kagablog

Time

The time is exactly 12:45 pm Saturday evening, I’m sitting at my favourite night spot, gingerly lifting a glass of my favourite brand. Patrons continue to pass to and from the counter where I’m sitted. My mind drifts back into the abyss that is my past, I look back at my life’s adventures, heish, I take a deep sigh, they have been many.

But what tops my mind is my recollection of the time spent with Omoseye (Chief) Bolaji, I first met him in the year 2000. I had walked into the offices of the now defunct Free State News. I was hoping to land a job as a rookie journalist. I had just dropped out of a law school, (a subject of another story altogether).

It was not because I had any experience as a journalist except for my gut feeling and passion for the written word that I felt ready to join a local paper and maybe by luck get contacts that would assist me to get my collection of poems and a short novel published.

The room was poignant with stale breath abound as the air-con had not been working in that hot summer day, as I walked into the room it was unbearably hot, but there in front of an old, weathered table, sat a burly, tough looking thirty something man typing away at an old manual type writer. I had been tipped off by a friend that in that office I would find a respected wordsmith and editor of the paper. He was non-other than Chief Bolaji himself.

I greeted him and introduced myself, he replied unperturbedly and waited for me to state my case, I went on to explain that one Teboho Mohanoe had said he’d be the man to see about matters that interested me most (literature and publishing) and possibly a job opening of any kind. The man was listening to me while slowly clicking away at that old manual typewriter, that later became our tool of choice in churning out many great pieces that can still be found to this day.

Although Chief Bolaji was clearly engrossed in an interesting assignment, the date of which was clearly over-due, He agreed to have a look at some of the material that I had written, from then on, we were almost inseparable. He helped to have my first book, a collection of poems “ The voice from Mangaung” published by a local publishing house.

And so started the beginning of a long journey, eight years down the line, ‘Seye as he is affectionately called by some, continues to nurture and encourage the writer in me to continue to put pen against the paper to produce many more pieces of literature.

It is for this and other reasons that our hearts swelled with pride when the news that he had been bestowed with the honour of chieftainship back in his native Ibadan reached us. We knew that indeed the name Chief has come full circle.

Heish, time is not on my side, but folks, I guess what I’m trying to say here is that ‘Seye has a special eye for talent and he saw something in me then that many chose to overlook.

I will forever be indebted to this great son of the soil.

You deserve it Boss. Live long Egbon Live Long.