Early hours of August 31st, 2022, the rude unwarranted, ruthless and faceless visitor, called “death”, swung into action, laid hands on our amiable brother, friend, compatriot, husband and father, His Highness, the Odeyi’ani of Ebira community in Nasarawa, Mallam Abdulwahab Ochu Yusuf, popularly known and called by his friends as ‘Castro’.
Mallam Ochu’s death, no doubt, came to me as a rude shock; it was a shock especially to other people who have in one way and the other, benefitted from his humane and generous dispositions.
My immediate reaction when the sad news came to me, was that, “why Ochu”? “Death is indeed a bastard and a coward for coming to snatch our beloved one through the back door from us, that if you death, would have come physically in human form, we would have wrestled with you, death, until our beloved one is rescued and brought back to life. Unfortunately, the Creator (Almighty Allah), who made it (Death) in a way that no soul on Earth can resist its dreaded power, hence we now surrendered to the wish of the Creator”.
But, why Ochu, a man of the people, who have been touching the lives of many, mostly in the area of education. His landmark achievement in human and community development, that earned him the leadership as the Odeyi’ani of Ebira community in Nasarawa, will remain indelible in the minds of the people and beyond.
Of no order, Late Ochu became a household name among his contemporaries, as he is a man who have proved that if a man must live, man must be seen to be functional. So, as a genre in the midst of his contemporaries, as the Late astute educationist meant conspicuously well to add more values to his people in the area of improving education standard to our children, by struggling tooth and nail to get them admission into Federal Polytechnic, Nasarawa, where he thought as Senior Lecturer. He doesn’t care or look at the face of any one, especially when he is pursuing a genuine course that will benefit his people.
Nothing last forever, even the shadow of a man leaves him when the sun goes down. This aptly described human endeavour. I was made to understand that time heals all wounds, that all grief would become history, but to us, as friends and relations to Late Abdulwahab Yusuf Ochu, each passing day, it will continue to come with pain, and of waking up, knowing that we will never see him again or hear his laughter. The vacuum created by his sudden death remains.
His Highness, OCHU, my bosom friend, you have left us when we less expected. I pray Allah to grant you eternal rest and forgive you all your shortcomings, Ameen.
I remain your agrieved friend, Idris Itopa Isah, of Arewa Trust newspaper Abuja.
