3 Years on, Family, Friends Remember Pade Ojoodide… Hope Not Yet Lost On Him, They say

 Mr Sedan Boluwade

 My Beloved Brother and Friend Pade, wherever you are, it’s well with you. God knows everything, nothing is hidden from his eyes. I know it’s not too late for God to suprise us.

 Mr Wilson Agbaje  

The disappearance of Pade for this past three years shows the failure of Security, the demise of security apparatus and connivance of capitalists with state. It is unheard of that somebody is working with a conglomerate and he is missing without any link for a definite whereabout. Pls permit me to use present tense. Pade is such a great fellow, a friend and brother in many ways.  Look at the agony his wife and children are subjected to. Everyday expecting their husband and dad will enter the house.  I know he is alive somewhere. God will bring him one day.

Mr Goke Omidiran  

Friends, it is excruciatingly difficult to reconcile the pain we go through when we know that no closure has been brought to this painful disappearance of our brother.  I joined you all in the search for Pade thinking I was just doing a social service on behalf of a fellow townsman and a very distant relation, only to recently understand that his grandmother and my father were first cousins. Nonetheless,  I am grateful to God that I picked up the gauntlet.   Today, I speak as one who believes that God knows the end from the  beginning and knows what has been the situation with our brother.  Let us trust in Him to unravel whatever may have happened and console and strengthen us while we wait on Him.   Rosemary, the children, family and friends, may the Lord continue to refresh you with His oil of gladness and give you peace that passes all understanding.  Amen  Today makes 3 years!

Obong Idowu Fakorede  

Those body languages from the management of Dangote group displayed at every meeting we held detected gross dereliction, careless and viewed premeditatedly in act…  Like we pointed out to them, Pade’s vigour, vitality and strength always put into whatever he wished to do must have displeased many within his official engagements… But, whoever has/ have hands in putting another family in pains, agony, and daily girrafing of the arrival of a bread winner, a scholarship giver and indeed a philanthropist like Pade… May God repay their family/ families in million folds, in same vein and speedily too. Obong.

Goke Adedeji 

I’m a close friend and a classmate of Pade Ojodide, attended Okemesi grammar school, Okemesi Ekiti 1983-1984. We also were part of the choir in St Michael Anglican church, Okemesi Ekiti.  I was the one who adviced him to bring the boys brigade to Okemesi grammar school, since he was a member of the boys brigade in Christ School, Ado-Ekiti, which he did and he and i were one of the  pioneers and the first founders of the boys brigade in Okemesi Grammar school.  The principal of the school accepted the society in the school and even till now the society still exists in the school.  Also, he played a very significant role in the burial of my father because his grandmother was a junior sister to my grandfather. It isn’t easy to forget Pade like that.

Captain Bisi Oyedeji  

In fact, anytime I remember or think about Pade’s disappearance I feel terrified and have pity for the family. I always remember him in my prayers to let him resurface again. I personally miss him as he was very close to me. We talk often when he was around. May God bring him back to us.

Pastor Niran Olatona

Chartered Accountant. 

I was not aware that he was in Lagos to visit his family which he cherished a lot. Great was my surprise when he sauntered in to join the monthly prayer meeting of Okemesi Christian Fellowship held every 2nd Saturday of the month. This was in April 2017. To now receive a call from his wife a week later that she’d not been contacted as usual was a huge joke. Then the searched began for a loving brother I call MOG (Man of God).  We have interceded, we have searched, we have sought interventions from the high and mighty, several meetings and vigils were held all in order to reconnect brother Olapade Ebenezer Ojo-Odide, the relationship mender, bridge builder and a man of honour to his family.  Are these efforts wasted? No. The number of people who were ready to sacrifice whatever it would take to bring him back is a clear indication of the greatness of this brother. At the right time, I believe God will shine light on the riddle and He’ll put smiles on our faces and shame hell. 

Mr Gboyega Oguntayo

Brother to Pade Ojoodide  

It is just like a play, today 22 April 2020 marks the 3rd year of your sudden disappearance. We tried as a family every thing that is humanly possible to search for you but there is nothing hidden to our creator. However we have consolation that  the will of God will prevail in every situation. By your loving brother Olugboyega oguntayo.

 Mr Gbenga Olagunju

Former Advert Manager, Tell Magazine   Pade is infectious, futuristic, and a thinker who is always eager to help. He’s an organiser. A very close friend of one of my junior brother- Femi Oyedotun of blessed memory who taught Geography at Corpus Christy, a Catholic school in Igede Ekiti. Under Pade’s leadership, they were shaking Okemesi early in their life, organising the youths, doing conferences, teaching secondary schools students and coaching  The hen do sweat but the feather do conceal this fact.  Beyond the group that daily pursue Dangote to do the needful, majority of us, Okemesi people knowing how dear  Pade is to us,in our little way pursue and are still hoping for a breakthrough to the mystery of his absence.  I met his dear wife in her office not too long ago and introduced myself to her. I felt the same way you do, but recounting our efforts is not the issue until those efforts yields to his appearance.  God, in His infinite mercy, will take control of the situation.

Mrs Funmilayo Ogundana

Pade is a great loss to the family Since the 22nd of April, 2017. No occasion in the family of Ojo odide that he would not be present even though he might not stay for long. He was with me during my two daughters wedding ceremony in year 2004 and he was the one that took my daughter and husband to Lagos. I really miss him. God knows the best concerning Pade my brother.

Olayinka Onipede

Broda Pade! It is three years already since we last saw or heard from you. Each time I think of the manner of your disappearance,  my thought ends in a deadlock. I don’t know what to think. We miss you and we miss your role in the family. What we don’t know, God certainly knows. 

Sade ‘Tayo.

There are many things to remember you for. Your love for the  family can never be over emphasised . What a kind heart, full of compassion and has impacted positively to many lives that crossed his path. You never deserved what happened but God knows all.

Mrs Cecelia Adekola Omotade-Ojoodide

My darling brother I thought of you today, but it isn’t anything new as I thought about you yesterday and still will tomorrow. Your abductors left with you without warning, so fast? Now all we have left are memories of the past. You went away so suddenly, not even a goodbye but we cannot  be parted as precious memories never die.

O’tayo Noel Damilölä

I remember this always and I ask myself what went wrong? Started like a dream, now we living the realism of not having uncle Pade In our midst. He embodied so much love and a strong lover of God.  When you live in the hearts and minds of people, you live forever. We haven’t forgotten and today makes it 3 years, when a kindhearted man from Okemesi Ekiti miraculously got missing. To Mrs Rose Mary Ojoodide i  pray God takes extra special care of you and family today and forever!!! 

Femi Oguntayo 

I still cannot believe you’re no where to be found, even till now Uncle! 

Uncle Pade as I fondly call him, is a very loving and compassionate man. 

Always concerned about the personal and educational growth of everyone around, especially we the young lads in the family. 

I still remember vividly, some few months before the sad incident, you gifted Kolawole, my younger brother, Ben Carson’s Gifted Hands and you mandated him to finish reading it and that you will ask him about what he has read and gained from the book. 

I’m short of words right now, It will be of greatest joy to see you again Uncle.

 Moses Jolayemi

Former MD, Newswatch Daily

Pade, Frankly Speaking

For many, Pade is  difficult to understand. He has his own ways. Of  fairness, of bluntness and of fearlessness. 

But the latter I must say, is not exclusive to him; it is a family trait that not many would like to argue.

Fairness and  bluntness are no doubt his own personal attributes. 

These qualities, as beautiful as they appear, may also stand in the way of man. Especially in the world we live in today.

In being fair, Pade may have inadvertently stepped on the toes of those whose wayward interests are not captured.

Being blunt without minding whose ox is gored also means stepping on toes. 

Additionally, Pade was very brilliant, exceptionally hardworking and wholly dedicated to his job. 

That clearly enhanced his career in ways that attracted envy as well as enmity.

In Okemesi, his home, Pade is a useful tool of progress and development. The Likes Group, Pade’s club of young, upwardly mobile Okemesi sons can bear me witness.

Over the last 30 or so years, Pade has lived his life just the way he deems fit and proper. Without making deliberate efforts to obstruct the way of others, it is not unlikely that landmines may have been set in his path. 

It is also not unlikely he has stepped into those landmines.

While no one can say with absolute certainty his actual whereabouts, what is almost certain is that where Pade is at the moment is not where he desires to be. 

It is also unlikely that it is a place of comfort.

As each passing day brings sweet memories of a man who meant so well for all around him,

and struggled so much to secure a space for himself at the higher rungs of life’s ladder,

I can only pray that the Almighty God, the architect of life, shows mercy to Pade, wherever he is, here or the other side.