Dr Olumide Oluwagbolahan Awe (1955-2014)
I heard the news on Sunday the 21st of September. News that the man we spent years looking up to, looking forward to, is no more.
Olumide gave us much to reflect on with pride. He enrolled at Igbobi in 1967, a year after me, in the same house, Townsend. His whites on Sundays, razor sharp creases, tucked in neat and tidy, a source of envy for those who shared his dormitory. Even at that early age we recognised his qualities and so did the school when he was appointed Social Prefect, House Captain and Deputy Headboy.
Not one for shortcuts Olumide turned down an offer to read Medicine at one of the then newer universities on the strength of his ‘O’ level results, preferring instead to receive a proper grounding first. After reading for his degree in Chemistry in Canada, Olumide did not allow petty officialdom or red tape at Jamb to thwart his ambition to study at the College of Medicine of the University of Ibadan. I am sure that that College is proud of him. From early in his medical career Olumide placed service before material considerations, resigning his post at one clinic on ethical grounds, but preferring to keep his counsel about the details. ‘I am not fussy about salary,’ he told his next potential employer, Dr Awojobi, who later became a close friend. ‘But I am not shy to tell my employer if he is cheating,’ he added. Uncompromising in pursuit of excellence, his modified operating table at the Eruwa clinic to this day bears his name.
In England he specialised in Forensic Health and Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and worked with the most difficult to treat patients. Perhaps a career presaged by life with the denizens of Townsend House.
But Olumide has repaid Igbobi several times over for its faith in him, and for its training. Between 1978 and 1980 he served on the executive of the Ibadan chapter of ICOBA and was chairman of his set for four years. That set donated several large ticket items to the school, and recently refurbished the chapel with air-conditioning units. His classmates rewarded him with a Recognition and Merit award. In England he was elected Chairman of ICOBA-UK then ICOBA-Europe, a post he held from 2009 to 2013, during which he broadened the scope of the organisation, forged links between sets and other organisations at home and in the Diaspora. Olumide was a selfless leader, the sort of man who will scale the palm tree, crack the coconut with his head so that others could drink; a man who took the ideals of the Self Denial Fund at school to new heights. A leader with the common touch and generosity who bought creams for those with itchy legs, Icoba t-shirts for those with intransigent wallets and clothes for those whose threadbare garments had fallen off backs bent by hard times. He initiated the biennial retreats/reunions, calling Old Boys and well-wishers, sending e-mails, cajoling, imploring, exhorting us to step up to the plate for the old school. I know, having twice attended their meetings with him, that he will be particularly badly missed by ICOBANA. In 2012 Olumide’s unstinting hard work for the Association and Igbobi College was rewarded with a Merit Award from the National body.
We have lost a man whose shadow emitted more than could a million floodlights. His rugged persistence almost drove the impossible to flight. Olumide knew that he was gravely ill, but he did not let on. I knew and he knew that I knew, but when pressed he simply deflected your intrusion and I cannot think of a better example of a stiff upper lip in real life or in fiction. Sorrow and self pity buried many before their time but that was not his way. I don’t know how many will show an iota of that courage when their days remain one at a time.
To think what he went through these last years grinds iron filings into our hearts and a teary mist rolls before and behind our eyes. This woolly mist rises and engulfs my head when I lay it on my pillow at night and reflect that this repose is one we no longer share; and that that space in his bed lies unruffled, cold and forsaken, and does not embrace him in its warm breast. It stabs and twists our guts and stomachs, sucks the air out of our breaths, that we will not see him jetting, flitting, indefatigable, from London to Birmingham, to Delaware, Atlanta, Toronto and back again in time for work. They will remember him at Igbobi College and so will the alumni of the University of Ibadan and Nucleus. For our part, ICOBA-Europe will never forget his unmatched love for the Igbobi that brought us all up, and for that diastemic smile during renditions of the school song. I will remember the early morning e-mails, suggestions, rejoinders, corrections and reminders, his passion, and, when everyone did not feel the same way, his almost childish bewilderment.
I will not end by saying “till we meet again,” as if we have to wait for our own transition. I believe we will meet him here in spirit, during our daily struggles and encounters, battles great and small, when we will ask ourselves or our partners, friends, children even, how did he do it? How would he do it? How?
A chemist, a teacher, a doctor, a forensic psychiatrist and of course a leader and fantastic family man has gone: an innovator, a thinker, a determined man with iron will, dignity and courage, a member of that rare elite, the quintessential noble Nigerian, has left the firmament. “Death where is thy sting,” they say or sing. If only in truth we could be so dismissive when a life with so much promise is taken away, but even Death has to concede to Olumide the plaudits; as his example, and the values, Christian and secular, that he held dear and fought hard to defend, will never ever end.
My brothers and sisters, the laments on the lips of his loved ones only time and faith will assuage but one day they will take consolation, from the tributes of friends and salutes of strangers, that their husband and father and cousin and uncle and son and brother, lived a great life. To these loved ones we in ICOBA say may his soul rest in peace, but we beg you not to let the rest of us rest if you ever need us, for we are all one and he was one of us.
Bye bye Olumide and thank you.
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