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Opinion:
BY ‘OLOYE LEKAN ALABI
That all career and non-career Nigerian Ambassadors/High Commissioners have been recalled home from their missions, on or before October 1, 2023 by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government is no more news.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ajuri Ngelale, has publicly announced. We thank God on behalf of our ambassadors for their sterling services to our beloved country, Nigeria.
On a personal and modest level,I wish to appreciate two former Nigerian High Commissioners to the United Kingdom and the incumbent, for the honour done my humble self by them, while my modest path crossed their diplomatic highways between1976 and now.
They are Ambassadors Omolodun, Dalhatu Tafida and Sharafa Ishola.
This is the story, please. Sequel to the clearance given to me by the now-defunct WESTERN STATE STUDENTS ADVISORY BOARD (WSSAB) after scaling through the grueling interview session by its 5-man panel on why Nigerian students wanted to travel abroad for further studies, I obtained a valid one-year British student visa, in March,1976, on first appearance at the British Consulate, then situated in AJE HOUSE, Oba Adebimpe Road, Dugbe, Ibadan.
By April, the following month, I arrived London, United Kingdom, to assume studies at the famous College of Journalism (COJ), 62, Fleet Street, London EC 4. The College has since 1982, been merged with the University of London.
On the fourth day of my arrival in London, I followed a directive given to me by the WSSAB that I register with the Nigerian High Commission’s Students Affairs Department.
You could not be bemused more than I was, on seeing the details of the maverick, Mr. Fela Ransome-Kuti, on the list of students who had formally registered with the Nigerian High Commission, in the 1950’s.
Mr. Ransome-Kuti was registered as a medical student! I reflected on how circumstances and places change people and their ideologies. The same radical Fela complying with the Establishment rules while a youngman.
I was so much in sync with our High Commission, London, to the extent that I visited it regularly to catch up with home news, particularly visiting the place to read Nigerian newspapers, the Sketch titles, in particular.
Why? Kindly remember that I was on the editorial staff of the SPCL as a Reporter/Writer/Reader Grade 11, writing two weekly columns for the Sunday Sketch (IT’S WHAT’S HAPPENING) and Mo RI I FIIRI in the GBOUNGBOUN weekly, such that the then High Commissioner, Mr. Omolodun, kindly accepted my invitation to him to chair our wedding reception held in the hall of the Saint John’s Wood Anglican Church, Hampstead, London.
Eleven years ago, it was an effortless task for me to get approval for a courtesy visit in 2012, from the University of Ibadan-trained Dr. Dalhatu Tafida, our High Commissioner to the UK, in my capacity as the Chairman of the KING SUNNY ADE FESTIVAL 2012. Now to the Immediate Past High Commissioner, Ambassador Sharafa Ishola, an affable, humble gentleman and sterling public officer.
With due deference, we have known each other closely for upward of 30 years. Ambassador Ishola, from the time he was a Commissioner to being the Secretary to the Ogun State Government and later Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has always accorded me, like so many other people, respect and affection.
In 2009, he approved my application to the Ogun State Government for financial assistance to the then ailing Chief Tajudeen Alabi Yusufu-Olatunji, the eldest child of the late Sakara music doyen,
Yusufu Olatunji (Baba l’Egba),whose band played for three consecutive days (Friday, November 3, to Sunday, November 5,1950) at my naming ceremony in Ibadan, my beloved hometown. I had applied for OGSG’s financial aid to Chief Tajudeen Yusufu-Olatunji, Baale of Lafenwa, Abeokuta, in my capacity as the founding Chairman of the YUSUFU OLATUNJI FOUNDATION.
But, to our pleasant surprise, Ambassador Ishola paid for the treatment of the now late Baale,from his private pocket.
In March last year, while I was in London for the celebration of the 70th birthday of my dear ‘aburo’, Ambassador Ibironke Vaughan-Adefope, a former Nigerian High Commissioner to Zambia and Malawi, Ambassador Ishola graciously granted me the honour of a courtesy visit on him, despite his arrival in London from Abuja, a few hours before my visit.
He is a role model diplomat. The USA-based cultural NGO, THINK YORUBA FIRST (TYF) of which I am the Patron, is full of hope that the seven months old formal appointment given to us by the High Commissioner’s protocol officer will still hold later this month, as we stage our annual Cultural/Economic Workshop in Dagenham, UK
Once again, I doff my hat to the three Nigerian High Commissioners mentioned by me in this tribute. Thank you.
* High Chief ‘Lekan Alabi, D.Litt(h.c), Maye Olubadan of Ibadanland and the first Culture Ambassador of the National Museum and Monument, Ile-Ife, writes from Ibadan.
