By Bólá Adéwará
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We were discussing her joining us at NACJOURN, the Network of African Christian Journalists, believing her presence will add flavour. She told me she had heard of NACJOURN several times and had wondered who the people were.
When she heard Bólá Adéwará, and others, she was elated and decided to join. She put a call tru to me, and we were to meet somewhere first week in March. But this is not to be: I just saw a post that Yetunde Oladeinde is dead. Kai! This is cruel fa!
I met Yetunde Francis in the mid-1990s when my editor, Dupe Ajayi, brought her as a guest columnist in Weekend Times. She wrote a half-page column called Yetty’s Dairy. She would come in once or twice a week, drop her page, and off she went.
I was then a sub-editor, assigned to plan some pages, cast headlines, find suitable pictures and write captions, and supervise the production of the page in the computer room through to the press hall. Daily Times was a school for me.
Working on her stories brought us together closely. To date, I called her by her maiden name, Yetunde Francis or Yetty’s Diary. I knew her father’s house at Ebute Meta and was there a few times. A very close friend of mine sought her hand in marriage, but she was already committed to another man, whom we later found out to be the Oladeinde.
She was a forthright woman. The day she got committed to the man, she stopped my friend and I from coming to her house. That brought a halt to our friendship until we heard she was married.
We met again at Pentagon Plaza, on Opebi Road Ikeja, where Dele Omojuyigbe, another Daily Times product, and I were engaged by one Chief Mrs to produce a magazine she called Meru. I don’t want to go into that now because the experience Dele and I went through was a sordid chapter in our lives.
As our time with the woman expired, around the year 2000 or so, the magazine was unproduced, and we left. Later, I heard that Yetunde Francis was engaged by the same woman to produce another magazine. Those days were terrible! Yetunde Francis also had her share of our sordid experience.
It was not long after that the Sun Newspaper started. I was not ready to be a full-staff member of any organisation again. I had heard a message on the virtues of doing your own thing, defining your vision and projecting your pathway. I refused to apply but opted to work as a freelance for a number of media houses.
This I did till the Elife experience started in 2004, while Yetunde Francis remained with Sun. I met with her all the time I went to Sun when Femi Adesina was the Saturday or Sunday editor. (Can’t remember exactly now).
We also related on social media, reading each other’s posts and commenting whenever we came across one. I remember when her account was hacked and she ran to me to help. This remained the situation until my reading of her passing about 2:30am this Monday. I was shattered. She had even passed on since February 19! Haba Yetunde Francis!!
Just a few weeks or months ago, we chatted, remembering those days. I said, ‘Yetunde Francis, you don dey old o. Small time you go nak 60.’ She responded somehow. Let me make her response private. But if I had known her death was near, I would have taken the response more seriously.
It is within this matrix that I want people to be closely knitted with others. If anything is troubling you, find someone to chat with. Please don’t close your mind. Don’t be stressed unnecessarily. Find someone to chat with, someone to confide in. One life fa!
I’ve been producing some videos called Mentoring Masterclass in recent years. I am so shocked by the responses I get, especially from women. I did a video recently on old age. I must have got over 1000 responses in phone calls, SMS, WhatsApp messages, Facebook, and Instagram, mention it.
People are simply going tru different kinds of wahala. The heavy billows and poignant buffetings of life multiply if we bottle up. Yetunde Francis, its too early to die fa! You still have so much up your sleeves.
Such a brilliant journalist whose life was not captured in memoirs or biography. My brothers and sisters in journalism, immediately you crossed 55, especially in a country like Nigeria where we are consistently blessed, sorry ojare, afflicted with evil people in leadership, start putting your memoirs or biography together.
Don’t pass tru this place like a snake on a rock, leaving no tales. Try to get your details on Wikipedia. We keep writing and documenting the lives of others, while we do nothing about ourselves. We greatly underrate ourselves! No. This is not right.
Yetunde Francis, safe journey to eternity!
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