Farewell, Inked with Tears: Remembering Joshua Adediran Fafore

Olusegun Fafore

Baami,

Omo Owa, Omo Ekun.

Omo Kurumu, Omo Gbadamu

Omo Ilu meta aafin

Baami Ishola, Omo Akeran.

Odi gba o se.

Otun di arin na ko, O di oju ala.

Awon to laye a fi’ku ro yin l’orun.

Aseda a te yin si afefe rere.

Odaro. E sun re o.

Even in their finality, these words did not bid my father, late Apostle (Prince) Joshua Adediran Fafore, who joined the saints in the early hours of January 1, 2026, an absolute goodbye.

Memories flooded by mind, and imageries flashed before me. I saw him ironing my school uniform and taking me to early school – St. Christopher Nursery and Primary School, Isolo in Lagos.

His shoulders were my resting place. He would lift me up and caused me to laugh hysterically. I recalled several moments and experiences that made the demise of my parents an irrecoverable loss to me.

In its inevitability, death seems like cruelty to mankind. It robs us of our joy. The grief that comes with the loss of a loved one is indescribable. I experienced that agony and understood the meaning of loss when I could not write my own father’s obituary.

Words deserted me. I became blank. I never thought that I would author my father’s funerary someday. When my mother died in 2014, I felt the pain. I grieved intensely. I came out of it and lied to myself that I had grown into a complete man, and consequently become insulated to pain.

Twelve years later, when my father died barely two weeks after his 80th birthday, I realised that I had only buried the grief, not even deep enough, to prevent my disintegration at the sight of his corpse.

I had gone ahead to await its arrival in our hometown. Our family compound – Odofin Iloro, Igbajo in Boluwaduro Local Government Area of Osun State, wore a glum look as it expected the lifeless body of one its children.

A prince of Igbajo had died. Local hunters alerted the town with the thunderous sound of guns. The body arrived and had a quick stop at the Palace of the Owa of Igbajo, the throne of Akeran, our progenitor, to alert him about the demise and return of his son.

The corpse was subsequently accompanied by women – our mothers, sisters, and wives – comprising predominantly Oloris (wives of late kings from our coterie), to our family compound.

For Baami, it was a glorious end, but the call to our quintessence by the enchanting voices of the women struck a chord in me. The requiem, which swung between our ancestral eulogy and deep messages about the certainty of death, symbolically forced me into a moment of deep reflection.

The contemplation was unconscious because my father’s lifeless body, housed in a white coffin with gold plates, was directly before me. The sight was a trigger I could not manage because emotions overwhelmed me, and I broke down completely.  I realized that no matter how bright the day is, night will certainly come.

It looked like my father was going to live forever. The youngest of five siblings, my father, Apostle (Prince) Joshua Adediran Fafore, departed this world as the last of his brethren. The first child of the family, Maami Agba, Alhaja Modupeola Bilikisu Irawo (nee Fafore) passed first.

The family was further reduced with the demise of Baami Engr. (Prince) Olabode Adekunle Fafore, a very talented mind and Maami Kekere, Olaide Lawrence (nee Fafore). These two deaths brought so much sorrow to the family because they came early and did not follow the order of their birth.

Maami Kekere was the immediate younger sister of Baami Engr. (Prince) Olabode Fafore, who died years ahead of his immediate older brother, Snr. Apostle (Prince) Joseph Oladipupo Fafore, the mascot of the Fafore family.

With the demise of my father, the generation created by my late grandfather, Omooba Olagunju Fafore, and grandmother, Yeye Oba Jolade Fafore, has completely ended, and a new one is now in the frontline. It’s a new era shaped by the wisdom of the old and sharpened by the suppleness of modernity.

It felt like reshuffling in a game of cards. Like how the beautiful designs on poker cards mask the intense thinking players engage in during the game, so did the panoply at my father’s burial on January 14 and 15, 2026, temporarily veil our loss.

Since the fading of the cloud, the two days provided began, anxiety about the weakening of our spiritual fortress and depletion of our cultural compendium engulfed me. “With the ascension to glory of the entire generation that birthed ours, we need to grow very rapidly to close the chasm”, I soliloquized.

To God Almighty, I turned, for strength and easing of our pain. The funeral service held for my father at the First Baptist Church, Igabjo, was more than a worship.  The depth of the preaching and peerless delivery of the choir united heaven and earth, as angels accompanied the soul of my father on its flight to heaven.

Reassuringly, the head of our family compound – the Odofin Iloro Compound, Baami High Chief E.A. Oladejo, who also holds the traditional title of Odofin Iloro of Igbajo land, nodded his head throughout the funeral service. He seemed to be saying, “God will be with you and make life easy for you. The demise of your father will not result in termination of goodness from your lives”.

By the grace of God, all the prayers and best wishes will be with the entire Fafore family, my siblings and I, eternally. I pray for the soul of my father, Apostle (Prince) Joshua Adediran Fafore, to find repose in the bosom of his creator. It is hard to say goodnight, but night still crept in on us. Sleep, we must, at night fall.

Omo idan oni yi olaa. Baami, orun e re o!

Olusegun Fafore is Special Adviser, Public Relations, Repository and Documentation to the Lagos State Governor