Dr Omololu Olunyo

By Lasisi Olagunju

If he had lived one more week, he would have defeated himself. When he turned 87 three years ago, I told him we would celebrate his 90th very big in 2025. He replied that it wouldn’t be necessary because he would die at 89.

“Eighty-nine? Why 89? That’s an odd number.”

“But being first is being odd. Number one is an odd number.” He reminded me.

“Yes. And good luck lies in odd numbers.” I said that quotation and looked straight into his eyes. He smiled and dragged me into Shakespeare’s ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’. Act 5 Scene 1:

‘…This is the third time;

‘I hope good luck lies in odd numbers.

‘Away I go.

‘They say there is divinity in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away!’

We chorused the lines, laughed and then plunged into our usual discussions of mathematics, literature, music, life and death.

He was my muse. He was also a big fan of what I do here. We met in 1995 at Tribune House and bonded forever. I was a Tribune reporter, he was a Tribune columnist, a very regular face and a reliable source. I worshipped at the feet of his genius. A friend said if knowledge was a religion, Omololu Olunloyo was its high priest.

Dr Olunloyo explained to me why he believed hitting 90 years of age wouldn’t be one of his blessings. “You see, I am a scientist but I believe in superstition. I was told a long time ago by someone that I would die at 89…”

“And you believed that person?” I asked him.

“Why not?”

About this time last year, the social media announced him dead. I got a number of phone calls from people seeking to know if it was true.

I did the calculation. He was 89 just a week earlier. I asked myself if the superstitious finally triumphed over the scientist. I called his phone number and heard his voice.

“Lagunju, I am still around. Did you also believe I was dead?”

“You are 89, sir.” He laughed. I laughed. We understood each other.

He then repeated to me what he told the press: “Those breaking death news and the person presumed dead will all die one day. I’ve been lucky. My father died at 42, while my mother died at 102. I’m 89. I’ve crossed the expected life age.” It was the second time his death would be announced. The first was in June 2022. Yesterday was “the third time” as predicted by Shakespeare in our ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’ quote above.

When he turned 89 last year, I told him the “ides of April are come.” His response was Julius Caesar’s “Ay, but not gone.” So, I was looking forward to April 14 this year when he would clock 90 and I would tell him how big the prophet lied. I was wrong. He would not be Omololu Olunloyo if he got the figure wrong.

He was a fine blend of Owu and Ibadan: headstrong, resilient, loving, friendly and complex. He would give you anything if he loved you. In the first week of January 2006, a Peugeot 406 car drove into my mother’s eighth day Fidau in my hometown, Eripa, Osun State. I was shocked to see Dr Olunloyo come out of the car. I didn’t bother to invite him because the notice would be too short.

“You came? But I did not invite you, sir?”

“I read it in the papers.” He said with a smile. My hometown is about 160 kilometers to his Ibadan home. He came because a friend’s home is never too far.

Just like Isaac Newton, Olunloyo’s autobiography or memoir was never written. Several years ago, I asked him to write his story. He told me he was too young to write. “My mother is still alive. I won’t die now.” He told me. When his mum, Alhaja Tejumola Abebi, died on Tuesday 22 October, 2013, I reminded him again on the urgency and necessity to write. He was silent, and sober. He told me he felt vulnerable without his mum. But he made some frantic efforts in the last two years. He was gathering stuffs. His articles, his lectures. His photos. He told me he would get it done. I was not convinced. His prodigious brain was super working but the body, confined to the wheelchair, was weak, very going.

When we both knew dusk was approaching, we discussed more frequently. I thought I could download him, everything. I once asked him if he knew from whom he got his genius. He told me his mother and his father were greater geniuses. There is a 14 July, 1979 letter to him from Chief Obafemi Awolowo addressed to “My dear Omololu” in which the sage praised the man’s heritage of genius: “I still cherish an admiring memory of your father. He was, along with late Oyesina and Lasebikan, a pioneer of higher education in Ibadan. If memory serves, he was the first man in Ibadan to tackle successfully the London Matriculation Examination which was rated very high in those days.” That was from Awo. There is also an 11 May, 1981 letter in which Chief M.K.O. Abiola lauded Olunloyo’s “outstanding career as Commissioner for Education and later Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs in the old Western State between 1967 and 1971.” Abiola said, “it was he who in 1970 solved the Alaafin of Oyo riddle.”

The Daily Times ran an editorial on him when he was reassigned on January 16, 1970 from the Western State Ministry of Education to the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs. I find it very remarkable that he was credited with forcing the famous Ibadan International School to reduce its fees “from the incredible annual figure of £500 per pupil to about £135.” One paragraph from that editorial is worth quoting verbatim: “Perhaps what posterity will remember Dr Olunloyo longest for is the ruthless, uncompromising and fearless war he waged on unscrupulous school proprietors who established sub-standard schools in order to amass private fortunes. Most of these Shylock school proprietors in the West have been put out of business. Others who ran sub-standard schools have been compelled to raise their standards to a level acceptable to Dr Olunloyo’s Western State Ministry of Education.” You can imagine how he must have felt at his twilight seeing substandard becoming the standard everywhere.

Was there an issue, topic or subject I broached with him which he did not discuss? None that crosses my mind this moment. During his brief stay as governor, I remember there was an urban legend that his mother was his ‘Chief Security Officer’. So, in May 2019, we interviewed him for the newspaper I edit. I asked him why, as governor, he planted his mother as a major line of defence, screening visitors, deciding who saw him and who didn’t.

“I just used her to scare people away.” He told us.

“Why would you want people scared?”

“She was very inquisitive. Look at this book for instance, ‘The Path to Play’ by Adelegan. When I had a problem which was getting intractable, she would step in. There’s one amazing episode as recorded in the book. (Reads from the book): ‘Olunloyo came to Ipetu-Ijesa accompanied by his mother to speak to my people, especially the representatives of the so-called Ibadan reactionaries.’ You can see the rest in the book…”

“So, why did you go to Ipetu with your mother?”

“The problem was very difficult. So, I took her there as a scarecrow…”

“Scarecrow? How?”

“Scarecrow. You know, when you see an unusual scenario…”

“But it’s quite unusual for a commissioner to have been accompanied by his mother on an official duty tour…”

“Yes; but a young commissioner.”

“And Mama was quite comfortable following you?”

“Yes. She was quite comfortable. Bola Ige followed me somewhere in Osogbo. He followed me to Fakunle Comprehensive High School. We had some trouble there and I asked him to follow me. He was Commissioner for Lands, I was Commissioner for Education. So, they were wondering what Bola Ige came to do. We were friends and I took him along and the teachers at Fakunle were scared to see the two of us… Two rascals in conductor dress.”

At 5.58 am yesterday (6 April, 2025), another of his mentees and former editor of the Nigerian Tribune, Dapo Ogunwusi, called to tell me what we had always dreaded. The mainframe was down. Omololu Olunloyo, richly endowed library and super computer, had gone with the winds. Lékeléke ti rè’lú ìk’efun. Never again those late night calls to discuss matters of science and the arts. No more discussions of Fagunwa, his forests and the Irunmole. No more T.S. Eliot and ‘The Waste Land’ and its “April is the cruellest month.” There are no more epics and blank verses from John Milton. There won’t again be sessions on leaders and Othello’s Iago. No more Mozart and Beethoven and their music; no more lessons in Galois, Gauss and Blaise Pascal and their geniuses in Maths. For almost 30 years, that was our routine.

In life, Olunloyo was easily attracted to excellence. In death, he carefully chose the company he would keep across the river. Like Albert Einstein, he chose the month of April to exit this plane. Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio), High Renaissance’s Italian painter and architect, shared a trinity of greatness with Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. He died on 6 April, 1520. Olunloyo accurately slotted himself into that good company. It is very difficult to believe that he won’t be found again in that powerhouse at Molete, Ibadan, surrounded by books, papers and books.

Omo Olówu òdùrú,

Omo ajíf’epé s’ere…

Sùn un re.

*Dr Lasisi Olagunju of The Nigerian Tribune wrote this tribute originally for the newspaper