‘Death, no rejoice say you took away Tunde Oladunjoye’
I first met the late Tunde Oladunjoye in the early1990s. I was fresh from Nigerian Institute of Journalism (NIJ) and had just got a job at the Daily Times Plc of Dr. Yeni Ogunbiyi. Oladunjoye was an ‘itinerary’ PR man before and after his graduation from NIJ where together with the likes of Lere Olayinka, Austin Oniyokor, Uche Nnadozie among others, they led a protest that led to the closure of the professional journalism school for months, well that is not the crux of this report. Meanwhile, Oladunjoye and co., where far my Juniors in the school ‘sha’.
As a PR journey man, Oladunjoye had the late Kenerry master, Orlando Owoh and Waka Music Queen, Salawa Abeni on his clientele list and that was what made our part cross again after school.
As an entertainment reporter on Evening Times, which was the leading evening paper in those days, remember there was Guardian Express, PMnews and other inconsequential papers pretending to be evening newspapers, Oladunjoye had no option but to reach out to the Evening Times to publicise the story of his clients’ mid-week performances in Apapa.
He will bring the press releases of his clients’ shows in Faslak, Wazobia hotels to me for publication and made sure that I attended the shows with other entertainment writers like the late Amadi Ogbonna of the Vanguard Newspapers, Ejiro Roman-Adigbo. There he made sure we were spoiled silly with booze and asu goat meat courtesy of his clients, Owoh and Abeni. He facilitate my interview with Owoh when he was released from prison and made sure that I became a regular visitor to the musician’s Iyana Ipaja residence before he died years ago.
Same for Abeni he drew me close to the Waka Music Queen, introduced me to her younger brother whom we simply called Alhaji. That was how close I was with him till he joined the community of human rights and advocacy.
He started by doing advocacy for Gbenga Daniel before he succeeded Aremo Segun Osoba.
From there he joined mainstream politics, became a local government chairman courtesy of Gbenga Daniel and this is where we went our separate ways.
What exactly was responsible for our parting of ways? It was my admonition to him to cease attacking Daniel who is responsible for whatever political post he had gotten then. Then, the misunderstanding between Obasanjo and Daniel had started and fortunately unknown to me Oladunjoye had shifted camp towards Obasanjo and was made one of the SAs to the then minister of agriculture; he did not like my suggestions to him to mellow on the way he was attacking Daniel on social media handlers. Mine was that no matter what, Daniel held the ladder with which he rose to political prominence in Ogun State and so deserves some level of respect from him. But that fell on his deaf ears and he immediately blocked me on all the handles until recently I saw his invitation as for my friendship again and which I accepted and days after I learn of his death.
‘Sun re o’ CATO till we meet again.
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