Too good to be forgotten

Although he was my foster dad, I knew him first as daddy. He was such a humorous person who would take advantage of the least important event to put smiles on people’s faces. People who never cared to discover him saw him as an unfriendly and arrogant person; this I think was due to a large extent, the natural straight face and serious expression that Almighty Allah blessed him with. I say they misjudged whom I call “Khalil”. They only observed him from afar.

They never knew what was inside him. Daddy created amusement everywhere and anytime. I still remember vividly how he always teased me when I was a little girl. When I was growing up, I liked consuming rice just like an average Nigerian child. He knew I could eat rice three times a day. Yet, he would always ask me,” Auntie Embankira, (a pet name he coined for me) what did you eat in the morning?” I would gladly reply, “rice” “what of afternoon?” I would still reply “rice”, and what would you have for supper? He knew what the answer would be and before I could answer, he would jokingly conclude, “lice” meaning rice. To him, I was still unable to pronounce rice correctly as a child.

Daddy with his wife at home was a company whom all the children never liked to miss. He had a special way of making “Hammy” or “Iya won” (their mother) happy even when she seemed downcast. One way they teased each other sometimes ago that will forever remain in my memory was when Hammy did something and daddy responded by saying “oh! Thank God you are an educated woman; probably you would have been at “Ebu” (a place in Yoruba land where palm oil is being processed) in the midst of other women making palm oil. Hammy too, having been initiated into the humorous club of daddy, replied, “what about you, you would have been a palm wine tapper carrying kegs and ropes around”, and we all laughed. The children never missed their company for anything in the world. The duo were so close that even some of their children were envious. Daddy, as a reader, was always coming home late, but no matter how late, Hammy would never sleep. She was always there to welcome her beloved. It was so evident their love was made in heaven that their first son once asked” Mummy, what do you always discuss with daddy that the moment he walks in, no other thing or person counts? You are always with him”. Now I know the answer, as a married woman myself, I think she was trying to be a dutiful wife. However, just as people say, good things do not last, Allah took daddy away from us in his prime. I say prime because I belief all his rare potentials were yet to be explored to the fullest.

Daddy is _ I say is, because he still lives on in us. He is somebody you would like to be with yet, not want to be with, if you are a non-conformist to his rules. Rules he never embodied in a book but inculcated in all of us as he trained us. He was never for his family alone. He was for everybody. His down to earth attitude and simplicity was but at a time a source of concern to the members of the family. He never encouraged luxury and extravagance. He was always contented with what he had. I knew daddy as a disciplined and “Habeeb” (lover of Allah). He would always inconvenience himself to satisfy others. Daddy is a bounty of anything one can wish for in a man. He was there from the beginning of my life till I became a woman. Ink can not suffice to paint the picture of Dr. Hamid Olagunju. The love he had for his mother is also a lecture topic for all delinquents who pay their mothers back for their efforts on them with tears and pains. Granny  opened up to us after daddy’s demise that her doctor once teased both of them during one of their visits to him whether she did not have female children for though daddy lived in Ilorin, he was always with his mother at the doctor’s office on each appointment day in Ede.

Another touching episode that always brings tears to my eyes anytime I remember was when granny was due back home from her journey to the Holyland – Makah. Daddy and two of us grown-ups left home as early as 7:30 am. However, the flight did not arrive Ilorin airport until 10pm. Daddy in the rush to be there when his mum would arrive did not take his breakfast. We, on our part, managed to eat something. When we got to the airport and there was no sign of their arrival, Daddy insisted we wait for granny. As somebody who would not sleep from 3pm till 8am in supplication to Allah, everyday, he was restless and dozing at the airport because nature will always have its way since he would always sleep from 8am to 10am after his supplications. Despite that there were pointers to the fact that the so much expected flight would be late, daddy refused to be discouraged and leave the airport while he had not seen his mother. At a time when he could not keep his eyes open any longer, daddy squeezed himself on a very small but elevated pavement and had a nap. The sight as it comes back before me now wells- up tears in my eyes. To him, no sacrifice was too great for a mother. All I can say is for Allah to consider daddy’s relationship with his mother and judge him mercifully.

Dr Hamid Ibrahim Olagunju was a senior lecturer in the University of Ilorin in the department of Arabic studies before he sojourned to the land of no return on the 30th of April, 2008. He was born in November, 1949. He had his basic elementary western education at D.C school, Alusekere, Ede and his early Arabic and Islamic education in Ilorin at Darul-Uloom. On graduatng from Darul-Uloom, he proceeded to Markaz in Agege, Lagos under the tutelage of late Shaykh Adam Abdullahi Al-Ilori. In his quest for knowledge, he later sojourned to Cairo in Egypt where he studied English, Arabic and French languages and translation. Back home, he studied at the University of Ibadan between 1982 and 1986 for his M.A and Ph.D degrees. Before his death, he was a staunch member of Darul-Uloom Alumni Association, the national secretary of Niqabatul-Markaziyyin and the Federal Council of Ede Descendants’ Union where he was the national secretary for 14 years.

Daddy, you are everything to us, your deeds will always speak for you and exonerate you, insha Allah. People belief no human being is free of short coming. His was what people provoked in him –anger and this I consider normal for he would never say ‘yes’ when he was sure that what they wanted was wrong before Allah. He was an advocate of justice truth and fairness. May Allah (SAW) grant him eternal rest and be make him enjoy so many good things he deprived himself in life out of fear for Allah. Allah protect his wife and children.

May he preserve his aged mother. He was too good a person to be forgotten in a jiffy.

Shakirah T. Tiamiyu [email protected]