FEMI ADESINA: A LESSON IN FRATERNAL PHILANTHROPY AND EQUANIMITY

The plan by my association, Association of Veteran journalists, AVJ,Osun State to host Femi Adesina in a Media chat today, September, 20, 2023 became known to me only yesterday through a Press statement forwarded to me by my God father in politics, the Olu-Omo of Inisa,Chief Shuaib Afolabi Oyedokun who is currently in America. 

That the media chat with him ,under the Chairmanship of the state Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation  Alhaji Kola Alimi ,is being held as a way of welcoming him back home to his state ( Osun state) after his eight years of meritorious service to the father land  ,is another way in which I see history absolving him .

 One of the reasons why I did not, in good time ,know about this historic event in which the Special Adviser to former President, Muhammadu Buhari would be at home in the midst of  Chief Executive Officers of ten Broadcasting Officers, among others, is because I have not been attending meetings of my Association regularly.

 This is not however unconnected with the fact that in the past two years, I have steadily been a care giver to a mental patient, one of my children, whose medical treatment has not been without the philanthropic assistance of Femi Adesina.

 In a new book of my authorship titled:"TRAUMA OF THE DREAD-LOCKED " documenting the TRAUMA within TRAUMA associated  with his  mental illness amid shuttle from five different hospitals ( 2019-2023) I wrote in the Acknowledgment page of the yet- to- be launched book ,the immense contributions, notably ,of Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Femi Adesina for their moral,financial and spiritual support to my family towards ensuring that my son did not walk naked to the market square.

 It is a cause of painful concern for me that Femi Adesina's home-coming chat with the veterans is happening today, a date in which I am supposed  to be in Lagos towards keeping an appointment, ( 12 noon ) with an Abuja-based  indomitable lawyer  Rockson Igelige who is studying my case and considering instituting legal action against a reputable record company for violating my intellectual property.

I do now recall that Femi Adesina was with the National Concord newspaper when I was also working with the Punch newspaper,  ( 80s through to 2000 ) and we knew ourselves only  through our bylines which rocked the weekends

 But it was through an earlier media chat in 2015 organised by the Association of Veteran journalists for him at NUJ Press Centre, Osogbo that we met for the first time, flesh and blood.

At the end of our question and answer session , Femi Adesina got a complimentary copy of my Journalism textbook, Journalists and the Hand of God,  second edition ,leaving me with  a remark that continues to surprise me till now .

 " I must not take this book for free, please let me sow a seed to encourage you ." He remarked as he handed over to me a robust sum of money.

 When I was a Media Consultant ( Senior Executive officer ) in charge of the production of the magazine of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital ABUTH, Zaria, I had genuine reason to initiate a fund-raising charity to take care of whooping medical bill of a kidney patient,  Mass communication graduate, Miss Mercy Echeburu, who was then on admission at the hospital.

 It was through the direct assistance of Femi Adesina, then ,Editor-In - Chief of the Sun newspaper that my project to raise the needed fund through his newspaper succeeded.

And barely a month to leaving office as the Special Adviser to President Muhammadu Buhari, Richard Akinnola  in an open letter to Bayo Onanuga ,stated that it was remarkable that Femi Adesina, in spite of vitriolic attacks by the Press on his principal ,did not in any way, stifle press freedom.

Unlike the characteristic manner in which some  spokesmen for Presidents and Governors often master minded  booby traps of detention for fellow journalists  through unleashing  venom of petitions against them for criticising their principals , Femi Adesina did not for once engage in such unholy act .

Rather he engaged and still engages minds,  pen for pen ; point for point ,allowing a more superior judgement to rule while making saner conclusions possible.

In assigning values to my collective experience as a journalist,  I have  for some times been praying that nobody may dare me over my long-held view about journalists that sometimes we are our own worst enemies.  

Were I to be dared , I may have to relate  different case studies in which journalistic cocks of wire-pulling, betrayal and dog-biting dog syndrome had crowed many times, louder than the Biblical cock .

If I were  opportuned today to be one of his interviewers at the NUJ Press Centre for his home-coming reception,  one question I would have asked him is this : 

" From where did you draw your equanimity in  resisting the temptation of using your high office to selling out your fraternal brothers in spite of their vitriolic comments and attacks on your Principal ?

Let the golden words of 

Fidel Castro, in his historic speech," HISTORY WILL ABSOLVE ME" here ,serve Femi Adesina at this home-coming reception :

" To those who would call me a dreamer , I quote the words of Marti:

 " A true man does not seek the path where advantage lies,but rather, the path where duty lies, and this is the only practical man, whose dream of today will be the law of tomorrow, because he who has looked back on the upheavals of history and has seen civilisation going up in flames, crying out in bloody struggle, throughout the centuries, knows the future well-being of man ,without exception, lies on the side of duty ."

OLALERE FAGBOLA.

THAT LIGHT MAY BEGET LIGHT FOR THE AFRICAN CHILD ( SOLUDERO : IMOLE FOR IMOLE)

Light complexioned and cloudlessly wrapped up in blue royalty, the front cover page of "WOUNDS THAT  TIME WON'T HEAL" presents a  picture of a beautiful lady whose  arms and ankles shrank in DEPRESSION:

HEAD BLOODY BUT UNBOWED .

Going by this picture of Depression at its gloom ,the Front cover of this book  leaves us with the impression of the lady whose wounds are psychological and which TIME has refused to heal.

 In this intelligible and intelligent account rendered  in the 90-page literature however,  I perceive that the evil of procrastination ,is  the thief which has been robbing the society of decisive action on how to stamp out the evils of abuses that have been befuddling the African Child .

But  with the way the author of this book has intelligently weaved through her account however, her strong clarion call for action gives one the hope that the involvement  of an AFFIRMATIVE ACTION for effective  participation of women  in decision making , would assist in ensuring that the ongoing sensitisation would yield fruit afterall.  .

 It is therefore good news that WOUNDS THAT TIME WON'T HEAL authored by Feranmi Babatunde has been adopted for use in all secondary schools( junior and senior classes ) in Osun State, having recently received the stamp of approval by the State Ministry of Education. 

In recognition  of her consistent  contributions to the upliftment of the welfare of the girl child, the book, launched on the 2023 International day of the Child was faithfully dedicated to honour  Her Excellency, Soludero , Titilola Adeleke; The wife of the Governor of Osun State , Senator Ademola Jackson Adeleke .

 This is indeed a great challenge before Her Excellency whom the author ,herself, ( in her opening remarks) described as an Icon of hope .

It is also not by mere coincidence that iron sharpens iron and that Imole foundation, owned by the author , has thought it fit to honour a gubernatorial Adeleke dynasty which has become Imole of Osun state . Honour begets Honour ; Light should equally beget Light  for the African child, and this hopefully should manifest in the plan and policy of the office of Her Excellency in carrying the product  of this ngo( the book ) to enviable heights .

 It is said that the Destiny of a people would be determined by their response ( not reaction ) to the challenges facing them . It is really unfortunate that Osun state appears to be the only state in Nigeria where there is no single woman in the legislature .

How does the hallowed chamber ,in this regard, ensure adequate voice for the girl child ? 

Thank God however that this book could be one of the  road maps with which Her Excellency( herself an Icon in championing the cause of women) could choose as a vessel of raising the heads of the girl child and in giving education to their parents on how to prevent their girl child from becoming victims. 

Amid good signals also coming from the National Assembly which is making it mandatory for schools to include lessons on how to prevent gender-based violence in their curriculum, it would be adding value to this policy if the office of Her Excellency ensures that this book ( which readily fits in ) is given wide circulation in secondary schools.

The only way to doing this is for her office to bulk purchase copies of the book for free distribution in all schools. 

 There is no doubt that the words : WOUNDS AND HEAL are not words that appeal only to the physical but more to the psychological and the Spiritual.  In the holistic healing of the wounds , there is no way religious institutions could be left out of the scheme . The Imole foundation must therefore ensure that it makes up the leeway by ensuring that its book circulates wide in our religious circles .

There is no doubt that this is a critique which should be driven on the fulcrum of objectivity.  However, as much as newspapering thrives on facts which are adjudged to be sacred ( even as comments are free ) the soul of any newspaper document worth its salt is its editorials . Just as an editor without an opinion would go nowhere, a critique without its own constructive voice would be pointless.  It should be noted here that the  International Day

 of African Child, being  the date chosen for the public presentation of the book, is built on the education consciousness of the African child who were painfully mauled down ( in hundreds )  for asking for their rights to be well-educated. It  behoves on government and all of us to support the dreams and vision of this foundation which are being formidably prosecuted  in its sensitisation drives through the nooks and crannies of the state . 

There is no doubt that the administration of Governor Nurrudeen Ademola Jackson Adeleke is stepping up to higher level its policy on zero tolerance  against child abuse in Osun state, it is noteworthy that the African child in Soweto ( in 1976 ) dared bullets fired at them by their assailants in their hunger for true development . They chose the path of true development in their demands to be educated in their mother tongue, even in the African language.  We can therefore borrow a leaf from here by ensuring that this book , having been recommended for use in our secondary schools, is given financial muscle , by philanthropists and governments  for wider circulation while equipping the foundation with necessary wherewithal to translate the book into the Yoruba language so that parents can be educated on the standards to preventing our wards from falling prey to the whims of criminals masquerading as relatives and child caregivers.

-OLALERE FAGBOLA.