Doki Steve Ojogbo
Please pardon the tardiness of this tribute. It never occurred to me to write this until after the vigil held in Doki’s honour between the night of Friday, 12th October, and the dawn of Saturday, 13th October 2007. It then struck me to write a tribute after hearing the eulogies and also emendations of his life’s course by the kith and kin of the late Doki Steve Ojogbo. It was a wake-keep to remember for a long time to come and of which fairy tales might be woven in the future.
I knew the late Doki (Dede, as he was fondly nicknamed by friends) some 30 years ago. That first acquaintance was through my blood relation, Mr Chuks Nweke of Umuikpulu. It was in Lagos and the then young Doki used to visit us regularly in his Datsun 120Y saloon car.
Though a heavy drinker, as opposed to the teetotaler that I was at that time, Doki came across as a handsome, amiable and likeable gentleman. His type would easily make friends anywhere in the world. I happened to later discover more intrinsic attributes of Doki. I discovered he was more inclined to action than talking and making promises. I discovered he had great fellow-feeling, especially for all Olubor indigenes. I discovered too that he was a very generous man— a “cheerful giver”, to use the Bible’s parlance.
Through the years, Doki evinced the above-mentioned attributes, and more until death snatched him away before our very eyes in the prime of his life! Doki was a great lover of people, not forgetting our womenfolk to whose causes he donated generously. And what about the youths? Those present at the vigil of 12th/13th October will recall the moving testimony of that young man who told the crowd of the many financial helps that Doki rendered to Olubor football association and also the plan afoot to donate a prize cup for a forthcoming football competition in the homeland.
I am told that Doki’s generosity did not fall short of contribution to the church. He had donated well-tailored costumes to the Choir of St. Barnabas, Olubor. Doki, so I am just informed, also contributed generously to the construction of St. Barnabas’s vicarage.
It is apposite not to overlook Doki’s sociability and kind-heartedness. On several occasions he had enlivened dreary social gatherings with plentiful supply of drinks— minerals, lager beer, wines and spirits! Chief Eloseh knows more about this aspect of Doki’s generosity than I do.
And talking about Doki’s kind-heartedness, there was one remarkable occasion wherein he demonstrated this. It was at one of Olubor Community’s monthly meetings in Lagos. Some unemployed members had complained about difficulty in transporting themselves to and from the meeting venue. Doki rose to the occasion by donating a large sum of money that would suffice as one whole year’s transport fare for the four beneficiaries present at that meeting. That was vintage Dokian generosity for you!
And Doki, it would appear, never forgot similar generosities shown by other Olubor indigenes. This was why he was almost in tears when the Olubor union in Lagos took a decision not to attend the burial ceremonies of a prominent Olubor man whose union membership had elapsed over many years. Doki spoke, he brokered peace and the union reversed its tough decision.
Doki had asked at that meeting, as if he had premonition of his own death, that if a member who had been so generous to the union were to die after his membership had expired, would the member’s generosity be forgotten and his funeral treated with scorn? Perhaps Doki’s generosity was his own method of building a mansion of goodwill for himself wherein a large crowd would gather to mourn his demise. And that was what happened when kith and kin trooped to his wake-keep at Igbo Elerin in the night of 12th/13th October. I do not need to intuit of a greater crowd; I confidently wager that a crowd more mammoth will gather at his funeral in Olubor on Saturday, 20th October 2007.
Onwu anarin enyin ugegbe tiwa! Sleep well my honourable chief—Doki Steve Ojogbo of Olubor!!
Frank Monye
Lagos: 15 October 2007
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