Remembering Sardauna Keremi

To die completely is to be forgotten. He who dies and is not forgotten lives forever.” Samuel Butler.

November 28, 2017 marks a decade of the death of Chief Sunday Bolorunduro Awoniyi, the Aro of Mopa and Sardauna Keremi (little Sardauna), which happened in a London hospital from injuries he sustained in an auto crash on the Abuja-Kaduna road.

Our path crossed in 1996 in the course of my journalism practice. I was then with the Vanguard newspapers as Deputy Bureau Chief; and, later Bureau Chief in Abuja. He was a director of the newspaper and I had to take copies of the newspaper to him every day.

I loved to do it because it afforded me the opportunity of daily engagements with him. He was profoundly intelligent. Like a father, he would tell me stories about one remarkable event or the other while he was in the public service; and on each occasion, I always drew huge lessons from such narratives.

He was a man of integrity and stickler for proper conducts in and out of public office. He was a careful writer, a prose stylist. Our relationship was more than the kind that is wont to exist between politicians and reporters. By his own admission, he was not really a politician, but a public administrator sucked into politics. This, perhaps, explained why he was meticulous throughout his political engagements and later life assignment as Chairman of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), the socio-cultural umbrella organisation of the north.

We both did not abuse the privileges of our relationship. Despite his prime position in Vanguard newspaper, he did not notoriously appropriate the platform to project or defend his positions. He was always reluctant to grant interviews. I would occasionally pile pressure on him to offer perspectives on some national issues.

There were times when he would suggest to me that he would like to speak on some issues, which he would itemise; and, he would, in his quick-witted manner, ensure that his responses to questions and follow-ups were tied up with the issues on his mind. He was fastidious when it had to do with publishing his interview and, therefore, he would always be pleased if I allowed him to go through the transcribed interview before going to press. He would cross the “ts”, dot the “is” and make lucid, sentences that appeared tedious.

He was a simple man. He showed me fatherly affection. He was at home with my family. I remember when I travelled to Indonesia in 2000 to cover the InterParliamentary Union (IPU) Conference, leaving my wife who was due to put to bed at home, he took it upon himself to visit her in the hospital while I was away. He was giving me updates on mother and child. He was a terrific motivator, who was always on hand to provide some forms of succour in times of distress. His interventions were great. Above all, I cherish his respect. In spite of the wide age gap, he never talked down on me. He actually spoke with me and not to me. He was always ready to receive me into his home, even at odd hours. Sufuyan Ojeifo, Abuja