri had been less frequent; thus reducing the occasions of our physical meeting. Notwithstanding that, we were in constant communication by telephone.  During my recent illness, Ikeri called me always to enquire about my well being and how Baba tiey was doing and prayed for me to recover quickly.

I recall that he got Ayuli (his son), who happened to be in Warri in mid-August 2021 in connection with the coronation activities of HRM, Ogiame Atuwatse III, the Olu of Warri, to reach me by phone in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I was under-going medical treatment, and we both had a hearty conversation. Ikeri was happy to learn that I was on my path to full recovery. After my return to the country just beforethe end of October 2021, I spoke frequently with him and he was quite happy that I had recovered fully.Then came Monday December 6, 2021, my childhood friend, Dr. Henry Ejumudo, called me to inform me of Ikeri’s admission into a Warri Medical Facility as a result of a fall, at the back of his house, the previous day. I hurriedly called Chief Jemide’s phone but it was his daughter –Orode–(from Lagos) who answered and stated that he was sleeping. I later on called and I was able to speak with him for a short period.

The following day, I succeeded in further speaking with him and he definitely sounded better. It was that day that I was informed by Temi, that arrangement had been concluded to fly an orthopaedic surgeon over that weekend to Warri from Lagos to fix Ikeri’s fractured bone and I was quite pleased about that. I even called the surgeon, Dr. Michael Ugbeye, here in Lagos and jokingly requested him to make sure that he gave Ikeri the best care because I was his Baba tiey.  He assured me that, that would be done.In the morning of Sunday – December 12, 2021, at about 10.15am – Mrs Alero Jadesimi (nee Okotie-Eboh and whose maternal grandfather was Jemide) phoned me to report that Chief Jemide had just passed.  What a shock? How sad? I could not absorb the news; I just broke down and wept like a child.  How painful for Ikeri to go this way – just like that, and finally too?  We family members were not given a chance to see that he got the necessary medical attention, I thought to myself.  Incredible, “Binini” was gone? I still find it difficult to accept. It is so painful to me as I write this and referring to Ikeri, our own “Binini”, in the past tense. I had not seen him physically since 2019 but I heard that he was frail in frame but was strong and mentally alert.

It never crossed my mind that “Binini” would go at this time, yet one must constantly be aware of the reality of death; in the way that it is metaphorically put by Sir Henry Rider Haggard KBE, the English Novelist, in his story of Allan Quatermain to the effect that: “Death rolls on like a juggernaut crushing us in turn, some soon, some late, but in the end it crushes us all”.

We may run hither and thither to no effect as humans; but death would still come and no one knows whose turn is next.As someone quite close to Ikeri, I can state that he lived a fulfilled life. Much later in his life, he dedicated his time fully only to the following herein stated, in their order of significance and importance to him. First, the teachings and tenets of the Roman Catholic Religious Faith(by the way, he was knighted by the Holy Father Pope Benedict on April 11, 2009); second, the protection and advancement of Ishekiri cause and the third, the Rotary Society.

I had stated earlier that his marriage to his beautiful wife, Rose, a staunch Roman Catholic, changed the trajectory of Ikeri’s religious belief for good and I believe in my heart, that now upon his death, Rose by God’s special grace, will be right there to lead Binini’s soul home into heaven. Binini, Chief Jemide, Ikeri, I, your Baba tiey salute you and wish your soul well. I will continue to pray to God for His kind admittance of your soul into His presence. Good bye, Binini, my brother, fare thee well Ikeri. Oda ugba miren. PAX, PAX, PAX, God’s perfect peace. 

***Etikerentse, a senior lawyer, wrote via: getiks2000@gmail.com

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