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Olunloyo: Goodnight, Voltaire

Published

6 months ago

April 13, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

At his ancient ‘imperial’ home in Molete, Ibadan last Thursday, I wrote in the condolence register: “He was a man, like French philosopher, Voltaire, who had trapped inside a single skull the brains of generations”.

When I met Victor Omololu Sowemimo Olunloyo (VOS) for the first time in 1995, the facade of scales that decorated my eyes about him began to drop. If you followed the 1983 Nigerian elections, especially in the old Oyo State, you couldn’t like VOS. Gradually, on meeting him visiting the newsroom of the Nigerian Tribune, all negative typecasts of him began to thaw and flow away like a huge ice in the sun. By the time he died last week Sunday, with 30 years in between for me to learn and unlearn all the political profiling he was festooned with, I am left with the impression of a maverick, humanist and a Voltaire, the pseudonym of François-Marie Arouet.

Unlike many members of the political class of his time, Olunloyo was a humanist par excellence and who, like Voltaire, had wit sewn to his soul. He was a man high up there who was very much at home with the low. He engaged ordinary reporters like us and never bothered to go in to see our editors. If, like Voltaire did in February 1778 when his presumed death was afoot, Olunloyo had same opportunity to write his own epithet, his would be similar to this French philosopher of the Enlightenment who wrote, “I die adoring God, loving my friends, not hating my enemies, and detesting superstition.” Though Olunloyo was a mathematician and a scientist, he however didn’t, like Ludwig Wittgenstein, abhor metaphysics.

When I visited him in 2022 at the University College Hospital, (UCH) in the company of another mentee of his, Lasisi Olagunju, amid rumours that he had passed, it was difficult not to believe that his time of departure had not come. Heavily intubated with an oxygen ‘noose’ across his nose, upon sighting me, his wit was at its octane. “Iwo boy onikokuko yi ti de” (You this satanic writer has come”, he said, wearing his trademark mask of a smile that was native to only him.

Last Sunday when the news of his demise exploded like a bomb, downcast, I saw it as confirmation of my 30-year-old fear. Whenever Olunloyo died, I voiced out several times in the last three decades, humanity would be witnessing the gutting of a modern-ancient library. I asked everyone in sight how we could download him all that was inside his brain before death came calling. My wish couldn’t fructify. Whether as an interviewee or guest at his Molete home, you would scoop tomes of knowledge from history, philosophy, music, science, engineering, mathematics to religion and associated disciplines; knowledge which you may never encounter in books.

I remember him once narrating to me how Bode Thomas died, the hospital he was taken to and how he eventually succumbed to the death that killed him after a strange person visited him.

So, on Thursday, his gardener of over two decades told us that a few days before his death, Olunloyo told him to go clean up the library – and he did. But the connoisseur of knowledge never got near that house of books by the time death came. When I heard and reflected on this, it dawned on me that the totality of VOS’s life was wrapped around books. Tears in his misty eyes, Salisu, a native of Kano, did not know the time he stuttered, “Daddy ya tefi!” To Olunloyo, humanity knows no tribe, and was borderless in his consideration. Samson, his driver of over three decades, also doubled as his librarian. Many times, when VOS, sitting in his library, asked him to go pick a book from a particular section of the shelf and the driver told him it was not there, Olunloyo, who knew the geography of virtually all his books and the particular shelves where they were, told Samson he must have rearranged it.

Olagunju told me another story which encapsulated his lifelong bonding with books. His walks were circumscribed by the wheelchair on which he was bound, one day in January this year when he went to Molete to meet Olunloyo, he was shocked to see him on the second floor of the building where his library is situated. How did he get there? Intuitively conscious, he told Olagunju he could see from his eyes that he was not happy seeing him being carried up and down the stairs. Olunloyo then muttered, “Agba niyen” – that is old age for you.

He had a stroke in 2022 and was presumed dead. He came back from coma to joke about that electrifying moment. We were there in Molete with him; Olagunju, myself and Dupe Olubanjo. “What did you see when you ‘died’?” Olagunju asked him. He cast a look at the journalist and said: “Nothing. I saw nothing.”

The last time I saw Olunloyo was towards the end of last year, at his Molete home. Frail, totally grizzled and sitting on a wheelchair, his voice rang like a nightingale’s and his intellect razor sharp. It was a confirmation that though the body had become complicit in the ploy to whittle him, what lay inside of him was stronger than that ploy. His wit was undiminished with his brilliance intact.

VOS was a humanist to the core. Inside the condolence register opened for him in Molete was the testament of a woman who, in 1994, as a reporter with the Tribune newspaper, lost her child at birth. Olunloyo heard of it and looked for her and paid her family a visit. When the woman eventually had another baby, VOS drove down to Tribune to celebrate with her. He then narrated the chilling story of a relation of his who had a similar experience but never had a child again. Olunloyo gave the lady journalist a sum that was more than what she earned as salary.

Still on our Thursday condolence visit to his Molete home. It was heartwarming seeing the peace and amity of Olunloyo’s large family, a total disconnect from the madness rustled up by one of theirs on the social media. We met Gbenga, Funke and Olunloyo’s eldest child, extremely gracious and cool Auntie Yemi who proudly announced herself to us as 001. We met these well-read, well-bred and well-turnout children of our dead old friend who came home from across the world to celebrate the enviable memory of their dad. We met them in very high spirits. They were manifestly happy that they were bequeathed a legacy of purity, humanity and loving fatherhood. It was a delight that their bond could not be defined nor impeached by the obvious alien typecast of their father by some daughter whose presence of mind is on its usual flight.

Goodnight, our own Voltaire.

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VIDEO: Why I’ve Never Tried Convincing My Christian Wife To Convert To Islam — Tinubu

Published

12 hours ago

October 4, 2025

Editor

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has explained why he has never attempted to convince his wife, First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, to convert to Islam, stressing his belief in love, religious freedom, and mutual respect among people of different faiths.

Speaking on Saturday at the funeral service of Nana Lydia Yilwatda, mother of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prof. Nentawe Yilwada, Tinubu said his marriage to a Christian pastor has never created any conflict in their home.

The president, who arrived in Jos, Plateau State around 2 p.m. for the ceremony at the COCIN headquarters church, said he inherited Islam from his family and has always upheld the principle of freedom of religion.

He noted that both he and the First Lady serve the same God and would ultimately be answerable to Him, adding that what matters most are people’s deeds, character, and love for others.

Tinubu urged Nigerians to embrace tolerance and peaceful coexistence, emphasising that hate should never have a place in the country.

He also prayed for the repose of the soul of the late Lydia Yilwada and asked God to grant comfort and blessings to those she left behind.

He said, “Hate is not an option for us. Love is what you preach, that we should love one another.

“Nobody, nobody determines what God has ordained. God’s ordained action and his promises are what matter. I inherited Islam from my family. I didn’t change. But my wife is a pastor. She prays for me.

“No conflict. And I never did at any single time try to convince her or convert her. I believe in the freedom of religion.

“We are praying to the same God. We are answerable to the same almighty God. We will answer to him. We will account to him. Our deeds, our character, our love for our fellow beings are what are important.

“May the almighty accept the soul of Lydia and give all that she left behind blessings and glory, so we say, may her soul rest in peace.”

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UK Police Quiz Six After Fatal Synagogue Attack

Published

15 hours ago

October 4, 2025

Editor

Six people arrested on suspicion of “terrorism”-linked offences after a fatal car-ramming and knife attack on a UK synagogue remained in police custody on Saturday, as Prime Minister Keir Starmer urged people not to take part in pro-Palestinian protests.

Two people were killed and three others seriously wounded in Thursday’s attack in northwestern Manchester on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Police shot dead the assailant, Jihad Al-Shamie, a 35-year-old UK citizen of Syrian descent, within minutes of the alarm being raised.

Three men and three women are in custody.

The attack has heightened fear among Britain’s Jewish community.

Police said they were patrolling places of worship across the city “with a particular focus on providing a high-visibility presence within our Jewish communities”.

The attack on Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in north Manchester was one of the worst antisemitic incidents in Europe since the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel led by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive on the Gaza Strip has killed at least 66,288 Palestinians, also mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures in the occupied territory that the United Nations considers reliable.

The Gaza conflict has inflamed passions in Britain, with frequent pro-Palestinian rallies in cities that some critics allege have stoked antisemitism.

A “global movement for Gaza UK” protest went ahead in London late on Thursday, with police making 40 arrests.

London’s Metropolitan Police asked organisers delay another planned demonstration backing the banned Palestine Action group later on Saturday.

However, organisers Defend Our Juries rejected the calls.

A spokesman said the group “stood in solidarity” with the Jewish community over the attack.

– Accidental shooting –

Starmer urged protesters not to join the pro-Palestinian rally.

“I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the grief of British Jews. This is a moment of mourning. It is not a time to stoke tension and cause further pain,” he said on X.

During the attack, Shamie was seen “with a big knife, banging his knife into the glass, trying to get through”, synagogue chairman of trustees Alan Levy, who helped barricade the doors, told ITV News.

“The heroes of the congregation who saw what was happening then came to the doors because he was trying to break the doors down to get in,” he added.

A UK police watchdog, meanwhile, said it would look at the police shooting of Shamie.

The probe would also look at the shooting of a second victim who suffered a fatal gunshot and a third person who was shot but survived.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) said there was no evidence anyone other than police used firearms at the scene.

“Our independent investigation will look at the circumstances surrounding the fatal police shooting of Jihad Al-Shamie,” it said in a statement.

“A post mortem has today (Friday) concluded another man who died at the scene suffered a fatal gunshot wound.”

IOPC investigations are standard practice in situations where the use of force by police may have resulted in the death of a member of the public.

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Edo Inaugurates Committee On Drug Abuse, Healthy Living

Published

18 hours ago

October 4, 2025

Editor

L-R: ACGN, NDLEA, Fidelis Cocodia, Deputy Governor of Edo State, Hon. Dennis Idahosa and Coordinator, Office of the First Lady, Edo State, Mrs. Edesili Okpebholo Anani during the Inauguration

Edo State Government has inaugurated Drug Control Committee for the state and local governments, aimed at curbing the menace of drug abuse in the state.

Inaugurating the committee, Governor Monday Okpehbolo said the committee was not only saddled with the responsibility of curbing the menace of illicit substances, but to promote healthier living across communities in the state.

Represented by his deputy, Hon. Dennis Idahosa, Okpebholo described the initiative as “a vital step in our unwavering commitment to stopping the menace of drug trafficking and substance use among youths.”

The governor, who bemoaned the rising tide of drug dependency and its impact on society, pointed out that the committee’s creation aligns with the national drug master plan and represents a bold stride toward protecting Edo future generations.

On his part, Chairman of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), Brig. Gen. Buba Marwa, represented by ACGN, Fidelis Cocodia, Zonal Commander, Zone 13, emphasised grassroots interventions, awareness campaigns, and support systems as the backbone of the fight against drug abuse.

Edo State commander of the NDLEA, Mitchell Ofoyeju disclosed that while national drug use prevalence stands at 14.4 percent, Edo state surpasses the average at 15 percent.

He noted that the state is one of the hardest-hit states in the country, warning that the trend has fueled crime and heightened youth vulnerability.

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Cyril Oshiomhole pledged to make Edo a model in drug control through rehabilitation, youth enlightenment, and second-chance opportunities for recovering addicts.

Coordinator, Office of the First Lady, Edo State, Mrs. Edesili Okpebholo Anani, described drug abuse as a pandemic, noting that “you hardly see a crime without drugs being involved.”

She added that women’s empathy and influence must be harnessed in the campaign against drug abuse.