For Ladoja, Akala and Peter Ajayi, ancestral spirit -By Festus Adedayo

Osi Olubadanand former governor of Oyo State, Senator Rashidi Ladoja, celebrated his 75^th last week. You may disagree with his politics or find faults with his modes of operations but Ladoja has been the issue in the politics of Oyo, at least from 1999 till today. Students of Oyo politics will neglect to find answers to why a large chunk of party faithful flock his Ondo Road, Bodija, Ibadan  home for answers to knotty political questions, at their peril. This is wishing him a very happy birthday. Even though his own birthday is far belated, let me wish Ladoja’s former deputy, Adebayo Alao-Akala a happy birthday as well. He celebrated his’ in June this year. Alao-Akala also possesses some measure of humanity that politics cannot do without. From a distance, I observe these politicians and I must confess that most times, writings that crucify their politics in totality have not been too fair to them.

Two days ago, one of our ancestors in the pen fraternity, Peter Ajayi, was a decade old in the sepulcher. Brilliant journalist and one of the post-war era wielders of the might of the pen, Ajayi was one of the troika that Immortal Obafemi Awolowo nicknamed The Musketeers. The others are Felix Adenaike and Segun Osoba. You needed to read his autobiography, Not His Master’s Voice to recognize Ajayi’s brand of avant-garde journalism. It is painful that I got close to Ajayi at the twilight of his existence. I made up for that miss by being at his bedside a couple of days before his exchange of mortality for immortality, in the company of another friend of his – who is also late – Uncle Charles – Charles Ariyibi. Though shawled by indescribable pains, Uncle Charles jokingly asked Ajayi to get up from his sick bed and take a bottle of beer, to which he replied him feebly, “you’re not serious.” Two days or so later, he passed on.

While celebrating Ladoja and Alao-Akala and their politics, I celebrate the memories of journalism ancestors like Ajayi, whose spirits we, their offspring, invoke when at journalism crossroads – what they, the ancestors themselves, call the ikorita meta  ti n daamu alejo. Please, accept my libations.