Odofin Samson Aiyenigba Akanle Bonaru, I am still finding it hard to come to terms with the reality of your exit from the stage of life!
While it is deeply evocative and soul-stirring to write these lines of tribute and relating with you in the past tense, I reckon it is an arduous task for anyone out there to attempt to capture the “Bonaru essence” in a few lines.
Even tougher, it is, to compress your unique noble qualities into a few words due to the multifacetedness of your outstanding personality.
Odofin Samson Aiyenigba Akanle Bonaru, my father, you were a human-diamond and a gentle giant who was greatly esteemed as a paragon of virtue. You were a personality who made the most profound singular influence in my life.
Due to your unique virtues, you were well-loved and reckoned highly among your peers, contempories, kith and kin in Okela; Odo-Adde in general, and in the Ekinrin-Adde community, as a forthright man and an exemplar of nobility in character and conduct, during your lifetime.
Bonaru, you possessed an uncommon, distinctive, impeccable character nobility and edifying traits that have also signposted the lives of all your offsprings.
Bonaru, my father, you were notably peaceable, and a man of valour with impertubable tranquillity. You were an unobstructive, community-spirited, and a greatly sacrificial man. Your life was guided by the sublime and cherished values of goodwill without borders; living with malice towards none and with charity to all, even in the face of daunting odds and the vagaries of life that buffeted you during the most tempestuous period in your life.
As a good father and husband, you exerted yourself to no end to raise your children, particularly in seeing us through school. You toiled and worked your fingers to the bone on many farms across the community, and undertook all sorts of labour available, and also took time whittling and carving woods into mortals, pestles, and for farm implements to cater to the family and raise the needed funds for our foundational education.
Bonaru, my father, you possessed a very rich and creative mind, which was amply demonstrated across the Ekinrin-Adde community and beyond, through your skills as a renowned woodsmith.
Your much-admired creative skills are quite manifest in your children and some of the grandsons. It is apparent that you implanted and imparted a great deal of your artistic skills in me, as well as one of my sons, who enjoys a combined replica creative and artistic skills of father and grandfather.
Perhaps it could be fittingly asserted that your defining attributes are: humility, giving, and compassion.
Odofin Aiyenigba, my father, you were humble to a fault, and your acts of giving and charity were legendary.
Bonaru, my father, you were forthrightness and integrity personified. You were a man of your words, who would never be found to fail when he gave a promise, nor would it be said of him as one who denied his convictions and values in the face of tests and trials of his faith.
Bonaru, my father, one could easily tell where you stood on any matter at all times; you were never ambivalent. You were consistent and never seen vacillating.
As matter of principle, you were also a stickler to the essential virtue of being bond by one’s words; you would always honour your promise to anyone; would return anything you borrowed on time, and if for any reason, you envisaged a challenge that may hinder the fulfilment of the pledge, or prevent you from meeting the agreed date, he would not hesitate to quickly approach your benefactor to secure an understanding for a rescheduling.
Bonaru, my father, you inculcated in my siblings and I, the cherished values of humility, forthrightness, hard work, integrity, compassion, kindred and community spirit, as well as empathy.
You were well-known for your uncompromising character nobility.
Bonaru, my father, taught us the fine art of living in peace with people and you epitomised forbearance.
My life has been guided and will continue to be, by the noble virtues and lofly deals you imparted on me: values of building strong relationship with God; holding firmly and having faith in Him to be able to withstand the storms of life; having inner peace and being at peace with all men; develop strong emotional intelligence for my stability and well-being; and to be deeply rooted and grounded in noble values and principles that enhance my dignity.
Bonaru, you have gone to join the saints in the extraterrestrial realm, but you have taken on immortality, because the values you imparted on us and the memory of your legendary life will continue to lighten our pathways, and fire us up for positive living, and to impact our world with our God-given talents, gifts and endowments.
Fare thee well, Bonaru, my father, Omo ekankan bi ina.
Your Son,
– Ambassador Rufus Bamigbaiye Aiyenigba (AFP),
Araba of Ekinrin-Adde
