A former secretary general of Afenifere, Basorun Arogbofa, has in a short epitaph, described the grief and reality of the death of his brother, Brig. Gen. Jones Ariogboga, who was chief of staff to former president Goodluck Jonathan.
Paying tribute to their relationship, Arogbofa said the departed was more like a son.
He said; “Apart from the fact that Jones was my brother, he was so many things to me, many things which his nuclear family cannot even fathom or comprehend.”
The stark truth, he said, “Is that I can’t imagine any day in the rest of my life that his thought or image won’t come up in my mind.
“We say the rich is mourned for a season; the one gifted with children is mourned for life.”
Remembering their early years, he said because his other siblings couldn’t benefit from western education for one reason or the other, he ignorantly asserted in one of his books “Sweet Roots” that “as for Ajayi Ogidiolu (Jones) my only full brother, I was not prepared to negotiate his education and training with anybody, father inclusive.”
He thereafter became so possessive of Jones, especially after “Solomon, a well celebrated spiritualist, had claimed that but for me, Ajija, the whirlwind god, would not have released Ajayi when, at two years old, he was suddenly swept off and kept in the spiritual abode for three agonizing hours!”
Arogbofa said ever since, he had been so naïve and deluded to believe that no one, no power, could take his brother-son from him.
He said, “So you could imagine how helpless I was caught, when at about 10 a:m on Saturday Feb. 10, 2024 while expecting a bout of marathon telephone discussion with him, I was told that the Almighty God, the real awesome owner of our souls and earthly formshad taken him away!
“Disbelief, grief and anger, vituperations, reality and acceptance, and total surrender to the will of God and penance followed in that order.”
Despite the death, Arogbofa however said family events slated for March 23 and April 20 would go ahead as earlier planned, but with some modifications.
He said, “My Akure book presentation for March 23 remains, but without the birthday celebrations. Temi’s wedding slated for April 20 goes on in Lagos, devoid of rolling out the drum.
“In fact, it has become our practice not to tamper with such dates but scale down the events, in the face of any eventuality.”
Speaking on the Abuja burial committee, he said the unusual “coming together of highly placed Nigerians and our own brothers and sisters in Abuja to form a committee to fashion out a befitting burial for him assuages my pain.
“Thank you for planning to give him befitting farewell ceremonies. Please, consider the second week in May for all these to end up with the commitment of his body to Mother Earth in OKA, our ROOTS.”
