I have written tributes on relations, colleagues and friends over the years but none has been as difficult for me to handle like the one on Mr. Sunday Edward Atomode. In 2012 when I lost my eldest sister (the only surviving female in our family), I devoted my back page to pay my tribute to her.
Two years later, my maternal uncle, Lawani, who was also the immediate younger brother of my mum, followed. I did a tribute on him also. Before my uncle’s death, I had written a lot about his dog named Tanimola, meaning who knows tomorrow in Yoruba. Tanimola was a great ally. I have more sweet memories of Tanimola than my uncle! The dog was an asset to my gang of kid hunters in those days. We even bonded beyond hunting together.
On Christmas day, the dog “stalked” me to the church. I shouted at it to get behind me when worshippers raised an alarm about its presence in the premises, wondering if the church had gone to the dogs! Perhaps, Tanimola had thought that we were going to hunt for lost souls. News soon spread across the community even before the end of the church service thus: “Omode kan wa se keresimesi ni sosi pelu aja”, meaning one boy came to celebrate Christmas in the church with a dog!
I have lost close friends and business allies like Col. William G. Walbe (rtd). We co-founded the SUN weekly newspaper in Jos in the late 80s. Before then, the no-nonsense Walbe who was ADC to Gen. Yakubu Gowon and I had been close friends to five years. Many wondered how we got along so well. His palatial home situated close to the NTA headquarters in Jos was like a home to me. One day, I got to his house and announced my presence but there was no response. I traced him to his bedroom where he was fast asleep. I settled myself on a sofa and began to read a magazine. After a while, he stirred awake, turned around and saw me seated. He did not show any surprise at my presence. He simply said: “So, you are here.” Col. Walbe died in 2014 long after I relocated to Abuja. A jogging freak and epitome of physical fitness, his death came to me as a rude shock.
Chief Tony Goyol was another friend whose death was so shocking. I edited, published and printed a number of his publications which included his auto- biography while in Jos. Chief Goyol was a member of the House of Representatives in the Shagari regime that was terminated in 1983. He was also an erudite scholar and astute businessman. The news of his death in 2015 or thereabouts was hard to believe till date. Tony was one buddy in a million!
Then came Sunday, May 19, 2019. I had placed a call to the Chief Operating Officer of this paper, Malam Salisu Umar, to clarify an official issue with him. Then, he cut in: “Have you heard about the death of Sunday?”
“Which Sunday are you talking about?” I asked, because I know many Sundays alive.
“Our Sunday!” he said with a trembling voice.
The news hit me like a thunderbolt and I nearly dropped my cell phone as I began to scream. He told me Sunday lost his life in an automobile crash somewhere close to Okene. He was in company of other mourners in a chartered bus returning from Ondo where they had gone to attend the burial ceremony of a friend’s dad. Three others died in the crash, resulting from a head-on collision caused by the bus driver.
When the tragic news got to the office in the evening, all the production operations came to a standstill. Everyone was at sea as the acronym of his names, Sunday Edward Atomode (SEA). But for the fact that the paper must come out the next day, everyone would have shut down and closed for the night.
The next day in the morning, I got a call from his niece, Rosemary, informing me that they received a message from Lokoja that Sunday’s body moved in the mortuary and had to be evacuated from the mortuary for observation, even after embalmment. I, in turn, quickly put a call to the Chairman, Alhaji Muhammed Idris, who was already devastated by the tragic news of the death of his dependable Personal Assistant and ally. All of us could only hope for a miracle, assuring ourselves that he would make it back. We kept telling ourselves that Sunday was too nice to be taken away from our midst just like that! But it was not to be!
I have worked in places where colleagues had passed on but none was as painful as the death of Sunday. All of us have something good to say about him. He was a jolly good fellow… always wearing smiles on his face to the extent that I once wondered why toothpaste manufacturers had not looked his way as a material to advertise their products. He was more than a PA to our chairman. In fact, he was the engine room of the organisation right from the days of the Market Magazine that metamorphosed into Blueprint Newspaper in 2011.
From the very first time that we came in contact, I either called him Sunny or my in-law because my spouse is also an Okun from Kogi state.
Sunny was a workaholic, an efficient colleague, a problem solver and very intelligent. Occasionally, we used to clash at the office over the limited parking lot. If I blocked his car, he would send the security guard to me requesting that I should come and unblock him. Then, I would remind him that he had no business being in the office except on Sundays. The joke would reveal all his 32 teeth.
In the past eight years that we worked together, nobody had seen Sunday angry. It was like anger was not in his lexicon. He was the second person with that kind of habit I have come across in my lifetime. The other one is my best friend so far named Dauda McMalik from Ebiraland. His amiable nature belies the general belief that the Ebiras are pugnacious! Till date, I have never seen Dauda getting angry or wearing a long face. Even if he is angry, he would still smile away his ire. I once told him he should stop the hypocrisy, because I didn’t know why he should be smiling even when provoked.
Sunny will be sorely missed by all of us in the office. The vacuum his passage has created will be very, very difficult to fill. There can’t be another Sunny. Adieu, our dear colleague, friend and brother.
May the good Lord grant his kind soul eternal rest and the family the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss.
When he arrives at the Pearly Gates wearing his trademark smiling face, the angels should let him pass.
