By Yinka Oyebode

THE highly celebrated Chinua Achebe, it was, who put the inevitability of death in the most succinct manner in his book, Things Fall Apart when he wrote:  “A man who does not surrender to anything will one day surrender to the death mat”. So, it was with my father, Chief Samuel Oladipo Oyebode, who heeded the final call on December 19, 2021, when the angelic host arrived at his bedside in the wee hours of the day. He took a ride with them in their chariot.

My mother, Esther Anike Oyebode, confirmed daddy’s exit through a phone call at exactly 5.30 a.m that day. “Daddy has gone home. It is well,” she said and hung up before I could ask further questions. Her call, though, was not unexpected because daddy was already showing some signs that the end was near some weeks earlier.

Rather, the call ended months of anxiety for me and my siblings as age had taken its toll on our dad. My anxiety was about losing a father I have known and treasured for over 50 years, anxiety about losing my number one cheerleader, teacher, critic, friend, adviser and advocate -all rolled into one.

Relating with my father through the years has helped shape my worldview, especially about time and season of life. The Book of Ecclesiastes in chapter three dwells much about time and season: “To everything, there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven…”. Because of the gift of longevity that he enjoyed, I was able to experience different phases of my father’s life.

I grew up knowing him as a no-nonsense teacher, a disciplinarian, a loving father and an excellent family man, who devoted his time, talent and treasure to the service of God, community and humanity as a whole. Later, he was slowed down by age and his activities and strictness reduced.

At the latter years and bent by age, he opted out of all social activities and retained only the church activities and regular reading of his Bible -which he did with so much joy and gusto he could muster. Eventually, he retired from every activity, had his Bible passages read to him, but retained his trademark smiles, glowing eyeballs and some bits of wittiness and strictness.

Mayegun, as I love to hail him, meant so many things to so many people. But integrity, firmness, fairness, love and generosity are five of the virtues that defined his 95 years of sojourn on the surface of the earth. These were the virtues that made him a father in a million to his children and a father to millions of other children. For me, I can’t be more proud of my heritage of having been fathered by such a man of immense goodwill.

Mayegun’s actions, like John Quicy Adams, wrote, inspired people to dream more, learn more, do more and become more. The avalanche of goodwill that his name confers on his children and the volume that has trailed his demise are eloquent testimony of his greatness. While he constantly reminded us of the need to preserve the good name he has built and take it even further, I am daily showered with love and affection by some of his old students, boys’ scouts and former teachers.

I was registering my name as one of the journalists covering Chief Adekunle Ajasin Foundation event some years ago when one of the officials singled out my name and sought to know if I had anything to do with his former teacher who was a scoutmaster. And when I answered in the affirmative the man spent over one hour telling me stories of my dad’s uniqueness as a teacher, scoutmaster and moulder of young people’s lives. To date, the man who is in his mid-70s calls me regularly to ask about his beloved “Baba scout”.

For me, daddy’s greatness was in the life of service he lived. What he lacked in financial muscle, he made up for with his huge social capital and the concomitant goodwill. I can’t talk about Mayegun without mentioning his impact on my life. I drew a lot of lessons from dad, including the beauty of delayed gratification, the dignity of labour, honour in service and giving without necessarily expecting anything in return.

These are the lessons I learned by observing his ways and actions, not by virtue of his cane, which he applied generously while we were growing up.

On marriage, he repeatedly told me to look for a godly woman who is a trained professional. He also told me the secret of a good home- be a good man, a good husband and an excellent son-in-law. He told me all these to prepare my mind for marriage, and after he had waited for some years and I didn’t introduce any female friend to him he set up a heart to heart talk with me on marriage. Never a man to stampede or mount undue pressure on his children, he dealt with the marital issue in the most diplomatic manner and in a jovial manner, he “tutored” me on how to woo a lady.

We both laughed it off, but I got the message- I was ripe for marriage and the fact that he and my mum had no clue about my marital plans had caused them some anxieties. When I eventually told him a couple of months later that I had met a lady I would like to marry and would be introducing her to them, he said rather excitedly: “I told you there is nothing difficult about this thing”(wooing a lady).

And when I finally introduced my fiancée to him, he took an instant liking for her apparently because he was convinced the union was a product of his ‘tutoring’, more so when my “testimony” of how I met my wife had some similarities with the tips he gave me on how to woo a lady.

Mayegun was a lover of education and ensured that all his children got the necessary support to get a good education. I recall how he rebuked me when he learnt of my withdrawal from a master’s degree programme at halfway because I could not afford the school fees. My explanation that I took the decision because I didn’t want to bother him or anybody with postgraduate school fees, when he still had my younger ones in school only succeeded in infuriating him the more.

He told me that his retirement notwithstanding, he was duty-bound to pay my school fees to any level.  He later demonstrated that a few years later by paying for the postgraduate studies of two of my younger ones. Interestingly, the seed of my love for journalism was sown by my dad, howbeit, unknowingly.

While other siblings of mine had other daily chores, it was my lot to pick up dad’s newspaper daily from the news agency office in the neighbourhood. I started doing that before my ninth birthday.

And it conferred on me the right to glance through the headlines and some of the stories before anyone else. When eventually I opted for journalism as a profession after my national service, he had no qualms with my decision. And when a few years into my journalism practice my mother raised some concerns about how the then military regime was hounding journalists, insisting that I should opt-out and look for another job, it was my dad that convinced my mother on the need to allow me to continue with the job I seem to have passion for.

And when I was about to join the public service, it was another round of tutelage on how to serve without soiling the family name. For him, the emphasis should be on service and value addition above every other consideration. And he kept checking with me to ensure I uphold those core values.  

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