Government of Ekiti State, Nigeria.

IN MEMORIAM: Moremi, Bye For Now

April 28, 2013

In the beginning, it started like a speculation. One of those myriad gossips on the social media. At the end, Olufunmilayo Adunni Olayinka added another prefix to her name— the late. And the smile, the beauty and the brain have become history.

Never again shall we see her glow, her flow and her show! The show has stopped. The music is gone too. And what is left is a frightening rhythm, which calls for nothing but macabre dance. The thanksgiving she was looking forward to organising after beating cancer can only hold in dreamland.

Never again shall we see this woman of grace show what stuff she was made of! She now belonged to another realm. A realm strange to us and inaccessible.

What a waste! The training, the upbringing, the strive and the struggle have all gone down, flushed into the reservoir of history by cancer. Never again will we reap the benefit of her sound training, which made her a technocrat of uncommaon hue.

Born June 20, 1960, her days as Olayinka Famuagun were days of promises, which later manifested for all to see, but were not fully realised. She gave educaton her best.

At the Holy Trinity Grammar School, Ibadan where she obtained her first school leaving certificate, she did it stunningly, with a distinction. Her record at the Olivet Baptist High School, Oyo State, where she obtained her Higher School Certificate (HSC) was not less sparkling.

Her quest for further knowledge saw her obtaining a Masters Degree in Public Administration in 1983. That was after she earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (Marketing) from Central State University, Edmond, Oklahoma, United States in 1981, where she was three times winner of the Dean’s Honour roll.

A Marketing Analyst & Strategist, she started her career in banking with First Bank of Nigeria Plc in 1986. She later was Relationship Manager for Corporate Accounts in Access Bank, the now defunct Merchant Banking Corporation (MBC) and United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc.

By August 2002, she took up a new challenge in Corporate Communications when she became Head, Corporate Affairs Division, UBA. She later became Head, Brand Management & Corporate Affairs and led the team responsible for the re-branding of the United Bank for Africa. She co-chaired the Branding Sub-Committee during the merger of UBA and Standard Trust Bank. She later became Head of Corporate Services, Ecobank Transatlantic Inc, the job she was doing before Dr. Kayode Fayemi, through Senator Babafemi Ojudu, made her his running mate for the 2007 governorship race on the platform of the then Action Congress (AC) .

She stood by Fayemi all through the struggle, which ended in October 2010 when the Appeal Court removed Segun Oni, paving the way for Fayemi and the late Mrs. Olayinka to be sworn into offices.

The man who made her drop Famuagun for Olayinka, Lanre, her three children and parents, can only be consoled by God.

Like many, they would have given anything for cancer not to end her beautiful life on April 6.

Adieu, the great woman many loved to call Moremi.

 

By Olukorede Yishau

This article was first published in The Nation

Last modified: April 28, 2013

Comments are closed.