By Muyiwa Asetiba
All tennis buffs look forward to the Grand Slams or the Masters Series where supreme tennis athletes enter ‘the arena’ to showcase their immense skills, sometimes defying the freezing cold, or gusty winds, or whatever it is the elements might throw at them.

The last man standing is usually the person who has shown enough grit, enough desire and enough skill during the two gruelling weeks.

All tennis buffs also have their favourites and a Grand Slam is not a Grand Slam if your favourite player is not in contention. So for me, the absence of my two favourite players in this year’s Australian Open has cast a pall on my enjoyment of the first slam of the year.

Rafael Nadal, the man I adopted after Pete Sampras retired, has been off the circuit for the past seven months now. Hopefully, he will be back in time to dominate the clay court season.

Deacon Ayo Ositelu, on the other hand, has retired permanently from the tennis circuit. The cruel irony is that he retired so suddenly barely a week to the first grand slam of the year, when he would have dominated the arena with his crisp ‘shot making’. For years,I had enjoyed watching the game on TV, and reading his comments and analyses the following day in the Guardian. We may not always be on the same page, but at least, he was well informed.

The first time I read his article was in the late 70s in the Punch. I mean no offence to our sports writers when I say that I thought it was a foreign article. There was this combination of facts, authority, passion and simplicity that was rare in our newspapers. His articles made you feel complete as a sports follower.

It was a delight when he started writing for me as Editor; and a double delight when I found we shared the same ‘Alma Mater’. Though I never met him in school—he was that far ahead—Deacon Ositelu deferred to my position and he never called me by name throughout that period.

I called him ‘my senior’ and he called me ‘my editor’. In fact, that was how the telephone conversation we had barely 48 hours to his death, went. He seemed healthy, and in good spirit when I called to thank him for a favour he had done for me. He dismissed my effusive gratitude with ‘You will always be my editor’.

The news of his death 48 hours later was a shocker. One that got me starring out of the window in a daze for a long time. Deacon Ositelu was not only a talented sports writer, he was also a decent tennis player and an accomplished goalkeeper. Above all, he was such a gentleman. Sleep well my ‘senior’.

Another colleague, Victor Akin Ogundipyue was to be buried the week Deacon Ositelu died. Like the late Deacon, Victor and I had Punch and the same ‘Alma Mater’ in common. So mine was a face from the past when Victor joined the Punch team.

As it turned out, Victor certainly didn’t need any tutelage from me, or from anybody. He took off on such a fast lane that he left the rest of us behind. It quickly became very clear that he would outgrow the Punch, and The Financial Punch, which was virtually set up because of him, could not keep him. He left for the corporate world where he redefined the image and concept of Corporate Affairs. Bold, confident and intelligent, Victor raised the profile of Corporate Affairs Management to an intellectual level. He proved that your boss would listen to you, if you had something worthwhile to say.

Unfortunately, Victor’s meteoric rise to the top, earned him many enemies and the eagle’s wings were not only clipped, they were punctured. It was a drained, and battle weary Victor that fell to the ground. I told him his brain was his greatest asset and that he would rise again. But the fall had humiliated and winded him too much. Victor began to slip away slowly… .

Victor should be remembered, along with Stanley Egbochukwu and Onyeama Ugochukwu, for their contributions to financial journalism in Nigeria. I personally will remember how he helped me with huge advert support during the early days of Prime People.

I was leafing through a daily paper when I stumbled on the death of another colleague – Tunde Agbabiaka. Tunde, who made his name when he covered several war zones during the liberation wars in Southern Africa, was a free spirit. And for a while, I enjoyed the carefree lifestyle that my association with him in the middle 70s brought.

A mutual friend ,Yomi Lajide, had a place in Surulere which we promptly renamed ‘Supreme Headquarters’. There, artistes, journalists and a couple of pilots, met about once a week for fried yam, drinks and camaraderie. It was a time to be young. Tunde, aka as Afroguard, was a respected ‘officer’. He was a man of ideas and a delight to spend time with.

So within a month, I had lost three colleagues who had touched my life in different ways. The way I feel right now can aptly be summarised by a line from a song which simply says ‘I feel a sense of loss tonight’.