By Damola Emmanuel
In his words, Saturday, October 12, 2024, started on a ‘normal note’. He woke up, said his prayers and was ready to hit the treadmill. Before heading to the gym at about 6.52a.m. that morning, he said he spoke with his mother on phone to ask how she was doing, and if she had taken her drugs. Mama’s response was assuring enough.
Then, Sufuyan Ojeifo, publisher of The Conclave Online, headed for the gym. After his exercise, he peeped at his phone which had been on silence mode all the time he had been sweating it out on the machines.
Ten missed calls from his elder brother; five from his uncle and four from his niece. And the message rang out like a clap of thunder, despite the pin-drop silence in his car. But like Charlotte Bronte wrote, “Silence is of different kinds, and breathes different meanings.”
Sufuyan Ojeifo, a communication experts needed no special skill to decode the eerie meaning of the 19 missed calls submerged in the belly of his phone. ‘Sufuyan, your sweet mother has gone to be with her Maker,’ he could hear the small still voice whispering to his subconscious.
“Ten missed calls from my elder brother, five from my uncle and four from my niece were enough trigger of fear about some sinister news eager to berth as I scrolled down the list of missed calls on my phone,” The Conclave Publisher recounts.
Intuitively , he called his niece. The lady picked the call and began to cry. Everything now came to Sufuyan in vivid colours.
“She did not have to tell me that my mother has died,” he says. “I knew it.”
Still, he asked his niece perfunctorily: “Is mama dead?”
The voice on the other end replied in the affirmative. Calmly, he told his niece: “I will make arrangements with some of my friends in Owo to come over to take her to the mortuary.”
Thus ended the story of Madam Aishetu Ojeifo, mother of the publisher of The Conclave online newspaper, Mr Sufuyan Ojeifo, that began over 91 years ago. Madam Ojeifo went the way of all flesh on Saturday, October 12, 2024, in their family home in the ancient city of Owo in Ondo State, exactly two months to her 92nd birthday.
Mr Ojeifo, who lost his father on January 12, 1992, said he had remained devoted to his mother, fulfilling his father’s parting request on his sick bed to: “Please, take care of your mother for me.”
Known for his unwavering support and affection for his mother, Ojeifo, in a chat with this reporter, spoke of the deep bond they shared, a connection that continued to strengthen over the years even in her death.
Madam Aishetu Ojeifo, full time house wife to the late Pa Isa Isu Ojeifo, was into “moinmoin”, “akara” and “puff-puff” making business, well patronised by the locals; a trade that popularized her in the community. A devout Christian, Madam Ojeifo cared for others and demonstrated her love for Almighty God through her act of piety and dedication to humanity.
Born on December 12, 1933 to the royal family of Agbede, in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State, the late Madam Ojeifo married Pa Isa Isu Ojeifo, who once worked with the UAC as a clerk before joining the JOF group of companies in Owo as a manager.
She had seven children with him, but she’s survived by three, namely: Mr Mayor Ojeifo (a retired secondary school principal), Mr Sufuyan Ojeifo (journalist and publisher) and Mr Kabir Ojeifo (a quantity surveyor with the Federal Capital Development Authority, FCDA). She is also survived by many grandchildren and great grandchildren.
In a heartfelt condolence message to Mr. Ojeifo, his longtime colleague, Professor Abiodun Adeniyi of the Baze University in Abuja, praised the late matriarch as an “illustrious and achieving” woman.
Prof Adeniyi credited her for raising a hardworking and resilient professional like Mr Ojeifo, whose journalistic contributions have left an indelible mark on the Nigerian media.
The professor of diasporic communication encouraged Mr Ojeifo to take solace in his mother’s long life and enduring legacy while offering prayers for her soul’s peaceful repose.
Sir Oladipo Okpeseyi (SAN), a close friend of the Ojeifo family in Owo, commiserated with Mr Sufuyan Ojeifo and other members of their family on the loss of “a good mother indeed” even as he declared, after some short reflections, that her passing was “after all, a celebration of life.” He prayed that the Almighty God would grant her soul eternal rest in heaven.
Chief Tajudeen Aderibigbe, the Nene of Owo Kingdom and intrepid business mogul, also commiserated with his childhood friend, Mr Sufuyan Ojeifo on the loss of “a very dear mother who took care of our circle of friends while we were growing up and spending time in one another’s houses.” He prayed the Almighty God to grant her beautiful soul eternal repose in His Bosom.
Another childhood friend of Mr Sufuyan Ojeifo and US-based medical professional, Pastor Kolade Harrison, described the death of “Mama” as he is wont to call her (Madam Aishetu) as “a great, irreplaceable loss of a good natured and loving mother, who was one, if not the last, of the Mohicans of matriarchs in the community in which we were raised by our mothers, virtually all of them now resting in the Bosom of their Creator.”
Meanwhile, the Ojeifo family has assured family friends and others who wish to celebrate with them the wonderful life and times of their matriarch that funeral arrangements would be announced in due course.