Early Thursday morning, our mutual friend and coursemate, Mrs. Fola Bola Tijani, called me, weeping.
“We’ve lost Sola o.”
“Sola? Which Sola? Sola Lawal?” I fired those three questions and quickly checked my phone to be sure I was hearing right.
Two days earlier, because I missed his troubles, I called Sola repeatedly. He did not pick my calls. I told myself that his politics was taking all his attention. I was sure he would call back. He always did. I didn’t know Sola was down and was almost out.
Now I know he will never return those calls. Our friend is gone.
I called him Sola Ijangbon. That was the name I gave him in Ife during our undergraduate years. We were classmates. He was a very unconventional student but he was lively and lovely, studious, inquisitive and smart.
Apart from being classmates, we also belonged to the same political movement on the campus.
He played his part as an activist, as a democrat and a Yoruba Nigerian patriot. With me, he was the third leg of an ‘invisible’ tripod that included our late friend and schoolmate, Yinka Odumakin. We shared experiences and nursed hopes of a tomorrow of better value.
Sola was very loyal and generous to friends and to friendship. He was bold and daring. He was a very good person who should have lived for at least a century.
His exit is still very difficult for all of us, his friends and colleagues, to accept. But what can we do other than submit totally to the will of the Almighty?
May your valiant soul rest in peace.
