{"id":18231,"date":"2019-05-26T12:58:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T12:58:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=18231"},"modified":"2019-05-26T12:58:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T12:58:01","slug":"opinion-dapsy-a-reporters-encounters-with-a-man-of-unusual-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=18231","title":{"rendered":"(Opinion) Dapsy: A reporter\u2019s encounters with a man of unusual courage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Wahab Gbadamosi<\/strong>
\nIt was a few minutes to midnight. Then, the folks who man the rail lines between Maryland and Washington had slammed the access to the train station against late night commuters. \u201cWG,” he said casually, “let\u2019s go\u201d. He picked his car key and a 40-minute journey was underway. Some not too disapproving smile panned the sitting room.
\nWhat if some hooded guys in DC blocked this man? Or if anything happened to him midnight? Ladi, as he calls his wife of uncommon dedication, the Lord of the Manor, seems to be ruminating as my intruding presence made Dapo Olorunyomi, aka Dapsy, leave his wife’s arms some minutes to midnight. She managed a smile and waved him bye.
\nWhat manner of a man will leave his family a few minutes to midnight, just to help a JJC in DC? But Dapo Olorunyomi cares no hoot. If the goal is to deny himself of sleep, money and comfort to straighten out your path, Dapsy is game. A Greyhound bus at the Union Station was where he emptied this nocturnal visitor. North Carolina, my destination.
\nThe following day, l attempted to make some heavy weather of this courtesy through superfluous thanks. Just to appreciate this unusual being.\u00a0 Typical of the man, Dapsy, he deliberately downplayed his heroic sacrifice and made light weather of the huge help. This was in Washington, where every minute weigh in huge dollars. A few days before, he had abandoned his busy itinerary to drive me to Rtd. Gen Alani Akinrinade\u2019s home, for an interview published in The NEWS magazine. He didn\u2019t toss a map at me like your typical Washingtonian would do.
\nThat was in 1999.
\nClose to a decade later, he had summoned me to a point close to Louis Edet House, the Police headquarters in Abuja, yielded his car and eloped into another.
\nAnd throughout Abuja we meandered round the city, in a seemingly disorderly fashion, but as it emerged, calculated order-until the duo were done with their discussions. It turned out that some demented goons with access to state powers, mean and merciless in taking out folks like the man in question, were after Dapsy\u2019s guest, a patriot, one who had served Nigeria to the detriment of his physical and psychological health, friendship and bales of tempting lucre.
\nIn those two hours when we scoured Abuja\u2019s streets, avoiding –in mathematical precision, all police checkpoints in the city, the ingredients and bureaucratic \u2018scrolls\u2019 that eventuated in nation-building\u00a0news copies, was the subject of the duo\u2019s encounter.
\nSuch is Dapsy\u2019s love for his fatherland, this nation called Nigeria that he once quipped: \u201cBut is it a crime to love your fatherland? Is it a crime to love your nation\u201d, -apparently bewildered why a cell in a government he was serving will seek to do him in. Then, the media reported the case of some gunmen who wanted to take him out. “But we will continue to do our best. All I know is that good will always triumph over evil\u201d, he concluded in response to himself.
\nSuch reassuring elan, it seems, lay at the root of his unexplainable risks for this nation called Nigeria. Dapo Olorunyomi seems to have some unshakeable faith in God, nature and some ethereal forces that the good in his good, his exertion for this good, in this immensely blessed but mismanaged nation will always trump whatever risks lay on the risky paths which he often trod.
\nWhich is why you will catch Dapsy, at times– racing to Abuja from Lokoja at some hours to midnight, just to pave a path for a young fellow. Or do a stop by in Lokoja to broker a\u00a0discussion, see an old family member or ask after your health. And doing this with a reassuring mien like God has assured him that he will take the bad boys off the road.
\nAnd which is why Dapsy will go and confront Rtd. Gen Oladipo Diya when late Gen. Sani Abacha was new in power and the interimists were just trying to gain a foothold and ask: \u201cSir, with due respect, are you guys not being na\u00efve with your perception of late General Abacha?\u201d. Angry at BAT who brought him into Diya\u2019s presence, Abacha\u2019s deputy will ask, \u201cWhy bring this kind of man into my place\u201d.
\nAbacha was to ensnare Diya three years down the line. Dapsy\u2019s words seemed to be prophetic. Dapsy, Bayo Onanuga and their colleagues in The NEWS magazine were at the head of a titanic battle that ensured that Diya did not bite the bullet. What mattered to Dapsy and his colleagues was justice and the common good.
\nSuch streaks of courage are why only the six odd men of Dapsy\u2019s mindset: Babafemi Ojudu, Bayo Onanuga, Seye Kehinde, Idowu Obasa and Kunle Ajibade and Kabiru Yusuf will spurn Buhari\u2019s counsel. Buhari?\u00a0 Yes, General Muhammadu Buhari\u2019s admonition that they should be wary of Ibrahim Babangida as The NEWS magazine began its crusading genre of journalism in 1993.
\nThen, Bayo, Dapsy, Ojudu and Seye had finished an explosive interview with Muhammadu Buhari in Kaduna. Buhari had sat Dapsy and others down and lectured them on security and the new phase the nation was entering, as they began the patriotic but perilous business that was the publication of The NEWS and Tempo news magazines. It was not long before Buhari\u2019s fears began to manifest. First in dozens of arrests, arson and questionable deaths of journalists. Kunle Ajibade lived to tell his stories in Abacha\u2019s gulags.
\nDapsy\u2019s courage is steeped in history.\u00a0 His late friend and banker, Mr Adeola once recalled one of such encounters about 17 years ago. Not a fashion buff-and he protests with his wears – often, Dapsy\u2019s wife, Ladi, once poked fun at him as she scoured their house for just one trouser for him from a pile. Some fashionistas could worry about that.
\nDapsy had emerged as Dapsy. The Principal of his secondary school\u2014somewhere in old Kwara, was up in arms and slammed a fatwa against his entrance into the school premises. Forever calm and always radiating an inscrutable peace in an ocean of chaos and confusion, Dapsy shot out: \u201cI had a slight. I had a slight.\u201d It was the young lad\u2019s own riposte. For a secondary school student, in the back waters of Kwara, late Adeola recalled, this was too good an expression. The principal allowed the protesting lad to be carried shoulder high.
\nDapsy\u2019s romance with the choicest of words legislated that.
\nThere are a lot of good things to say about the self-effacing gem of a soul that is Dapo Olorunyomi. So many bits and pieces of him that it might fill another volume. Which is why we owe immense debts to all columnists, scholars and writers who have given us their peculiar peeps into our rare brother, boss and buddy that is Dapsy. I have not had the privilege of perusing the book: Profiles in Courage: Essays in Honour of Dapo Olorunyomi, edited by Chido Onumah and Frederick Adetiba, but several bits of Dapsy readily springs to life.
\nOne is that of Dapo Olorunyomi\u2019s native wisdom, perennial bother of not exposing the seamy sides of good men and women\u2014even when they screw up. It is a strangely excellent trait that only a Dapo Olorunyomi could balance.
\nLet me illustrate.
\nDapsy shuttled Lagos-Abuja-Washington-Accra and Joburg after Nigeria returned to democracy. In the pro-democratic and activists\u2019 cells in Lagos, many hoped that the return to democracy will give them some shade. For legal practitioners, robust pro-democracy activists and Nigerians hungry for the common good, the return to democracy and the emergence of Bola Ahmed Tinubu was some good omen.
\nBut the pro democrats felt too, that they had been left out in the sun and inclement weather. They complained that Tinubu did not reach out to shade them.
\nIn his typical style, Dapsy headed to BAT\u2019s Alausa and tabled these whisperings against Tinubu. \u201cWe tried, we did ABZ and catered to the needs of our colleagues. These were those who helped us\u201d, BAT retorted.
\nStunned, Dapsy headed for the abode of the pro-democracy activist, the supposed harbinger of the governor\u2019s homilies. \u201cAnd what did he say\u201d the reporter in me sprang up. \u201cHmmm\u2026he began, in the typical Dapsyspeak. \u201cHonestly what that guy said was a little dirty. So dirty I can\u2019t even repeat it\u201d.
\nDapsy was not being economical with the truth. He was just being Dapsy: This pro-democracy activist in question had done so much good for the nation, the student community, journalists, activists and lawyers that it was little heavy to decapitate him on account of a single slop.
\nNever one to crow about self, his strange, vast, multifaceted accomplishments, Dapo, –impeccable sources affirm- had his imprint in BAT\u2019s election to swing the gubernatorial for a BAT aide that Dapsy never talked to, but for which he passionately rooted for, before his boss. Those familiar with the inscrutable workings of the ADAN political machine affirmed that one day, Dapsy told BAT: \u201cThat guy is your best bet. He is your best bet\u201d.
\nThe folk did not disappoint. The rest, as they say, is history.
\nA reliable journalist claims Dapsy discreetly, once suggested \u2013without the knowledge of a candidate for the Vice Presidency- that the calm fellow will jell with the Northern political machine. Dapsy was dead right.
\nBut all this, you will never, never hear from him- testimonies to the\u00a0nobler content of the personae that coalesce, to use one of the words that Dapsy could have\u00a0summoned, to make up the Dapsy mystique.
\nForever patriotic, forever looking at the bigger picture, Dapsy\u2019s constituencies broaden into a vast amalgam\u00a0of colour, generation, religion, ethnicity, profession, class and race, in a fashion only Dapsy could explain. If he is not discussing how to train the next generation of professional journalists, who will have ethics at the heart of their trade, he would be bouncing ideas on the role of data driven copies, how that could foster accountability in public space and strengthen democracy.
\nAs he inches close to his mid-60s, will Dapsy continue to live the way for which he is known, almost in self-immolation: serve country, community, Africa and humankind in his altruistic ways? Will he enjoy the space and quiet to write some books he had dreamt about?
\nOne of such projects is a book on late Mokwugo Okoye, an unusual scholar and humanist of another vast dimension, about his anti-corruption forays under Nuhu Ribadu, his photo project and Dapsy\u2019s own multi-layered competencies, uncommon insights and native wisdom. In short, when will Dapsy script his own account of his journey and its rich lessons?
\nAs we celebrate bits and pieces of this man — who celebrates the minutest of good in others — may the Creator grant him sound health so we can sip, in full measure, from his fecund mind.
\n\u25aaGbadamosi, a Deputy Director, is of the Communications & Servicom Department, Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Wahab Gbadamosi It was a few minutes to midnight. Then, the folks who man the rail lines between Maryland and Washington had slammed the access to the train station against late night commuters. \u201cWG,” he said casually, “let\u2019s go\u201d. He picked his car key and a 40-minute journey was underway. Some not too disapproving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18232,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5777],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-features"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}