Pa Gbadebo Adeyemo: Tribute To My Late Father One Year After

How time flies! It’s one year today, Monday, May 25, 2026, since my father, Isaiah Gbadebo Adeyemo, silently bade the world farewell in the wee hours of Sunday, May 25, 2025.

One year ago, our world shifted. Today is not just to remember the pain of that day, but to celebrate the 83 years of life that made it matter so much.

For some weeks leading to this day, I had planned to write a brief tribute to commemorate the first anniversary of my dad’s death, but I couldn’t just put myself together to write; hence I was procrastinating on the pretext that there was enough time for me before May 25. I procrastinated repeatedly, although amidst a busy work schedule, to the eleventh hour.

So, yesterday, Sunday, May 24, by sheer coincidence or providence of some sort, as you may call it, I was aboard an Air China Flight CA9660 from Zhangjiajie Hehua International Airport in Hunan Province, China, to Beijing, after a week-long study tour of the tourist destination city as part of an ongoing international seminar I was selected to be part of in Beijing by the Chinese Government since May 13. Immediately after take-off of the plane and while airborne, I looked down through the aircraft’s window; I saw nothing save for an endless expanse of white clouds, and I began to ruminate about the fleeting nature of life. Almost at the same time, I realised time was ticking to the memorial in less than 24 hours and that I needed to write something to honour his memory.

Thinking about my own life hanging in the sky, I finally decided to write something. Without sounding like a broken record, my late father was patience-personified, as I wrote during his funeral on July 25, 2025. This fact was also attested to by many others from within and outside the family. He was faithful to our mother for about 50 years of their marriage before his demise. He was prayerful. He was everything good to us and others that came his way within his imperfect human capacity.

Despite his modest background and limited education, he encouraged his children’s education and unknowingly influenced my career path and that of my youngest brother, Adesiyan (Alaba). His penchant to read the now-rested Yoruba vernacular newspaper, ‘Isokan’, from the stables of the defunct Concord Newspapers Ltd in the early to mid-1990s, made me learn, read, and write Yoruba language without a formal class or teacher, and that ultimately injected in me the burning desire to pursue a career in journalism. Isokan was a weekly news publication, and I would be the one sent to go and buy it by my dad from a popular vendor’s shop — Hope Photo Studio, located on Katsina Road in Funtua, Katsina State. Out of curiosity, I would wait somewhere on the road to consume a portion of the news before delivering the paper to the owner, even though he would later surrender it to me to read at my convenience after he was done with it. At a point, I was impatient with that arrangement, and it got to a time I couldn’t bear it again, so I decided to use my pocket money to buy my own English dailies, and my peers would be wondering what kind of a boy this was — using his ‘food money’ to buy ordinary ‘paper’. Ironically, I am now a media practitioner and a worker for a reputable national news ‘paper’ and no longer a buyer of an ordinary ‘paper’.

On the other hand, my youngest brother, who is the last born of our parents, revealed in his tribute at our father’s funeral last year that it was his medical challenge that pushed him to pursue another degree in Medicine and Surgery with planned specialisation in Cardiology, having previously obtained a BSc degree Second Class (Upper) in Chemistry from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, Kaduna State, with the sole aim of helping people with similar medical challenges like our father’s. The revelation was heartwarming for me and will remain evergreen to my dad’s memory.

Save for his memory in various dimensions, which we will continue to cherish and honour, there is no one like him to call me or my wife and my siblings repeatedly in a single day again over our wellbeing, no one to religiously check the door locks at our family home in Ogbomoso at night again. He was never casual; he was intentional to a fault. He was also accommodating, an attribute he shared with his wife, which I am mimicking to internalise, because getting to their level of accommodation is herculean if not practically impossible. He taught me patience and honesty. He taught me, as his first child, that keeping my word matters more than keeping my comfort. I still hear his voice whenever I’m tempted to cut corners.

Little wonder the outpouring of testimonies and tribute at his funeral exactly 10 months ago from family, church, and community members. The reason wasn’t far-fetched. Born in June 1942 in Ajegunle village, near Gambari town in present-day Surulere local government area of today’s Oyo State, my late father was a gentleman to the core, a peace-maker who loved his family and was always nurturing the bond by constantly being in contact with his children and extended family members. He was a devoted husband to his wife. He also devoted his latter years to the service of God with genuine commitment and punctuality in all good causes he believed in.

Like I said above, we are no longer mourning one year after. Proverbs 10:7 reminds us that “the memory of the righteous is a blessing.” This timeless biblical verse highlights the enduring, positive legacy left behind by those who live lives of integrity, kindness, and faith, like my late father. Consequently, on Sunday, May 31, 2026, a Morning of Remembrance and Thanksgiving will take place in his honour at his local church, Graceland Baptist Church, Oke Ibukun Aanu, Aduin area, Ogbomoso, by 10 a.m., where family members, relations, friends, and well-wishers will gather to reflect on his life and times and thereafter thank God for His faithfulness over the Gbadebo family since the passing of Pa Isaiah Gbadebo Adeyemo. The service will be presided by the church pastor, Rev. Adedeji O. Fodeke, who has been of great help to our family.

Myself, my mother, Mrs Felicia Awujoola Gbadebo, and my siblings — Adejoke, Ademola, Adejumo, Adegbola, and Adesiyan — including his only son-in-law, Kayode Aremu, and only daughter-in-law, Faith Gbadebo, grandchildren, and extended family members — remember him today as always. May my dad’s soul continue to rest in peace, and may God continue to uphold our family, amen.

– Bode Gbadebo is Online Editor at LEADERSHIP Media Group, Abuja