By Tunde Odesola
When Gbemuotor, PUNCH Admin Manager, returned to the newsroom for the tribute to the departed former Arts Editor/Head of Graphic Design between 1984 and 1997, Mr Ben Bayo Oyemade, I was still piecing the piece together. Never short on sparkle, Gbemuotor urged me to expedite action on the write-up, saying, “The MD wants to read it before he leaves the office.”
I looked up from my laptop and shot her the kind of stare a beggared husband shoots a wife requesting money for pounded yam and egusi soup, saying, “By the time you come back in an hour, it will be ready.” “Ha, one hour bawo?” she squealed; “Oga ti ma lo sile! The MD would be gone in an hour. And he wants to read it before he goes home!” I yawned.
But a mischievous laugh welled up in my stomach as my inner eye (ojú inú) dialogued with my inner ear (etí inú): “Dis admin people think say na play we dey play for newsroom? If e easy, why you no write di tribute yasef?” Meanwhile, newsroom instinct nudged me to double down on the tribute as the deadline for news and politics pages flashed a yellow card in my face.
“One hour is too long o,” Gbemuotor continued. “Ok, 45 minutes,” I countered. “Ah, 45 minutes is still long o. It is what Oga is waiting for. He wants to read it to see if it’s publishable.” Then, I looked up and said, “Ha, publishable ke? Are you saying the MD would turn down what I write? It’s not possible. Who taught me how to write, if not the MD?” Gbemuotor left, shaking her head.
In less than 45 minutes, she breezed into the newsroom and stood behind me quietly. I saw her but played dumb. “Uhm, uhm!” she announced her presence. I asked for her email and sent the tribute. It was titled, “Ben Bayo Oyemade, ex-PUNCHER goes home (April 3, 1948 – April 4, 2017). “Let me go and see if Oga would approve it,” she said. “The MD will approve it 100%. You want to bet?” She smiled and left, saying, “We shall see. I’ll go and print it for Oga.”
After a while, she walked back into the newsroom, slowly this time, and stayed behind my chair again, holding a printout. I was tempted to say, ‘Get behind me,…!” But I held my tongue and kept a straight face. She announced, “Oga approve it o.” “What did I tell you?” I beamed, readjusting the lapel of my suit and sinking deeper into my chair like a cool cat.
Now, don’t get it twisted – there was no rivalry between journalists and admin staff at PUNCH. But officialdom had no place in the dictionary of PUNCH-toughened journalists, trained to break bureaucratic bottlenecks and tear off red tape from public and private paperwork. PUNCH newshounds are like Formula 1 drivers speeding in single-seater, open-cockpit, open-wheel race cars, while admin staff are riders on donkeys: steady, safe, and scarcely have fatal crashes.
I enjoyed it when I needled Gbemuotor and waited for her to throw her own punches. This is the punch she sent my way after reading the first part of this article last week, “Ogbeni, why did you remove ‘o’ from my surname? Your response to get to my table before the close of work today. GBEMUOTOR, not GBEMUTOR.” When next I see Gbemuotor, I will simply ask her, “Ta lo n GBEMU?” because I know that the nose is fragile to punch.
But seriously, I learnt some vital lessons from the way Osinubi handled the burial announcement of Oyemade, aka Big Ben, who had left PUNCH 20 years earlier. He could have turned down the tribute. But he didn’t. Many MDs wouldn’t have bothered to read it, let alone personally ensuring that it got to the press, but Osinubi did. He was painstaking. Unlike many helmsmen, he did not delegate the assignment down the hierarchy. He stayed back in the office to ensure the memory of an ex-worker was accorded a befitting tribute. That is Osinubi for you. He could be as hard as a nail when duty calls, yet as soft as a cloud when humanity knocks.
I must make a clarification quickly. The MD didn’t reject my colleague’s earlier tribute because it was badly written. It was because my colleague lacked the depth of connection with Big Ben, the personal knowledge that breathes life into words. Uncle Ben wasn’t just my next-door neighbour, he was a mentor who regularly visited my parents and whose residence was my second home.
The Modakeke-born creative lived in one of the 32 flats populated by PUNCH staffers on Omotoye Estate, Orile Agege. Located in two massive compounds, the buildings are still popularly called PUNCH Quarters to date. It was while running errands and playing Scrabble with PUNCH big guns like Uncle Ben and Uncle Paul Bassey (now of Akwa United FC fame), that the seed of journalism was planted in me. Indeed, it was Uncle Ben who advised me to apply to PUNCH. Scrabble-playing male undergraduates in the neighbourhood looked forward to weekends when Uncle Ben and Uncle Bassey ‘declared’ free beer and pepper soup. The then-PUNCH Entertainment Editor, the great Azuka Jebose-Molokwu, lived in the other compound of PUNCH Quarters.
No matter the length of a thread, it must have a source, says a Yoruba proverb. The illustrious Osinubi family are from Ago-Iwoye in Ogun State. Ademola’s father, Pa Osinubi, was popularly known as Mèfún Kennewen because he always sported white clothes and shoes. He was a meticulous man of style, poise and honour. But death took him in the 1960s, leaving behind three boys and four girls. Mèfún Kennewen’s widow, Chief Mrs Olawunmi Osinubi (née Onalaja), a nurse and matron, singlehandedly raised the seven children, giving them the best of education and upbringing. Mama went to join Mèfún Kennewen in paradise in 2012.
What is the meaning of Osinubi? In the Ijebu dialect, Osìn means deity, king, or leader. Ibi means pedigree, good birth. Linguistically speaking, Osìn-ní-ùbi can be divided into three morphemes, that is, Osìn – deity, Ni – has, Ubi – pedigree, to produce Osinubi, a name that connotes the Yoruba essence of honour called Omoluabi. In industry, integrity, modesty, panache and easygoingness, Oga Ademola is the apple that doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Married to his gorgeous and fashionista heartthrob, Oluwawemimo, Osinubi’s sense of integrity, modesty, and justice flung mouths wide open around 2011 when he ran afoul of his own law. Sensing lethargy among staff, the MD ordered that every staff member must be at the office at 8 am. One day, he came a minute after 8. The remote-controlled gate swung open, but he told his driver not to go in. His driver parked outside, and he joined other latecomers outside the gate, while his driver remained inside his air-conditioned Mitsubishi SUV! That is the son of Mèfún Kennewen.
My colleague, Segun Olugbile, who witnessed the drama at the gate, said, “The MD was the first to get to the gate at a minute past 8. He quietly alighted from his vehicle and stayed by the gate. When I saw the MD among the latecomers at the gate, I ‘jejely’drove on to Under-Bridge, where I took cover.”
If you disagree with Osinubi’s strict administrative style, you will agree with the way he humanises staff welfare. The Ijebu spirit of prudency in the father of Oluwarantimisirere (the wife of Oderinde) frowns on waste, but the Ijebu spirit of self-sufficiency made him lavish when staff had medical challenges. On countless occasions, he got the company to fully foot the expensive medical bills of staff at all levels. His refrain was, “Get all your receipts and send them to Accounts.” But, if you send cooked receipts, you will receive a sack letter, instead of a reimbursement, because Baba Demilade would send a spy to go and verify your hospital and receipts. The fastest way to get sacked in PUNCH was by being dishonest. The Knight of John Wesley, Methodist Church of Nigeria, also zips PUNCH purse wide open for staff reward, leave allowance, housing allowance, pensions, medicare and remuneration. Every year-end, every staff member got a pay rise in salary.
A responsible family man and community leader, the father of five turned up at staff weddings, birthday anniversaries, etc, just as he shocked me when he, along with the incumbent MD, Mr Adeyeye Joseph, attended my father’s burial service at Araromi Baptist Church, Mushin, in 2024, wearing the ankara Aso Ebi and cap, though I had resigned from PUNCH in 2017, and he had retired as MD on April 30, 2022.
Knighted in 2014 at the Methodist Church Cathedral of Peace and Excellence, Opebi, Ikeja, Osinubi is the swivel door that sees both the indoor and the outdoor. He’s the full barrel that has no space for noise. He knows too much of the craft and cash of journalism; he knows how to turn a newspaper into gold. He once complained to Olugbile that a reporter had a penchant for mixing the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ up. When Olugbile ran a check on the reporter, it was true. Who would think an editor-in-chief would have the time to look at such details?
A sports lover and table-tennis veteran, Osinubi knows the essence of exercise to healthy living, thus he facilitated the construction of a world-class gym at PUNCH, encouraging staff to participate in sporting activities. He got a former Nigerian footballer, Kola Lijoka, as the coach and keep-fit expert of the gym. I was an everyday one-hour visitor to the gym, where I played table tennis with the MD, Assistant Editor Goddy Ofolue, Production Manager, Mr Olayinka Popoola (Popson); Olalekan Ayodele of Editorial Production Unit, among many others. We also had aerobics sessions under the tutelage of Lijoka. Osinubu’s love for exercise didn’t start at the current headquarters of PUNCH. It dated way back to when PUNCH was headquartered at 1, Olu Aboderin Street, Idi Mangoro, Lagos, where Osinubu played table tennis with staff in the evenings.
Serial award-winner and the longest-serving Editor of PUNCH, Martin Ayankola, described the former MD as ‘o ran omo ni’se, faya ti.’ Ayankola said, “When you’re doing the right thing and trouble comes along the way, he (Osinubi) will support you fully. He won’t leave you midstream. When I was PUNCH editor, there was a time we were doing a sensitive story. The Central Bank of Nigeria had given authorisation for banks to publish the names of their debtors. The banks were running the adverts in PUNCH. Every day, we were picking the names of powerful individuals who owed the banks, and we were writing stories about their debts and the life of affluence that they were living.
“PUNCH was the only newspaper that dared to do that at the time. The story opened the floodgates of litigation by affected powerful Nigerians who wanted to intimidate us and silence the stories. Not for once did the former MD complain about the story. He was an excellent editor-in-chief.”
Ayankola, who is now the daily editor, Leadership newspaper, continued, “When he gives you an assignment, he gives you encouragement and independence along with it. He’s never afraid of litigation when he knows your story is factual and in the public interest. There was the story of a Nigerian airline chairman who had a penchant for taking us to various courts across the length and breadth of Nigeria. But Mr Osinubi never buckled. He sent PUNCH lawyers to all the court sessions, which we won.”
Speaking with me on the phone, a former Editor, Sunday PUNCH, Toyosi Ogunseye, recalled that as a newly hired reporter, she could count the number of times she physically saw the ex-MD in a year, noting that the few times she saw him were in the elevator or on the way to the canteen. Ogunseye, a multiple-award winner and PUNCH’s most outstanding female editor, said Osinubi, ever in the background, would give a compliment to a staff member just to let the recipient know that he knew more than you thought he knew.
She said, “My first full conversation with him was after I was appointed Editor, Sunday Punch. After a competitive process with the results shown in the newsroom, the intercom rang, and it was the MD. In the conversation, he congratulated me on passing the editorship examination and told me not to worry about gossip. He affirmed his belief in me in that conversation. Passing the exam was one thing; having the MD’s support was another thing. I had both. I was happy. I loved my job, but more importantly, I didn’t want to disappoint MD.
“Even when things sometimes went awry and he had to ask for amends, he was unequivocal about his support for me. After producing Sunday Punch overnight on Saturdays, I would only sleep well on Sunday morning if I didn’t get a text from him. MD hardly wasted his words; a one-sentence text message meant an emergency – something in the paper needed to be urgently addressed. I don’t think I received more than five text messages from him on Sunday mornings, and it was always a relief not to get one. Every other feedback would be on my table on Monday morning- those were minor infractions.”
A former Deputy Editor, Saturday and Sunday PUNCH titles, Akinpelu Dada, said he got a dose of PUNCH’s welfarism under Osinubi when he got seriously sick, and had to undergo an expensive treatment. “The former MD ensured that PUNCH picked the bill, Dada said, “Actually, I didn’t request help, but I was surprised when I was told to turn in my bills.”
Children also have a thing to say about Osinubi. When PUNCH was still at Mangoro, Lagos, many years ago, Olugbile, as a reporter on the Education and Science Desk, brought his little children to work on a weekend. The son of Mèfún Kennewen ran into the little Olugbiles at the reception. He went to them and struck up a conversation. Then, Olugbile walked into the scene from the newsroom. The MD was not going to leave the kid without giving them money. So, he reached for his breast pocket, but there was no money in it. He reached for the right pocket of his trousers, no shishi in it. Ha! The MD must not fall the hands of the expectant children o; he reached for the left pocket – no kobo! If I were Olugbile, I would’ve screamed, “I-J-E-B-U-U!”
The children were watching, making a mental note of Olugbile’s MD, who rushed to his car and got the kids a huge sum of money. That was my MD!
As you hit platinum, Sir Ademola Osinubi, ekun oko Oluwawemimo, the Yeye Oge, I celebrate you, and wish you many more years of God’s blessings, grace and kindness.
Thanks for bequeathing to us a legacy of hard work, diligence and honesty. Thank you for leaving behind a worthy successor in Mr Adeyeye Joseph, the Oracle of Wisdom. Thanks, PUNCH, for keeping the flag flying and the flagship of the Nigerian press sailing.
Ahoy!
* Concluded.
Written By Tunde Odesola and first published in the Punch Newspaper of Friday, 31st October, 2025.
Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com
Facebook: @Tunde Odesola
X: @Tunde_Odesola
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