Continued from yesterday

THIS explains a number of things. Certainly it explains his present reclusive nature. And now, expanding on that, he makes a shocking revelation, that he was born with a natural disability: “I was the only child of my parents who had a stammer… I think that is part of the reason why I… I was very quiet, you see … because I was a stammerer. I would only open my mouth if I had to…”

A stammerer?! I look at him incredulously. This man who is generally regarded as an orator, from whose lips words pour out at all moments with mellifluous ease, and whose polished elocution would be a boon to any media house any day?

He must have noticed my astonishment. He smiles. The stammer, he explains, had disappeared miraculously when he was made a school prefect in the secondary school. “… I said to God, how am I going to discharge this responsibility of making announcements? And you know with stammering, there usually is an emotional kind of thing that fuels it, such that the more excited you are, the greater your chances of stuttering. But God just said, My boy, don’t worry, I will be with you. And without subjecting myself to any therapy, any therapy at all, the thing just vanished! Yes, God just did it!”

So now we understand his unbending faith in Christianity and the Baptist Church.

But however, apart from this speech defect, there was also the fact that he began to carry family responsibilities right from youth: “I seem to have developed without having a period of adolescence… I took over from my father long before he died. And the result is that I didn’t really have fun like others.”

This ascetic solitariness became a habit. Even in school, he did not take part in sports: “I didn’t like sports… That’s one thing I have against Government College. Sports appeared to have been so emphasized, that I detested it… it was like, this was some oppression that I had to endure.”

Nor did he have girl friends or womanize, like most Nigerian men: “The bottom line is that I was… even before I came to Ibadan… that I took every opportunity that was available to build up my faith and my character. I did not think sexual activity was some kind of fun like drinking tea every Sunday afternoon. No!”

So what does he then do, you wonder, in his leisure hours? There are the church activities of course, which he never misses. But are those all? Does he never relax?

“In fact, that’s my problem,” he admits. “You may find out that perhaps I’m one of the most boring human beings you can come across… I am a private a person as I am. I am not a society person, and I don’t join societies and clubs. I don’t go anywhere to dance to eat or drink... So, it’s a dreary kind of life. But I’m happy.”

My assistant and I exchange looks. How much of what he is saying is true, and how much is he deliberately pulling our leg?  “You see,” he continues, “there are some people who say I’m an unsmiling person… I don’t really…I don’t play games… It is surprising that I even know how to laugh…”

And of course at that we all burst out laughing, the three of us. It is interesting how the exterior so often masks the identity of the inner man. For if there is anything Onosode does not know how to do, it is certainly NOT how to laugh! At least not in our company since I have come close to him. His face may be stern and austere – like a permanent advert for sainthood, some people say – but you soon discover that behind that steel exterior is a soft and compassionate personality, prodigiously generous, and easily vulnerable in fact because of that.

Indeed in his company there is never a dull moment, for he tells many stories, some of which can crack your ribs. Even now, as I ask about his days at GCU, he repeats one of his favourites, an episode long ago from a drama production: “It was… one Emordi. He’s dead now. He died a long time ago. They were presenting Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and when it got to the point where something was to happen to the dead body of Caesar as he was lying there, Emordi said, after looking blank and agitated for a brief moment, he just said – ‘Carry am make we go!’…The following morning, our Principal, Powell, almost wept in the assembly. He said, Yes, you can be forgiven for not remembering your lines… If you had said, Please help me remove this body… But, Carry am make we go! How could Shakespeare have known pidgin English?”

The humour ends however when it comes to work. In this, Onosode will not joke with the matter of efficiency or competence. And above these, is the question of ethics. This, again, is the powerful shadow of his father. “My father was a highly organized and disciplined person… he would never compromise on principle.”

Gamaliel proudly recalls the unpleasant occasion when his father was denied ordination, even after graduating from Ogbomosho, because he would not bend to the presiding pastor’s view on polygamy. Sent out of the vicarage, he moved unrepentant and without shame to his wife’s half-completed house, and lived there for several months. And in the end it was the church that had to recall him.

Like father, like son then, one can see. This rigidity on the matter of principle is the recurrent trait that has marked Onosode’s career. It is where he has earned his reputation of unyielding probity, as a man who would rather quit than compromise.    “Oh, I was the first in so many things and so many areas…  and I always resigned on protest in each case.”

It takes great courage to do that, especially in our morally depraved situation in Nigeria. “Sometimes, quite often,” he confesses, “I just walked into the night! …I didn’t know where I was going. By the time I resigned, I didn’t know what the next job would be. I just said well, don’t worry, I’m not going to tolerate that nonsense just because I want to keep a job.”

But the irony was that, because of this risk and the flawless reputation he acquired through it, Onosode has always found other doors opening almost immediately for him.

Honesty pays, once you wear it like a garment. It is his creed of honour: “When I’m telling people to be courageous, to stand for what is true, I’m not just passing on what I read from Aristotle or from Socrates or from whoever. No! I’m sharing my personal experience. I’m not asking them to do what I did not do myself…This is the Christ in me.”

It will not be easy. It has never been easy to live a clean life. Still, as he says: “A man has to be a man… You have to be bold to stand for what you believe. …You see, if you really stand for a principle, if a principle is really for you a principle, you must be willing to pay the price. You can’t have your cake and eat it.”

And he concludes: “The reason why we have not achieved as much or even what could have been is because of the lack of personal integrity. There’s no substitute to that. As a Christian, everything revolves round that. … I mean, if there is no integrity, no amount of skill will produce the desired result. It takes only one little man to throw in a little spanner and the whole thing collapses, right? But, at the same time …it takes perhaps just one man to introduce an idea, a concept, a process that has a transforming effect.  So, never give up!”

I look at my watch. Incredibly we have been here for five hours.  What a day! It is time to leave the old man to rest.

• Concluded.

• Osofisan wrote from Lagos.