By Frank Tietie
I have stopped to pen this tribute upon the news of the passage of the one I call an ‘authentic man’, a fiery lawyer and prominent member of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Jesustega Onokpasa.
Many people are going through life imprisoned by the fear of being different and have chosen conformity to survive, but authentic living comes from the freedom to live true to purpose.
Jesutega Onokpasa was an authentic man who was true to his beliefs. He was a good man. Despite his disagreement with me on some occasions, he never hid his fondness for me because of our common Urhobo origins and as lawyers. Natural to that common ancestry is the ease of speaking the truth, brooking no pretensions, yet easily misunderstood and exploited.
Onokpasa died unhappy, at least about one fact that he considered President Bola Tinubu to have used and dumped him. This is because he was indeed prepared to literally take any bullet for Tinubu. In the classic Onokpasa-Rufai rumble on the Arise News Morning Show, he showed the world that he was such a diehard Tinubu supporter, throwing caution to the wind and getting down with the news anchor. He didn’t mind if he got killed on air by high blood pressure just to pour out his vituperations against Rufai Oseni for daring to criticise President Tinubu.
That Arise News encounter didn’t kill Onokpasa, but what later killed him, even before his death, was when that same President Tinubu he was willing to die for, ditched him in preference for Daniel Bwala as the choice of presidential spokesman. He couldn’t imagine that the President would do that. Appoint Bwala, who insulted all of them, including Tinubu and didn’t spare mimicking the famous “bala blu bulaba bla bla” faux pas of their revered candidate Bola Tinubu? No!
Onokpasa felt President Tinubu betrayed him and others and treated them as expendables despite their avowed love and commitment to him. The sadness and depression from that move by the President in rejecting him for the likes of Bwala devastated Onokpasa so severely that it caused him to slide into such an irreconcilable regret that he may have never recovered from.
Arise News offered Onokpasa a few opportunities to express his regret for supporting President Tinubu. He was looking emaciated in one of his last appearances on television. He complained that Tinubu had increased hunger in the land and that he wouldn’t support him again in 2027.
After those last truthful moments on Arise News, Onokpasa redeemed so much love for himself in the hearts of millions of Nigerians who prayed fervently for him, suspecting he was sick of something.
Typical of a stoic Urhobo man, Onokpasa did not have to spread the misery of whatever malady he may have faced. He endured it with dignity and quietude to death without begging his estranged political friends for money to survive.
Onokpasa was not an expendable. He died as an authentic man that millions of Nigerians now appreciate and will miss forever.
As in the words of the popular dirge in Urhobo land from which Onokpasa hails:
In this world as we have come, we are here to trade; whoever finishes trading should pack and go.
Jesutega Onokpasa, you have traded well to the end. May the memory of you remain blessed.
Frank Tietie
Lawyer & Media Personality writes from Abuja
