TRIBUTE
Jide Ogundipe pays glowing tribute to his father, the first Chief of Staff,
Supreme Military Headquarters and former High Commissioner to the
United Kingdom, Brigadier-General Babafemi Ogundipe (rtd)
It is the evening of Friday November 19 1971; I am overcome by a feeling of unease. I am due to travel with the Brentwood School (where I was a student in the lower VI form) 1st XI football team to play at a school on the outskirts of London the following day, Saturday November 20 1971. I cannot remember which school it was (it may have been John Lyon), but I do remember that the coach ride would take us past a London Underground station, and I had received permission from my house master to go home after the game and to return to school on Sunday evening. My plan was to go and watch the recently released Shaft on Saturday night. I remember saying to my good friend, William Goodway, whose bed was next to mine, that I felt as if something was wrong at home. It was just a thought. I was 16 years old, and the feeling didn’t last long.
My memory of the game was that I played poorly. I can’t remember if we won (we probably did, as the Brentwood School football teams were among the best in Southeast England at the time). I do remember an awful, muddy pitch. After the game, as the coach made its way back to Brentwood, I was dropped off at an Underground station, again I don’t remember which one, to make my way home. I don’t even remember whether I took a train to High Street Kensington station or to Earl’s Court station, the two nearest stations to our home. I suspect it was more likely to have been Earl’s Court, as I think I travelled on the Central line.
When I arrived home, I discovered that my life had changed. It was a dark, late November evening. I must have reached the house around 6 or so. The house seemed to have fewer lights on than usual. The living room, into which one walked upon entering the house, was full of people. My mother was sitting on a settee, looking distraught, flanked by a number of people. My older sister Funlola was sitting by the front door. She shook her head and told me that our father had died that day.
Daddy was 47 years old and had been suffering from poor health for some time. He had a stroke earlier in the year, which caused him some paralysis on his left side, but he recovered well enough by July to take us, his first four children, on a holiday to Montreux in Switzerland, from where we made trips to France and Italy. Daddy rented a car and drove, which indicated that he had recovered well. I still have memories of being in a nightclub, aged 15, chatting up a young woman with whom I had been dancing (with my O’ level French) and looking up to see my father, who had left me there to go to the casino, sitting on the other side of the dance floor watching me. I immediately ended my conversation with an abrupt “au revoir”, walked over to my father and told him it was time to leave! He teased me about the incident throughout the rest of the holiday.
Barely three weeks before Daddy died, I and another good friend from school, David Green, had spent my 16th birthday out until after 3.00 am at a club in Leicester Square. I don’t know where my father was at that time, he may have been at home, he may have been on a business trip, or he may even have been back in hospital. I remember he had another stroke after the summer and had been in hospital again. When he was discharged, he was given strict instructions by his doctors not to work, but nobody could stop him going to his office, which was in the basement of the house.
My brother Kunle was the only one of the first four of us not in boarding school at the time, so he was at home when my father had another stroke on Friday November 19, and an ambulance had come to take him to hospital. It must have been unnerving for him, as a 13-year-old, to have witnessed his father, unresponsive, being taken out of the house on a stretcher. He died the following day. I was, most probably, playing football when he passed. Perhaps that explained my poor performance that afternoon.
I started to write this in the morning of November 16 2021. On my way home from the office the previous evening, I passed a friend on the stairs as I walked down to the car park. He recognised me, despite my mask (these are COVID-19 days!), and we had a brief conversation. He was on his way to see his wife, whose office is also in the building, and he introduced me to two of his children and told me that he had just celebrated the 50th anniversary of his mother’s passing, which was why the children were there, and not in school. The conversation reminded me that the 50th anniversary of my father’s passing was just five days away. Earlier in the year, one of my sisters and I had discussed marking the event in some public manner, such as a paid advert in a newspaper, but I hadn’t been keen on the idea. Her subsequent encounter with ill health appears to have pushed the thought out of her mind, and we haven’t discussed the matter in a number of months now. Thankfully, her health is now much improved.
In my firm, it is the tradition that the partners treat the staff to lunch in celebration of their birthdays. This usually occurs on a Friday after the birthday, so weekends can start early, after the food and drink. We brought this tradition from Chief Rotimi Williams’ Chambers where counsel would celebrate their birthdays by treating colleagues to wine to accompany the sumptuous lunches that Mrs Williams would provide for us on a daily basis. As I was away on the Friday after my birthday, I shall be providing lunch this Friday, November 19. My first grandchild marks his 8th birthday on November 18. November 16 is the birthday of my two youngest siblings, and one of their children was 19 on November 15. November is a month of much significance in my life: one of my sons was born in November.
Fifty years after his death, my father’s nine children (eight natural and one adopted) have all prospered in their own ways, and we are all well. The nine children produced seventeen grandchildren. He only saw one of them in his lifetime. The grandchildren have produced great grandchildren, too many for me to start counting right now! For a person who played a part in how Nigeria came to be what it is today, very few people are aware of who he was, or what his role was in Nigeria’s history. Other than a photograph of him that I am told is on display in the conference room of the Vice-President, I thought there was no public recognition of him. However, just last week, my first son, who I named after him, sent me a photograph of a street sign bearing the name “Babafemi Ogundipe Boulevard”. I had no idea there was such a place! It is in Wuye, Abuja.
So, as the fiftieth anniversary of his death arrives, I remember him, especially. As I do, I reflect on the fact that, in truth, I barely knew him. I missed the opportunity to learn from him, essentially having to become a man without his guidance and support. Whilst it is not for me to judge whether my life has been a success so far, I can look back and acknowledge that some people may view my life as having been moderately successful. I am fortunate that I have seen my two sons grow into adulthood and that I have seen two grandchildren. I hope to live long enough to see more grandchildren and to see them embark upon meaningful and successful lives. I also hope that this country, to which I chose to return, and which has given me the life that I have enjoyed, will start to fulfil its true potential and be a source of inspiration, and not despair, to its citizens, the African continent and to black people all around the world.
Our mother went to join Daddy twenty-eight years ago. We buried her next to him on the last piece of land that he had purchased in Ago Iwoye that we were able to salvage. The few years he spent away from Nigeria after the July 1966 coup, meant that he was unable to secure most of the land he had acquired. We commissioned an Abayomi Barber bust to mark his grave. When Mummy departed, we commissioned another bust (Mr Barber’s eyesight had become so bad by this time that he declined to do her bust, instead recommending a former student to do it for us). I was told that the people living in the vicinity of their tombs commented that over the many years that he had been there, he only started smiling when his wife arrived. I like that story, implausible as it is, as it suggests that he is resting in peace.
• Ogundipe is a lawyer in Lagos
