Exceptional Adenike Adewunmi Adebisi: No death can erase your beautiful memory

I launched the ‘Corruption Not In My Country’ on May 3, 2016. Before the end of 2016, I got the gracious support of TVC in a broadcast partnership that lasted close to a year. It was facilitated by my friend and brother, Mojeed Jamiu, who liaised with Morayo Afolabi Brown and Funke Sogunle. While this project debuted on TV, I made intentional efforts to populate the social media space with it. I started sharing the videos all around.

It is a national reorientation project that is dear to my heart. I wanted to leave nothing untouched to amplify the messages. I had such conviction that if we could recalibrate citizen engagement tools for national rebirth and achieve a resetting of our values, 50 percent of our problems as a nation would have been solved.

On the 8th of June 2017, you asked me to WhatsApp these videos to you so you could share them on your wall. Before that day ended, you came back to say “I have just mentioned your name to Wunmi Abiodun, younger Sister to Babajide Otitoju, Journalists Hangout Anchor on TVC. I told her you’re the brain behind ‘Corruption Not In My Country’ and she has started posting your audio-visual messages on police corruption on her page. It’s a great initiative that I’m excited about, so I’m proud to tell people about it. And by the way, I have shared them on my platform”.

I said, “Wow, thank you so much”. This selfless gesture from you was rare. How many people in this world really celebrate others genuinely?

On the 9th of January 2018, you teased my inbox as follows: “A de matchmake o. I want to link you to one beautiful and brainy girl”. I laughed and laughed and sent you the laughter emojis. You said you were serious. I said “motigbo” in Yoruba meaning, “I’ve heard you”.

On the 11th of March 2019, about a week after the sudden death of Prof. Pius Adesanmi, a death that shattered my peace and that of the world for years, I made a post that irked a mutual friend and director at the ministry of health,  Dr. Okolo Oteri-Eme. Okolo’s comment didn’t sit well with me and I went for her. We had an altercation. You came to my inbox to pull me back. You told me: “No, you can’t do that. In fact, I’m disappointed in you. I know you’re hurting but take it easy. All of us are hit by Pius’s death but don’t let this escalate into another crisis.” Then you asked me, “can you make peace with Okolo?”

I promised you that I would. There and then, I placed a call to her. On Okolo’s birthday, I got her a nice pair of shoes and dispatched them to Abuja through our mutual friend, Temitope Ajayi. Okolo was very happy and pleasantly surprised. We gained our friendship back. Such was your power of peace-building crisis management capability. You hated strife, you always wished the whole world would be a paradise where no one hurts no one.

On the 6th of October, 2021, at 12:57 pm, you wrote: “How are you brother, longest time. I am looking in to check on you.”

On the 25th of November 2021, you said: “How’re you doing? Checking on you?”

On the 6th of January, 2022, you wrote: “Happy New Year, hope you’re fine? Checking on you.”

On the 5th of May 2022, you said: “I am here to check on you and tell you thank you for everything.”

“Everything” here will mean my own moral contribution to our friendship, maybe by spreading the word about your ankara or packaged yam flour businesses. Yes, you were that industrious.

On the 5th of July, 2022, you came to my inbox again to say: “Thank you again, I appreciate you for everything you do.” I told you, “haba, my sister, it’s what I must do. But you’re the angel here”.

Towards the end of 2022, you had a major issue with a younger mutual friend on Facebook. We call him Dewunmi Lagos. You were very incensed. I got to know and was concerned. Not because it was not normal to have these occasional contretemps on social media, but because you were the wide-birthed umbrella or better still, the big tree under which many quarrels are settled. I was worried that that space’s toxicity humidifier, arguably the “last man standing” must not be allowed to fall into the “Fuji house of commotion” whirlwind that social media can occasionally represent. I told you that “we must resolve this right away”. You said, “no way, that boy really misbehaved”. I told you, “oh, I’m not asking for your opinion, it’s an order”. You burst into your signature winning childlike laughter and said “okay o, oya do it”. There and then, I connected with Dewunmi on WhatsApp, spoke with you both and implored him to apologise to you. He did. We settled.

Hear the testimonials about you in the last 24 hours:

Bamidele Ademola-Olateju, Ondo commissioner for information, described you as a “pacifist, demure humorist whose disharmonious dance steps is as amusing as it is enthralling”.

Petra Akinti-Onyegbule, former CPS, Kogi state government house, said “you were a delight. A pure soul in whom there was neither guile nor hatred”.

Olufunmilayo Odunaike: “You had a good heart. A giving heart. More than once or twice, you asked for my account number.”

Mayegun Asake Okin: “This life!!! Nothing!! Here today, gone tomorrow.”

Abiodun Atobatele; an entrepreneur: “I wish I had just a minute control over who lives, I’ll bring Adenike Adebisi back without hesitation.”

Adekunle Shotubo, an energy expert: “Vintage Adenike, this is so painful.”

Richard Akinnola, executive director, Media Law Centre: “I don’t even know what to say. Each time the death of someone confounds me like that of Adenike Adebisi, my recourse to spiritual catharsis is to listen to the last message of Archbishop Benson Idahosa on The Benefit of Death.”

The list is endless on the outpouring of emotions on Facebook. Thursday, April 13 was a day of complete gloom and darkness. We all got the pin-drop loud silence that wreaked our joy and kept us wondering if this was another joke from you. Your humour was soothing. One post from you will gather ants on sugar. There was no political disagreement, no matter how hot, that you didn’t reduce to humour. People of different political persuasions converged on your wall like a comedy rendezvous. You had the heart of a child and your kindness was effortless without egocentric drama.

This was how much you evoked our passion and impacted our virtual space. As was said of Marcus Brutus in Julius Caesar, you were decent and noble and of course, you bestrode the Facebook world like a colossus. You didn’t have to be a politician or a business mogul to earn this celebration. In your modest self-effacing calm life, more than 22,000 followers you had were literally weeping. To type this is difficult. To refer to you as a “was” is heart-wrenching.

Authorities on the shock death comes with were spot on when they said, “life can change in the blink of an eye, but love is eternal; Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, but love leaves a memory no one can steal”.

Your last joke was, “E be like say me too will take a huge break on Facebook. Thank you lovers of NIGERIA. I will be back in few hours time”. This is still being shared round as we speak. We know it’s no longer going to be a few hours. We know you are gone for interminable years.

Adenike Adewunmi Adebisi, your sudden exit took me to the depth of sorrow. Only one solace we shall all live with; your larger-than-life memory which no one will ever take away from us.

Akin Fadeyi is the founder/executive director, Akin Fadeyi Foundation