Sometime in 2002 at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I went to Ola Oloidi’s office to make a request of him, as a student.
It was during the holidays and I was eager to go to Lagos to have the feel of a new atmosphere and try out my hands on sales of some of my art works. Outside the academic experience, I knew that whatever I had to learn about the art market would start from the streets.
My father declined that exercise, insisting I could only do so when I was through with my degree programme.
The professor seemed aghast when I told him about my dad’s refusal and he promised to do something about it when he returned home from work that evening. He lived next street from ours.
Before I left his presence, a visibly frowning man muttered about why some of his colleagues were so stiffling in their domestic policies. I was happy at last that someone was going to talk some sense to my “stubborn dad”, so I waited.
He came in the evening as he promised and I was called to their presence. Then Oloidi did the most unexpected thing! He went flat on his face, pleading that my dad let me go on that trip. “You have passion for your son’s creative energies, allow him to go to Lagos to learn something about the business of it,” he pleaded. A visibly embarrassed William Nwaegbe acceded to his request more to get his colleague off the ground as quickly as possible before anyone else witnessed the incident. We left my dad’s presence together after they had shared other academic banters and laughs “you know your dad is an old timer, one must apply unconventional tact when dealing with him” he told me with a wink before proceeding home.
I never forgot that incident and his parting statement, which obviously came from his cultural background and his own personal ingenuity, humility and diplomacy. My dad was still glued to his chair when I returned to the house, apparently wondering how he had become so notoriously uncompromising in his policies and positions that a colleague and professor had to prostrate before him to make a simple request. Not sure he was impressed with himself that day.
Oloidi’s influence as my teacher was an enlightening one, and his general communion with his colleagues and subordinates earned him no mean reputation within the entire University. He remains the most popular lecturer in the University of Nigeria Nsukka, which crowned his many key contributions to the development of the Nsukka University community, both in character and in learning as an Emeritus.
Brilliant and exposed as he was, it also came as no surprise that the Ekiti born professor had ended up amongst Nigeria’s most outstanding art historians and critics.
I have since lived in denial of the exit of this colossus since it broke a few days ago. I was with him last year in Nsukka and he was his very usual self, vibrant and with great humour.
Ola Oloidi is an irreplaceable man.
We have lost a great treasure, and I honestly don’t know how long the mourning of such a man is deemed appropriate. Perhaps, forever if you ask me…
