Exit of Gbadamosi and Arigbabuwo -By Festus Adedayo

Two persons of value to this writer passed on last week. One was Alhaji Waheed Gbadamosi, ex-Director-General, Oyo State Bureau of Physical and Urban Development Control and the other, Toyosi Arigbabuwo, Yoruba thespian who this writer had watched his plays since the 1970s. Alhaji Gbadamosi was a thorough-bred town planner and a courageous professional whose insistence on rules made him an enemy of so many people. He was also a principled man whose fastidious insistence on process made him an abhorrent spectacle to those with impatience for process. He died a few days to his 70^th birthday.

Arigbabuwo, who this writer never met, was an act who taught him the little Yoruba he knows today. As a kid those days, we would run to neighbours’ houses to watch Arigbabuwo, Oyin Adejobi’s Kotu Asipa, Baba Wande, I-sho Pepper, Baba Sala, Yemi Elebuibon, etc on NTA. The one I remember vividly was Arigbabuwo acting as a captured babalawoin the land of his slavery. Asked to cut down weeds with cutlass as a captive, he wept profusely, asking which of the weeds could he honestly cut, when he knew that each of them was herb used for curative purposes? He sang: ewe gbogbo kiki ogun, eyi la fi n wo lakuregbe, ewo ni n ge?

May their souls find an anchor in the bosom of their Creator.