And so, the man is dead!

By Oba Olufemi Adewunmi Ogunleye, fnipr

I did not cry when I heard the sudden death of my friend, bother and colleague, Friday August 26th 2013. Not that I was hard hearted nor was I obedient to the tradition that Oba must not cry. No. The shock was beyond comprehension.

My friend and brother my mother never gave birth to, the quintessential nobleman and fine gentleman, Soniran Oluwole Sowemimo, a.k.a. S.O.S. shocked his friends and family most with this sudden departure without warning of a sort. Having spoken with him at about half-one in the noon on a proposal that just surfaced at the day’s Egba Traditional Council meeting, we both struck appointment to meet at our common rendezvous – Abeokuta Sports Club – in the evening to ventilate on the project.

For reasons I cannot now fathom I failed to honour the 6pm meeting at the Abeokuta Sports Club, even though I was busy preparing to host him and otherfriends the following day at a planned one year’s birthday anniversary of my twin son and daughter in my palace at Akinale. I was expecting a rebuke from another close friend and colleague who was privy to the scheduled meeting with SOS when he called me at about 11pm of the night but instead broke the unpleasant news that our own man, SOS was no more.

I waited for more calls to debunk the story but none came. I called other common friends, none responded. It finally dawn on me that I have lost a valued comrade and true friend.

Soniran , a high Egba Chief and Baba Ijo of Anglican Church, Oba Eerin, the township my friend so cherished and honoured that he commandeered all his loved ones to share in his desire to build a monumental church which has been completed to his credit and I, were colleagues in the Media since the early seventies. He,being in the electronic media and I being in the Print – FRCN and the defunct Daily Times respectively, our friendship and comradeship were solid.

I became closer to SOS when he was at the OGBC and I was at Nigeria Airways asthe Public Relations Manager. The death of my father and Baale Akinale in 1981 went further to solidify our union. I was out of town when Baale Johnson AkanniOgunleye died on Sunday December 21, 1981 but my absence notwithstanding, a great friend and mentor, Dr. Ore Falomo of Maryland Specialists Hospital, Maryland, Anthony, Lagos who was my father’s physician, had given my late wife, Adewunmi Abike an ambulance to convey my father’s corpse to Abeokuta General Hospital and so it was done, all in my absence. When I returned from Josin the evening, I proceeded to Abeokuta where I was shocked to find that my father was still being kept in the ambulance because the hospital authority said there was no room in their morgue.

My first port of call was the Abeokuta Sports Club where I found my friend, S.O.S. playing snooker. As I told him my father is dead, his reaction was “call the bar man”. I told him the bar should wait as my father was being denied place in the morgue at the General Hospital. My friend suddenly dropped his cue stick and led me straight to Dr. Majekodunmi, the then Club Chairman and Chief Surgeon of the General Hospital in his quarters opposite the club house.

To my surprise, Dr. Majekodunmi did not show any anger that his peaceful night was being disturbed, rather, he jumped into our car and led me to the hospital where several neat and well kept apartments in the morgue were opened for me to choose one for Baale Akinale. Sowemimo’s assignment had not finished, he wired the story of my father’s death on his walkie-talkie to Ogun Radio that night, andthe news opened the flood of kindness from everywhere for the burial of my beloved father.

Ever since I had a country home in Akinale, Soniran had remained faithful with me to mark my traditional new year party with friends and colleagues. The climax ofSowemimo’s loyalty to his friends and me particularly was when I was crowned an Oba in 2006. When the core Egba people, (and of course, s.o.s. is a conk Egbaman) - Ade wa l’Ake, Ase wa l’ogbe - almost seemingly isolated the Owu obas,s.o.s my friend would at any given opportunity pay me the traditional obeisance asKabiyesi. Throughout the period of our travail until finally the government approved our obaship and lately when I was promoted, s.o.s never left me bare ofthe traditional rite.

In 1992 when Oba Oyebade Lipede offered me a chieftancy title of Ekerin ApagunEgba, he euphoria was so great that the planning committee did not remember to demand from me what title had I hold from my home base of Owu. Impromptu, however, Apagun Pote Apomu Owu, the home of my paternal grandmother was arranged for me a night before I was to appear before Oba Lipede. Only S.O.S. my dear friend accompanied me to Jilafin compound, Apomu, Owu to receive the title.

I was among his friends he showed his letter of appointment as member of the Regent for Alake’s stool when Kabiyesi Alake was on leave and behold, I greeted my friend, Kaabiyesi, Alake Egba, to our delight!

Our joy eachtime we met was when we reminisced on our old days in the field of journalism. Times without number, I had mounted positive pressures on the catholic public affairs specialist, a cultural exponent, sociable personae and traditional chief of cosmopolitan Egba nation, to commit to writing, his life experience as a Nigerian veteran journalist who had passed through the mills of the “inky profession” and acquired varied experience from low and high positions. He had paid his dues.

Soniran took up the gauntlet to serve the public a teaser from his reservoir of knowledge in this book “Issues in the history of the Nigerian Mass Media” which though put together during his educational sojourn in far away Prague, Czechoslovakia some decades ago but with all the contents still as relevant, current and remain valid.

A Mass Communication expert who passed through the Lincoln University, Missouri, USA and University of 17th November, Prague, Czechoslovakia was a versatile reporter and sub-editor at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (now FRCN) where he also lectured at the Corporation’s Training School, Ikoyi, Lagosbetween 1973 and 1977. He was later Chief Reporter, NBC Ibadan from where he became Editor in charge of NBC Abeokuta. Between 1977 and 1982, SoniranSowemimo had become the Principal Editor and Controller of News and CurrentAffairs in Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC) Abeokuta.

Soniran’s success as Press Secretary to five governors of Ogun state in succession,Olabisi Onabanjo, (politician and an icon of the press) Oladipo Diya, OladapoPopoola, Raji Rasaki and Mohammed Lawal (all military officers) between1982-1989, can be aptly described as his exemplary acquisition of competence, credibility, confidence, courage and capability which made the governors and the governed to trust him so much. Judging from the divergence of styles, interests and ideologies of democracy and militocracy, the contending phenomena during his serving tenure, Soniran, as not only the spokesperson but the image maker of the government, obviously, was the flywheel between the two speeding forces, to strike the balance in the paradigm of governance and the governed.

Soniran was also appointed as Commissioner for Social Development, Youth and Sports in 1989 and Commissioner for Information and Culture in 1991.

Chief Soniran Sowemimo was the Akinpote of Egbaland and Babajo of Anglican Church, Oba-Erin, Abeokuta. He had also been a board member of the defunct Sketch Newspapers, Ibadan, Chairman, Moshood Abiola Polytechnic, Abeokuta, Chairman, Ogun State Broadcasting Corporation (OGBC), Chairman, Ogun State NUJ as well as Chairman the League of Veteran Journalists in Ogun State.

Although he did not have the opportunity to draw a graphic account of how hemeandered through the labyrinth of administrative logjams and  the socio-economic melee that pervade the system, yet without losing his head, nor tainted the body of the profession of his heart, no doubt, his legacy as known to us would be unforgettable.

I thank God for giving s.o.s a wonderful and remarkable life worthy of emulation. I pray his amiable wife and good children continue to be blessed in all ramifications.