The president of Oluyole Progressive Front ’91, Chief Mukaila Adebayo Opasina, on Wednesday, January 10, 2024, said that the late elder statesman and astute educationist, Pa Emmanuel Oladipo Alayande, remains the role model whose sand prints many are still striving to follow.
Chief Opasina stated this at the fifth year memorial foundation service in remembrance of Pa Alayande, organised by the Oluyole Progressive Front ’91 and held at his Ode Aje residence in Ibadan, Oyo State.
Oluyole Progressive Front ’91, an indigenous club affiliated with the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII), started the event since 2019 which is marked on every January 10, the birthday of Pa Alayande.
The club President said that the annual event for Pa Alayande was birthed when members were looking for a role model to follow during one of their meetings.
“We were looking for a role model that we would want to follow. We met, deliberated extensively and eventually decided to choose our Papa because we noted certain attributes in him. He was an educationist, he was a socialist, a Christian to the core and a politician.
“These attributes made us to select him as our role model. Since 2019, we have been holding this Programme annually except in 2020 because of COVID endemic to honour him through memorial lecture,” he said.
He disclosed that at the 2023 event, the club started an investiture for its Presidents, the immediate past President, Barrister Olu Abiala, who was the seventh leader as the first beneficiary.
He appreciated the Alayande family members who he said had been very supportive of everything being done by the Oluyole Progressive Front ‘91 Club.
The president said that though this year’s event was low key because of current economic situation in Nigeria, it was outstanding because of very high attendance of eminent personalities.
In his exhortation, Reverend Canon Olusegun Babatunde, described the late Pa Alayande’s sacrifice for education, religion and politics as one that is worthy of emulation, adding that his sacrifices had so much effect.
He said the late educationist impacted lives with his way of life, the reason he is being remembered positively today.
He told the gathering that whatever anyone does in life would be remembered after he/she is gone.
He added that while Venerable Alayande was alive, he touched the lives of many “and this is what the club [Oluyole Progressive Front ‘91] found in our revered father for organizing this programme.”
In his own remarks, the immediate past president of Oluyole Progressive Front ’91, Barrister Olu Abiala, charged Nigerian leaders on the need to live selfless, sacrificial lives for the people they serve so that people can continue to remember them long after they have departed this world.
Barrister Abiala described the life of Alayande as worthy of emulation, adding that it preached benevolence, equity and egalitarianism.
“Papa’s life also preached law and order; he lived a life that was an embodiment of community values.
“He was a bundle of politics without bitterness and this came to the fore when the caucus of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) chose him as the gubernatorial candidate of the party in the 1979 election in Oyo State.
“However, for one conspiracy or the other by the political elite, who claimed he was too old and would be difficult to control, they shifted the alliance to Chief Bola Ige, who was Papa’s student.
“When Bola Ige finally became governor, he appointed Baba as Special Adviser on Education and Papa accepted it. That was simply humility par excellence,” he said.
In his words of eulogy to Papa Alayande, the National President of Ibadan Grammar School Old Students Association (IGSOSA), Balogun Gaphar Ojetola, said that it is so unfortunate that history has been relegated in Nigerian schools which is making good legacies not to be passed to new and incoming generations.
Balogun Ojetola said: “If histories are being told in schools, the foremost educationist like Pa Alayande would have been well known in Nigeria and beyond.”
He appreciated the laudable gesture of the Oluyole Progressive Front ‘91 which organised the day’s event for deeming it appropriate and fit to celebrate Papa’s post-humous birthday with a service and a lecture.
He recalled how Ibadan Grammar School Old Students Association delivered the 8th Venerable Emmanuel Alayande’s distinguished Memorial Alumni Lecture delivered by Professor Charles Oguguah Aworh three weeks before.
Pa Alayande was the school principal for 20 years during his civil service years.
The Alumni President continued: “Papa’s legacy, particularly in the education industry, is unquantifiable. It stands different, with his pursuit of welfarism among his people and particularly to the industry that he committed all his life to, which is NUT, which he was part when it was founded in 1931.
“Papa lived all his life to service, God and humanity. He was a principal for 20 years at Ibadan Grammar School and nobody has been able to meet that record and nobody can ever meet it.
“Papa was a builder of humans; he was a builder of champions; he was a builder of anything rightful in the eyes of God and humans.
“That is why, 18 years after his death, people organise interesting programmes about him and for him, prompting the theme of the day’s lecture: ‘Though dead, Papa speaks life.’
“That is an indication that Papa lived a very good life and it would be so difficult to forget him in history. That is why you see the creme of those who attended the programme.
“They benefited in one way or the other and tapped from the fountains of the good things Papa planted. His seeds will continueto grow and grow for many generations yet unborn.”
In a vote of thanks, Chief (Mrs) Aduke Famuyide, expressed appreciation to Oluyole Progressive Front ‘91 and those present at the event, saying that the legacies left by Pa Alayande would continue to live on.
She said that she was happy seeing the Alayande family from Agodi also, urging that all the good things done by Pa Alayande should be emulated by all.
Special prayers were then offered for the late Pa Alayande’s family, Oluyole Progressive Front ’91, Ibadan, Oyo State and Nigeria as a whole.
Those who graced the occasion included Professor Bolanle Awe; Pa Alayande’s daughter, Mrs Bukola Oni; Chief Mrs Aduke Famuyide, Prof. Charles Oguguah Aworh; Oloye Gbola Raji and Prof. Kola Jaiyeoba, among others.
