Dele Momodu @63: More Than Meets the Eye

By Joshua J. Omojuwa

This is a flash piece. Even if I wrote a book about the exemplary persona that is Chief Dele Momodu, I’d still need several volumes to do justice. There are many personal and powerful stories. This is why I could not do this using an Instagram post because it’d be too long and it’d not still be enough space. It actually started out as an Instagram post, then I stopped. I needed to say more.

I met him for the first time in Lagos, 13 years ago. He had traveled into the country for an event where we were both speakers. When we met, he said, ‘Ah, Omojuwa, look at how fly you look. I was expecting to see one of this funny looking activists. You look great, keep it up’. Back then, I never missed a chance to let people I respect know I was not an activist and wasn’t interested in being one. I quickly got that off the table but I could not miss my chance to thank him for his iconic media brand, Ovation Magazine.

Every Nigerian baby boomer and millennial passed through the excellence delivered by Ovation, something it continues to do, since 1996. His touch of publishing excellence that was unknown to the entire continent at the time ended up inspiring like magazines and publications – Like, only in their attempt to be Ovation, not in their ability to hit the mark. Everyone wanted to be Ovation, everyone wanted to be in Ovation. One of my favourite ads in Ovation at the time was around the fact that, if you already did your wedding and it was not in Ovation, you had to do it again. Lol. It had its critics and its lovers, but both its critics and its lovers fed off its glitz, colours and glamour.

Those who loved it loved to love it and those who hated it hated that they loved it.

The pull was gravitational, you could not defy it. The interesting thing is, as Bob Dee evolved through the advent of technology, those who copied him at the time were late to it. A wire to wire leadership, Ovation and Bob Dee started leading them from the beginning and it continues to this day!

I remember trying to get my passport out of one of these notorious embassies several years ago. I messaged Bob Dee about wanting to go to the country and having some issues. He immediately asked me how much I needed. lol. I thought that was really cool but I needed something even fewer people had, his ability to call my passport out from a foreign embassy. He made it happen.

There are several stories with his answers in reference to me as, “I only know one person,” before he then makes the call to connect me to one of his numerous friends and allies. Often times, the fact I was always flying would be an issue, he’d then tell them, ‘ah, I don’t know who else to recommend o. I only know Omojuwa!’ Those of us who recommend people and know the risks that come with that know that it is risky enough to recommend someone, to now put an extra stamp that screams, ‘this is it! Nothing else!’ clearly goes above and beyond. I have been immensely blessed by these selfless acts.

But these acts of kindness do not compare to the one thing that separates him from the big people in his position. He has never at any time tried to get me to advance his politics. Never. I had years of struggling where some mentor would repeatedly reply my tweets privately in order to moderate my views or completely have me back down, especially when such tweets appear to touch someone they favoured. Bob Dee has never, directly or indirectly, tried to influence my politics. He has been involved in our elections across several expressions, recently managing strategic comms for the Atiku campaign. He respects your views and position and expects you to respect his. It wouldn’t matter if you were a security man or you were the president, he respects everyone.

In a world where people pretend to be saints in public but are far from it privately, he is the true expression of living one’s life and truth without a care for your feelings or expectations. On this account, everyone who deals with him knows what you see is what you get. And means a lot in a world where enemies pretend to be friends. That is, even those perceived to be his adversaries will open their doors to him immediately he is there. Africa’s most influential private individual, he is an exceptional man. Like Ovation, this conclusion does not seek your agreement, it is a fact that just is. Happy birthday to a great icon. He deserves every joy. This was meant to be a flash piece. I know. But ‘our Bob Dee’ is no flash. He has been here for a while, he will be for many more years. God willing.