Like that, Fayeun and others for whom the bell tolls -By Festus Adedayo

It is at seasons like this that mankind literally becomes activist in his thinking, prompting him to ask very troubling questions that regretfully border on atheism. Last week, newspapers and the social media were awash with stories of men and women who, a week or so ago, were on this side, savoring our human excitements and naivety about tomorrow. They looked forward to Christmas and the New Year, with some of them even making fascinating projections that curved out of this season into 2020 and even beyond. But, alas, they were caught by the unkind and scaly hands of death. Their deaths provoke the unresolvable question: Why do good people die?

The first was the bursting-with-energy Adeyemi Abiodun Adeniran a.k.a Think Like That, a youth leader in Oyo State who had an accident and died. On Abuja’s Kubwa-Zuba expressway on Christmas day, a family of five also perished after its car crashed and burst into flame. Samson Alowe, his wife and three of their kids, were incinerated in the resultant inferno. So also was an RCCG Pastor who drowned with his two children in Spain. This is not to talk of affable Deaconess Folake Rachael Fayeun, nee Oguntuase of Fayeun Street, Oke-Ijebu, Akure, my mother’s friend, who passed on in the Ondo State capital on Christmas day.

Though I never met any of the above, except Deaconess Fayeun, the death of Adeniran and the comments trending about him show that he was a great man. He had died at the age of 44 in that tragic road accident while returning from Abuja to Ibadan, after witnessing the Supreme Court judgment in Seyi Makinde v Bayo Adelabu‘s appeal. The tyre of the vehicle which he drove was said to have burst around Adegbayi/Alakia area in Egbeda Local Government Area of Oyo State. The car reportedly somersaulted four times and only Adeniran died in the unfortunate accident.

Dirges on him are sobering reflection that we must leave positive imprints on the sand of this perishable life that we live. Politicians who paid tribute to Adeniran said in a society like ours with its rat race pursuit of materiality, sauced with avaricious thirst, he pursued politics of principle and prosecuted same with courage. He was immediately immortalized by the Students Union of The Polytechnic, Ibadan which named its Union Building after Adeniran for his huge contributions to student unionism while in the school.

The truth is, we all will die our own deaths as death. It is the only constant that reminds us of our finite composition and limited sojourn on earth. Rest on, compatriots.