ADIEU, FUNSO AYEJINA
Olu Obafemi pays tribute to his friend, mate and brother, Funsho Aiyejina
The demise of my friend and schoolmate, Emeritus Professor Funsho Aiyejina is a rude and devastating shock to me. It is a friendship of nearly 60 years. We met at the Provincial Secondary School (later christened as Government School Dekina) in 1965, he had entered PSS a year before. The friendship was instant and permanent. We were both about the most active members and leaders of all the clubs and societies in the college, namely, The Dramatic Society, in which we were both star actors. I remember, in 1966, we acted in Hensgaw’ s This Is Our Chance in which Funsho, with his effeminate frame and pretty face, acted the role of the girl, Ayi. A few years later, I, obviously less ‘ pretty- looking, was cast to act the role of Louka, in Bernard Shaw’s Arms and the Man, to my greatest surprise. Other Clubs, in which we featured remarkably together, were Current Affairs, Debating Society, and the School Reporter, the College newspaper. Because of its adjudged, fiery, acerbic and vitriolic nature, we were subjected to punitive actions of cane- lashing. I recalled that many of us resisted the caning but Funsho went through the very humiliating public lashing. Many of us held it against him but later in life, he explained to me that he had carried that burden on our behalf as the chairman of the Society – a manifest exemplar of responsible leadership which stood Funsho out in his career and leadership positions throughout his life. In sport, Fusho was outstanding in spite of his deceptive delicate physiognomy. We were both in the junior football team of the College, called the Mosquito Rovers but we later parted company as he took to Basket Ball and played for our State, Kwara State, the Obafemi Awolowo University and was on the Nigerian National Basketball Team. In classroom academic work, he was one of the best Arts students in his class, just as I was one of the best two in my class.
We have remained very close friends ever since, long after his repatriation to Trinidad and Tobago, and from his incredible talent, compulsive industry, creativity, he shone like a Gloworm all through his career as a scholar- poet, public intellectual, university administrator and dependable and humane humanist: kind, generous, selfless, and as an uncompromising radical ideologue:loyal friend and inimitable man of the family. Each time I had visited the Caribbean, he ensured he hosted me. In 1990 for instance, I had been invited by Prof Timothy Paine to the University of the West Indies at St Augustine to give a paper at a Conference on Women. I was housed in a decent hotel but on the second day of the Conference, Funsho had arrived at the hotel, quietly removed my things and left. Bewildered, I followed him into his car and he drove off. : “How could you come and stay in a hotel” in a city where I live? His wife Lyndia was a perfect host even though we were out every night to social and cultural Orishe festivals events , long into the nights. She managed to forgive us all the time.
And this genuine family and social hospitality subtended on every visit.
I recall in 2005,after several nudging that we must go back to our Alma Mater in Dekina, also because his Memoir would be incomplete without a physical visit and some picture tokens of those crucial features that made our lives in Dekina memorable, he extracted a firm promise from me, with that his penetrating, unblinking eyes. I consented. He followed it up with several emails and chats. So in 2006, on the invitation of CBAAC, he came to Nigeria as a Guest Speaker on a Lecture that I Chaired. Event over, Funsho, Isah Momoh another younger schoolmate residing in Lagos, set on the long journey from Lagos to Dekina in my reliable Honda Accord. To make the journey longer, Funsho insisted that we must go through Ilorin to see my wife and family. This additional diversion stretched the journey to two full days. Before leaving Lagos, I had taken him to attend the Editorial Board Meeting of The Sun Newspapers, where I was both a columnist, a member of the Editorial Board and Adviser. He participated very actively in the Editorial sessions, and long after his return to T&T, he continued to relish the experience. The trip to Dekina and the actual visit were memorable. We were all saddened by the state of disrepair that we found Dekina, our beloved school. Little did both of us know that that was the last physical encounter that we would have. Funsho’ s request that I found him a Sabbatical placement in Nigeria was being arranged until the painful news of his departure came to me through a statement sent to Odia Ofeimum and copied to me by our great friend, Professor Biodun Jeyifo (BJ).
We will all answer this inevitable call of death, one day but it seems to me that the rascally, unfeeling cruelty of death cannot be more shameless than the sudden removal of Professor Titus Funsho Aiyejina. His immortality is assured in his mammoth creative products, the undying memory in the minds of his numerous friends all over the world and humanity at large. He was a rare gem too hard to lose and surrender to wanton death. Adieu dear timeless friend and brother.
Obafemi, FNAL, NNOM, Pro- Chancellor, Conference University of Science and Technology, Kogi State is a professor of Dramatic Literature, playwright, poet and literary scholar
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