DAPSY: The revolutionary knocks the door of 70 — by Adewale Adeoye

Ahead of his 70th birthday which comes up next year November, I wish a calm, cool and collected revolutionary happy birthday, today November 08.

He is 69. Next year, he will be 70. More than half of these years he committed to the true service of mankind, in a very honest sense. The term revolutionary may have been corrupted and the word Comrade often now referred to as ‘Come-and-raid”, but there are a few people, very few indeed whose lives and time, whose manners, leitmotif, idiosyncrasies, whose conscience are truly revolutionary.

What stands a wo(man) out is not what s(he) says, but what s(he) does. What defines a revolutionary is not in the volume of books, the heap of wealth, the number of rallies or protests led, but that tiny unseen icon hidden in the deepest recess of our hearts, which we all call IWA in Yoruba. The near English translation is Character. It goes with the ancient saying, ‘IWA L’E WA.’ Character is beauty; character is humanity; character defines how great a person, a society or a nation is, it epitomises the greatest value, the highest trait that qualifies humanity

A Pasor, Imam, a revolutionary can be a rogue, a liar, full of treachery, deceitful, lack compassion, disrespectful and even cruel. But IWA is value added. When IWA is inherent in a revolutionary, s(he) becomes close to perfect. IWA has no full, adequate English translation. IWA is IWA.

Truth, honesty, compassion, integrity, fairness, consistency, affection and love all come under IWA. Being guided by IWA does not mean you have to be a Pastor, Imam or even Pope neither has educational qualification or wealth ever determine IWA.

Before I met him, I felt the echoes of his name, his exploit at Kwara State Polytechnic where he was not just a storming petrel but also a moral pathfinder for the students movement, in speech, in writing and in character. IWA followed him to Herald Newspapers in Kwara State and later to Lagos where his radical mien transformed journalism from theory to praxis.

You are not a revolutionary because you raise your voices all the time, not because you issue endless press statements or runs an ngo, or that you are in court all the time defending others, but because you have IWA, the true mirror that reflects your personal civilisation, your humility, your humanity, your honesty, your selflessness; the modesty of your tongue, the succour you offer even when you are in pain and your ability to leave millions of people with found memories of your kindness and everlasting compassion.

I did not have the privilege of working close to him until the dark days of the military when Egbo Dapo Olorunyomi took the lead in underground revolutionary work and mobilisation of Nigerians against the fascism.

The struggle was his vein, his artery, the water in his body and the whole essence of his being. He fought not for reward.

He created so many milestones in the campaign against military but never wanted to be seen, driven by selflessness and the mentality of MALAM, the Yoruba euphemism for someone who lives by giving everything he has to others, putting on his shoulders for the pain and anguish of others, feeding others when his own stomach is empty. His means of livelihood was the means of livelihood of all around him. The pain of others was his pain.

IWA reflects in his profession. Dapo Olorunyomi was the Editor of The African Guardian in 1993, where I was a Senior Reporter and later Staff Correspondent.

Dapsy presided over our editorial meetings with distinction.He came briefly after The Concord Newspapers were shut down by General Ibrahim Babangida.

Coming to the Editorial meetings, each reporter had to look for stories for the next edition of the weekly titles. The editorial meetings held on Fridays or Mondays. For every reporter, It was always a source of trembling and fear not to have a ‘fantastic’ storyline for the next edition. But to Dapsy, no story was useless, every story, no matter how arid, how lame, how insignificant, no matter how odd, no matter how pedestrian stood the chance of being developed into an ideological world class format.

Mere mention of a story on Egungun or Ofala festival, a visit to Ihiala, Nguru, Talata Mafara for interview with a trader, or a story on pigeons, woodpeckers in rural areas, or on lizards or on rats on the streets of Jos, could earn you a world class award. All you needed to do was to wait for Daspy give historic background, scientific, sociological and cultural narratives to the story. He would dust your rag into a modest fashion, turn your droplets into a stream and your tea cup into a positive storm; your weakness into a bundle of infinite energy.

Dapsy’s greatness is raw, real, undiluted and founded on an enduring rock. If. If. If. Just if . If only we can have people like him rule just a portion of our long suffering country. Honesty and truth exalts a nation while deceit, fraud, dishonesty veiled in different forms of religion, revolutionary garb, fake statesmanship ruin nations.

Dapsy inspires. He gingers. He motivates. He cares. He goes beyond professional borders to share your personal travails and tribulations, offering help when it is most difficult for him to do so, giving, when he is at the lowest ebb, caring when himself needs care and standing up for you to lean on his shoulders when himself needs someone to lean on.

He is calm but fierce, simply but dogged, slow, but as speedy as cheetah, meticulous but as firm as cedar tree. He is righteously kind. When he senses injustice, he becomes brutal and fights with the spirit of a lion.

His spirit of forgiveness is rare. Col Frank Omenka when he arrested me while I was at The Guardian for a story that exposed the secret detention of many Nigerians including the ADC of General Dipo Diya, one Col Nyiam whose offense was that he attended the birthday party of the child of the then United States Military Attache in Nigeria, was profusely asking me to ‘give information about the whereabouts of Dapsy’ so that he could fix him. He felt as a journalist, I should know.

Ironically, I later learn that while Omenka was at Nigerian Defense Academy, (NDA) Dapsy’s family house at Ilorin was one of Frank’s rendezvous. How can you forgive someone that wanted you dead, someone that hunted you with AK-47? Few months ago, Dapsy organised the first opportunity, since 1998, for Col Frank Omenka, who had escaped from Nigeria, to state his own defence.

His humanity is uncommon so are his sterling leadership qualities. In Ghana, where he escaped after disguising as a musician, fate brought us together again after he had secured a hide-out for Nigerian revolutionaries that Sani Abacha sought to maul.

This flat was located in Labadi area but had no address and could only be located through signs and codes given to would-be exiles including myself, Chima Ubani, Emma Ezeazu, Tony Iyare, Bunmi Aborisade and many others. I spent some time with him here again where he was the head of the house at the same time wanting to modestly be the servant and comforter for everyone. In Ghana, he gave succour to many of us including a young woman whose husband had been assassinated in Nigeria.

The young woman was struck by trauma when on the day of burial of her husband, those who killed her husband and had taken away his suits and shirts wore the same attire audaciously to his burial ensuring that his widow saw them eyeball-to-eyeball.

Dapsy has made a lot of legends. Many people in high places today rose through the ladder he built.

But he will never speak on this. He plants trees, not to protect him from the scorching sun, but for others to seek refuge. This is why his network, his gold fingers, the people he has touched, the lives he has lifted, the sorrows and pains he has removed, his legacies of compassion run across generations and across ideological divides; young and old, armed and defenceless people alike.

Happy birthday to you sir. You are an embodiment of everything that is good and excellent to the extent that many of us close to you discover that finding a fault in you is like looking for a pin amisdt the ocean shore.

As you walk towards 70, I wish you long life, peace of mind and perfect health. May your kindness, your IWA continue to see you through the thunderstorm, the maelstrom and landmines of life.