May God help us meet people who don’t only see greatness in us, but are also ready to help us.
Those of us who later became photographers, including many of us who are now above the age of 50 and have had the privilege of benefitting from an early invitation to serve around the journalistic and intellectual estate of Senator Babafemi Ojudu, should now be able to appreciate what God did for us too in those startup years when we began to get close to him, and in the later years when some of us strayed away from him, but not too far to find out ways back.
For me, that distinguished Senator Ojudu recently began to tell his spectacular stories to the camera, and I was also there to witness the process and educate myself, is a special enrichment and treatment for my continually impressionable mind.
He has already published some of the stories in a couple of books; one of them, The Adventures of a Guerrilla Journalist, is a spectacular compilation and a must read for any journalist today whatever their experience or rank. But there arises a compelling need to tell such stories on a platform more vastly espoused by the current youthful generation, which for nearly two decades have been dwelling, telling stories and receiving information on the information superhighway.
As the Senator continues to tell his stories, I too have already begun to trace strands of what may form relevant parts of my own biography from his own. That is how beneficial it can be to be around intellectuals.
For long, it has already dawned on me that, without the inclusion of the stories of the helpful giants upon whose shoulders one has been privileged to stand to be able to catch the sight of approaching realities of life, rarely can anyone convincing tell more than one or two stories of any self-arrogated achievements. The believability of the most credible stories often still hinges on the citation of the efforts of other people.
It’s been twenty years now, when I first began to follow Babafemi Ojudu around.
Many of the earliest journeys saw me following him around Lagos in some highly confidential assignments, and then to Ado Ekiti for my first major photography assignments in the then nascent state. It was during that heady and unforgettable period when one critical political incident followed another in such quick succession that news about Ekiti State grabbed newspaper headlines daily for one reason too many. One major news item that shook the state was the unfortunate murder of the country director of a frontline World Bank development agency.
Between then and now, the magnitude of photographic coverage of political activities and journalistic reporting photojournalists have been inspired to do through the instrumentation of the leadership capacity of the Senator in more than twenty years naturally positions him as one of the leading inspiration behind the documentation of authentic records of the life and times of our recent political experience in Ekiti State. We have been able to achieve this feat due to the intensity of professional drive we have received from Senator Ojudu.
And there is more.
Beyond having served Ekiti State in high capacity at the national level, Ojudu has continued to make himself available to a wide array of professionals and everyday people in a variety of far non-political capacity. Recently, the youth and their future has been one of the special focus of his efforts.
We are so grateful to be able to continue to have Senator Ojudu around and the level of inspiration and accessibility he offers to a generation with a constantly escalating sense of expectancy and entitlement. His presence around us is priceless, particularly at a time when even we, his immediate younger ones, have already begun fearing that within a period of not more than the next one decade, most people would have already begun to regard us as a spent force.
This is partly because photography is both a form of media and also a craft. It is an industry where there neither exists any social security program for retirement like gratuity nor a pension scheme.
Another complication the profession suffers, and for which Senator Ojudu has been trying in his own way to stem for us practitioners, is also that photography is a life endeavour for which there still exists little or no consensus before the patronising public as to whether it’s everyday practise is no more than an artisan’s craft, hawked for generating the immediate few Naira notes at lavish parties, or whether it should attract due respect as an inalienable mobile technology for generating important pictorial documents that now regularly forms the basis of intellectual presentation and execution in the architecture of everything from business and media to governance and security.
Ojudu’s unrelenting approach to the photography aspect of the journalism profession is a savings grace for us as he continues to volunteer ideas and prospects regarding how we can keep making ourselves professionally relevant and gradually institute plans for ultimately settling down to a financially beneficial life of semi-retirement and fruitful engagements, whether as documentary producers engaging in videography, or establishing photographic gallerists, or even events coverage service providers.
We thank God that we continue to share from the culture of free access to inspiration around Ojudu in an increasingly challenging world now further hobbled by a growing culture of alienation of the successor generation by a larger number of the leadership class and a corresponding increase in a near intractable culture of snubery of the leadership class, largely cultivated through misinformation, mostly induced by frustration and disillusionment.
The kind of accessibility to inspiration and opportunity for mentorship I have seen around Ojudu is the rare kind, which is burnished by the touch of experienced intellectuals, social activists, public officers and cultural enthusiasts and patrons among which Ojudu belong.
The Farm is getting bigger. Arts and creativity enthusiasts entering or exiting Ado Ekiti in the direction of the Iworoko-Ifaki road, enroute to the Ekiti Agro Allied Airport must succumb to the itch to stop at Ojudu’s place, The Farm, which also shares a fence with the Adire Ekiti Hub, another innovation by the wife of the current Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji.
At The Farm, you are welcomed by an array of beautiful and exotic, intricately chiseled statues fabricated from various kinds of colourful and durable materials ranging from metals, aluminium, plastics, irons, rocks and hardwoods.
Clearly, Ojudu’s The Farm project represents an offering to the increasing number of younger Nigerians with budding aspirations, some of whom have been visiting the place mostly for sight seeing. The place is Ojudu’s demonstration of a stretched hand from the extant class of Ekiti political leadership, serving as a beacon of hope that there is still a better tomorrow for the youth, not just elsewhere, but here in Ekiti State and in Nigeria at large.
This is a healthy, progressive and highly innovative way for a Babafemi Ojudu to live life at 65, given what we all know of all his calibre, connection and achievements. Interestingly, he is not merely finding the time to rest and be around, but he is also reachable – both on the phone and personally.
Not just that, he is also accessible.
At a time when most of his peers who have attained similar scale of achievement are yet to decide the fashion or location via which to access real life and be accessed by real people, Ojudu has already proceeded in drawing a portrait of elderly leadership which is at once inclusive, productive and selfless.
Inverting his life at this point and finding the time to rediscover Ado Ekiti and live around his people at a period when his phones already carry the numbers of thousands of local and international media and political associates and at a time when Ekiti people and the larger Nigeria still needs his service at the top is a feat rarely attempt much less achieve.
This is why we will continue to admire him. That is why we will always cherish him and continue to pray for his well being and the long life and prosperity of he and his immediate and extended family.
Chief Femi Adagunodo is Special Assistant to the Governor of Ekiti State on Photography and Documentation.
