The Unusual Ogbeni Turns 60 Years

Lanre Arogundade, President of the International Press Centre eulogises a colleague in the journalism profession on his birthday

Laugh uncontrollably, have mouth wide opened or simply stay stunned in amusing silence while shaking your head! Any of these is bound to happen when you encounter him for the first time; or even a second, a third, a fourth, etc, time. For close associates, you may say it is the occupational hazard of being friends with someone who seems to have been born with talkativeness, wit, sharp jibes and humour.

Sometimes, these natural gifts could cause near commotion, as it did on the playing field of the Catholic primary school, Osi-Ekiti, during the funeral party of my elder brother’s mother-in-law few years back. So great was that performance that we couldn’t resist recording the one-man theater even as we laughed and laughed. Town folks who had not seen him before watched in disbelief.

Those jibes are not often about idle matters. They are sometimes political for he’s a keen follower and observer of political and social events.

Indeed one mistake you could make is to assume that Gokus, Gokus, as we often call the one who would normally introduce himself as Ogbeni Goke Odeyinka, is a clown. You would be dead wrong if you do.

Indeed, my first encounters with Gokus was at the second Saturday monthly general meetings of the Lagos Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists at the NUJ Lighthouse on Victoria Island in the late 80s. He was a regular as he rarely missed meetings. He was easy to notice. He seemed to know everyone by name and he seemed to have punchy yabis for each and everyone.

I noticed that some call him Baba Fela and initially thought it was merely because he was a Fela fan, having now met him on occasions at Fela’s People street, Ikeja, Afrika Shrine. But it turned out that he admired Fela much more deeply so much so that he named his first son after him and his second son after Fela’s younger brother, Beko. Gokus is therefore Baba Fela. He’s also Baba Beko and of course Baba Bolatito his splitimage daughter. Only the deep appreciated and stood by Fela. Gokus is one of them and one of the few who could authoritatively and factually talk and write about Fela. He’s probably more on the fanatical side and you would be incurring his wrath if you question his often stated assertion that Fela is the greatest Nigerian, dead or alive.

We emerged from those early encounters to become team members of the New Trend Movement of the Nigeria Union of Journalists and on the night that Ladi Lawal (of blessed memory), the arrow head of that movement in Lagos NUJ emerged the Council Chairman after a keenly contested election, we ended up - in the company of Baba Nla himself - at Fela’s shrine (where else? ) to celebrate the victory.

Getting closer to Gokus as co residents in Ijesa area of Lagos meant knowing him the more but the cycle became complete when I joined Concord newspapers where he was already excelling as Communications correspondent in the early 90s. In the newsroom he was always a star attraction. Only Gokus, Gokus, would be writing a story and still have the eagle eye to see a female reporter leaning on the table to chat with or answer querries from Niyi Obaremi, the News Editor. On such occasions, he would scream - that is illegal standing!. If the ladies fight back, he would threaten them with his weapon boastfully singing ....... ’ Union Bank - big, strong, reliable’.

As a jolly good fellow, it was obvious that Gokus would have good sources in the Communications Ministry. He regularly had bylines. And if you really think about it, he did have good sources as we can now reveal the state secret that he met his two wives in that Ministry!