By Uche Amunike
Ex-International, Segun Odegbami’s son, Oluwagbeminiyi Odegbami has just been reported dead, after a brief illness, in the wee hours of Good Friday, March 29, 2024.
According to a statement by the former Green Eagles star, he had been working on a documentary project with his son when he received his phone call in Ghana, demanding his (Segun’s) synopsis.
The statement partly read: ‘It is completely impossible to think that I am writing about Oluwagbeminiyi Omo Odegbami in the past tense.’
‘One day to Good Friday, his message woke me up whilst I was in Accra, Ghana. He wanted my summary of the synopsis of the documentary project we were working on.’
‘I told him not to wait for me but to go ahead and apply his abundant creativity to the project. I was not exaggerating. Gbemi was an unknown and unappreciated G. He was a highly gifted, multi-talented young man. His writing skills, poetic literature in musical lyrics, rapping, elocution when he reads, and unique culinary skills, were all in this laid back young man whose life is simple, spartan and secluded, with no intention whatsoever to disturb the equilibrium of the chaotic world around him.’
The sad Odegbami explained that he received the first of uncountable phone calls that fateful Thursday that his son took ill and had been taken to the hospital and that the hospital referred him to another hospital. He then gave directives that he should be taken to a specialist hospital.
His words: ‘ He should be taken to a specialist hospital. His situation is critical. The hospital works on him for hours. Tweve hours after our first communication, and exactly five minutes past midnight, at the birth of Good Friday (a significant day in Christendom), the doctors call me for the umpteenth time that day to break my heart with the news that haunts me till now – Gbemi has passed on!’
‘Would it have happened had I not travelled? Would I have handled his situation better? It was a shocking, devastating, painful and incomprehensible news. Good people should not die! Why should this young man, at the start of a new exciting chapter of his life, die so suddenly?’, the bereaved Segun Odegbami queried.
He added, ‘Except, of course, (and I now believe so) that it is part of a divine plot that his spirit catches up with that of the ‘dead’ on Good Friday, his sins and transgressions wiped away on the cross of Calvary through Grace at Easter. His soul must be resting peacefully now with the Creator of the Universe.’
‘This ‘sermon’ has become my consolation. This kind, gentle and simple heart, must no longer be tortured by the difficult challenges of his life in his world over which he had little control.’
‘Gbemi, until his death, was unfamiliar with the world’s complex ways. His easy going life was totally harmless to anyone. His love riveted on his little son, his mother, his sisters, his music, his cooking, his song-writing, his friends and his current work in the radio station – probably in that order.’
‘He finally found peace, plus the space and opportunity to express his multiple skills without the pressure of any external scrutiny, enjoying his productions in sights, performances and sounds’, he stated.
