Stephen Adewale

Only a sparrow standing on a ridge is bigger than others, according to Yoruba adage, and only a child sitting on an elder’s shoulder can see farther than other children. Over the last fifteen years, I’ve had the pleasure of working with a plethora of mentors, scholars, great teachers, thinkers, and coaches. No one, however, has ever had as much influence on me as the man who is celebrating his 50th birthday today. The man I met by providence almost 12 years ago.

It was October 3rd, 2010. The new day was mostly overcast, and I was reluctant to leave my bed at Obafemi Awolowo University’s Fajuyi Hall. Campus was already agitated. Roosters squawked and crowed as they spotted glimmers of light in the horizon, perhaps hoping to awaken those of us who were still sleeping. Soon, prayer calls could be heard through loudspeakers mounted on the minarets of Fajuyi Hall Mosque. In the eternal battle for the soul of the Nigerians, Christians praying at the nearby Sports Centre had begun to raise their voices to summon believers to the early morning service. These morning rituals had a way of infusing our boisterous and restless Campus with new energy and life.

My phone rang in the midst of all of this. The caller who dialed from an international number introduced himself as Adewole Adebayo. Two days earlier, I had written an article about the need for Nigeria to redefine her foreign policy. The article had gone viral and had been published in nearly all of the country’s National dailies. The article’s content elicited a flurry of reactions from both the protagonists and antagonists of the Nigerian government, and my phone was ringing almost every hour with calls from those who wanted to express their views on my article.

As one of the last sets of radical young Nigerian students, my approach to national issues in those days as a Student Union Leader, and the amount of risk that should be invested in it, had been shaped and fixed by years of imaginative and inventive practice. In those days, I wrote with supreme confidence, youthful exuberance and the aggressiveness of my generation of Students Union leaders in OAU. Among the phone calls I received, this particular one from Adewole Adebayo stood out because he told me that he was so impressed with my write up that he decided to submit the article to the then-Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Senator Matthew Nwagwu, and he promised to do everything in his power to ensure that the content of my article was implemented by the National Assembly. This marked the start of my professional relationship with one of Nigeria’s most influential thinkers.

We never spoke again until four years later, when an NGO was looking for a Research Director and he contacted me again. Despite the fact that I had lost contact with him, he reintroduced himself and informed me that an organisation was looking for a Research Director and that he was confident I would be the best candidate for the position. That’s the kind of Adebayo I’ve grown to know over the years. He stayed in touch and never lost contact with anyone, no matter how lowly placed they were.

After graduating from the institution we gleefully tout as “Africa’s Most Beautiful Campus”, therefore, I had the privilege of working for him and the relationship has become so blossom that many, including my former university lecturer, refer to me as “Wole’s boy”. Even if tinged with certain amount of hyperbole, the nickname had some truth to it. Familiarity brings some measure of responsibility. My President, as I affectionately refer to him, credited me with omnipresence and efficiency that I owed entirely to chance.

Throughout his career as a man builder, he has taken a keen interest in both the professional and personal lives of his employees. To get the most out of them, he understands that he must be close to them, feel them, understand them, show concern when they have problems, and know their thoughts as much as possible without compromising discipline. This has been his style, and despite the fact that the rumour mills were whirring in full capacity against it, it has served him well. An informal and practical lawyer, Wole likes sampling opinions and sounding his ideas on a human board of colleagues and subordinates.

He is a mentor, parent, godfather, life coach, friend and role model to many. He has been on the journey of life for five decades now. Within such a short period of time, he has seen and he has conquered! His life is a compass, map, navigating tool, guide and a manual on how to face life. A philanthropy to a fault, Adebayo sponsors nearly 2,000 young Nigerians in Nigerian and foreign tertiary institutions, in addition to numerous people he has financially empowered across the country without making a fuss about it.

He founded KAFTAN TV in 2017 by foregoing the typical entrepreneur goal of profit and deciding to give young people opportunities that the Nigerian educational system has denied them. He founded KAFTAN TV, a platform that has successfully taught young Nigerians the art of broadcasting. At the time of writing, the media company had trained 1,036 corps members across its three stations in Ondo, Abuja, and Lagos. So far, 103 corps members have been retained by the company. Many of the trained corps members have risen to positions of power in the country. Adebayo has created human resources that have helped. He has been successful in bringing thousands of young people out of the unemployment line, training them in broadcasting skills, and producing high-caliber professionals.

Of course, every good effort comes at a cost. The most common of these is people, particularly many young people and languid employees, taking his goodwill for granted. Scars will always exist, but the good news is that men like Adebayo are never discouraged or deterred. Adebayo’s life, at the age of 50, is a microcosm of Nigeria. It is a story of titanic sacrifice, betrayed trust, and eventual triumph in the face of adversity. He has been through it all.

His passion to serve others knows no bounds. Seeing him work to add value to other peoples’ lives, the energy he brings to whatever he sets out to do or achieve can push men and women around him to go on working even beyond the limit of fatigue. For a country like Nigeria, which has always missed the fact, ignored the substance, and chased the shadows, the efforts of men like Adewole Adebayo are assisting the country in searching its conscience and doing not only the needed but also the necessary.

Adewole Adebayo is a burden carrier. He carries his own burden and that of others, but he is not doing so like Abraham who wanted to sacrifice his only son or like Jesus Christ who was crucified on the cross at Calvary. He carried others burden through the understanding and aggregations of all afflictions, all disturbances, all worries, and all troubles. He related to his own burdens and added others. In summing up what others burdens are, he becomes like a wizard who can see it all. In solving the problems, he becomes like the wise god who gives without receiving sacrifices. In giving practical answers, he becomes like a Prophet just returning from a divine mission from the wilderness.

There are human species in this country; at the last count, there were more than 206.1 million. What we need right now are real men and women like Adewole Adebayo who will stand up and be counted for the greater good.

As I wish my boss another fifty years of happiness and good health, may service to humanity remain his goal always.

Stephen Adewale, KAFTAN TV’s Head of Station, writes from Ondo