OLAWALE BANMORE: WHEN DEATH COMES CALLING

OLUSEGUN ADENIYI mourns the passing of his friend and cousin, Olawale, Managing Director of Staco Insurance

They say you never truly understand the weight of grief until it hits you. My cousin, Dr Olawale Banmore, the Managing Director of Staco Insurance Plc, passed at the early hours yesterday morning. And I am left here, among the living, trying to make sense of what it means to lose someone who was once as permanent a fixture in my life as the rising sun. It was indeed a humbling experience yesterday, driving around Lagos, trying to buy a coffin, negotiating with an ambulance to carry his corpse to Ilorin and sorting out so many things that the living owes the dead. But to be honest, I just coasted along while my wife took all the decisions.

We Nigerians have a peculiar relationship with death. But in the quiet moments, when the well-wishers have left and the condolence register has been closed, what remains is the raw, unadorned truth: someone you loved is gone, and nothing can fill that void. I remember my cousin in fragments now, the sound of his laughter that seemed to come from his belly, the way he argued about football (as an Arsenal supporter) with the conviction of a prophet and the days when he was an undergraduate at Ibadan and I at Ife. These memories feel both sharp and distant, like looking at photographs through water.

The thing about terminal illness is that it gives you time to come to terms with the inevitable. But time, I have learned, is a cruel gift. Because even when you know death is coming, you are never truly prepared. You tell yourself that you are ready. You rehearse the grief. But when it arrives, it still knocks the breath out of you. My wife and I decided to spend our Christmas in Lagos so we could be close to Wale without knowing it was going to be a final goodbye. His death was the last thing on our mind when leaving Abuja on 22 December. We spent a few hours with him at the hospital on Christmas day. I could feel for his wife, Rayoke, who unfortunately is now a widow.

In the last four months, I came to Lagos to see Wale three times. Each visit was a negotiation between hope and reality. We would talk about his recovery as though it were certain, even as we both saw the truth written in the medical procedures he has had to undergo. There is a particular kind of conversation that happens between people who know one is dying, a delicate dance where neither party wants to acknowledge what both can see. We speak in future tenses we fear may be self-deceiving, make plans we know might never materialize, while maintaining the fiction that tomorrow is guaranteed.

But then tomorrow is never guaranteed. This is what death teaches us, again and again, with patient cruelty. Then came two days ago when the doctors called the family aside. They had done all they could do, they said. The treatment was no longer working. It was time, they suggested gently, to call his pastor. There is something uniquely devastating about that moment when medical science raises its hands in surrender, when the people trained to heal tell you that all that remains is to prepare the soul. It is one thing to know intellectually that someone is dying; it is another thing entirely to have it pronounced as medical fact, to have the curtain pulled back on hope’s illusion.

Throughout Friday night when I could not sleep, waiting for the dreaded call the doctors had, with clinical compassion, hinted us would come. But his wife and children were with him at the final moment. In Nigeria’s healthcare system, we are used to fighting against inadequate infrastructure, against incompetent professionals. But this was different. This was not a failure of the system but an acknowledgment of death’s sovereignty. Even in the best of circumstances, even with all the resources in the world (and Wale had the best medical treatment at home and abroad), some battles cannot be won. The doctors at LUTH tried their best. And so did the medical personnel at Marcele Ruth where Wale finally succumbed to prostrate cancer.

A seasoned insurance professional with nearly three decades of experience, Wale rose to the pinnacle of the insurance industry through grit, intellect, and uncommon resilience. He previously held top leadership roles within the Royal Exchange Group, including Group Managing Director and Managing Director of Royal Exchange Prudential Life. Across these roles, Wale was known for his strategic clarity, turnaround leadership, and deep understanding of risk, governance, and institutional reform. Academically accomplished, Wale held degrees from the University of Ibadan and went on—even while battling prolonged illness—to secure both an MPhil and a PhD in Strategic Marketing from Babcock University.

Meanwhile, what strikes me most after his passing is not the grand, philosophical questions about mortality, though those come too but the small, mundane ways his absence manifests. The phone number in my contacts that will never be answered. The jokes no one else will understand. Grief, I am learning, lives in these details.

My cousin fought his illness with dignity. There is something profoundly moving about watching someone face their own mortality with courage, not the loud, performative kind, but the quiet strength of getting up each day to face what cannot be changed. Abiding by his wish, we bury him today in the village in Kwara State but there will be a thanksgiving reception in his honour, most likely in Lagos, so that his friends, colleagues and associates can pay a proper tribute.

As I write this, I am thinking about what we will leave behind when we go. The material possessions or accomplishments, and the imprints we make on other people’s hearts. My cousin leaves behind three children (Dapo, Bolaji and Doyinsola) and a grandchild, Serena, who now carry his name and stories that will be told and retold at family gatherings. In this way, perhaps, death is not quite the end we imagine it to be.

But these are the thoughts of someone trying to find meaning in a loss or trying to build philosophical bridges across the chasm of grief. The truth is simpler and harder: I miss Olawale Banmore. I will miss him tomorrow and the day after and in all the tomorrows that follow. But I cannot end this without acknowledging his friends who were more than brothers. There are many but two stood out: Biodun Ladepo and Wale Jegede. Everybody needs friends like them. And my friend, Waziri Adio, has been a pillar of support in recent months. I also appreciate the Chairman of Staco Insurance, Alhaji Muhammed Sidi-Aliyu and the entire management for their wonderful support. They were with Wale to the very end.

Meanwhile, we do not get to choose when death comes calling. We only get to choose how we live. My cousin’s illness has taught me this: Say the words. Make the call. Take the trip. Love loudly and without reservation. Because one day, the film reel will stop, and all we will have are the moments we created while we had time.

Rest well, my brother. The fight is over now.

Adeniyi is Chairman, THISDAY Editorial Board

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