By Sam Omatseye
He left at 91. He was Brother Joel Olusola then. Before he passed, he changed his name to Joel Solupeju. He was my spiritual mentor as a youth when I was a member of the God’s Kingdom Society. I saw him as practically taking over from my father Moses in that light. My father spent Saturday mornings after breakfast to teach his kids bible stories and subjected us, in an atmosphere of friendly affray, to quizzes. I looked forward to them, until Brother Solupeju inaugurated regular children’s meetings that opened my eyes to the various ways of interrogating scripture and lit my first fires as a debater. My immersion in Bible rigour, religious history and nuances of doctrine began with that man. He was patient, avuncular, and exercised discipline as though he didn’t. He scolded with a mellow voice, massaged my childhood fancies to higher language and truth, and he gingered me to challenge orthodoxies. Ginger was his favorite word then. My father had a lot to do with this pedagogy, but minister Solupeju also had a major role. In those days, we had a Youth Assembly, and minister Solupeju shaped me to compete in Bible quiz contest comprising all GKS branches in the country. Although we didn’t win as Ibadan branch, I became
the star attraction in Salem City, Warri, the headquarters, after our family moved to Lagos where I led the delegation to back-to back victories. For me, Lagos took the victories, but Solupeju laid the foundation. In my Ife days, he often visited to watch on me and address my concerns. My gratitude to him always for clarifying conundrums in my philosophy class, one of which was about why God did not stop Adam and Eve from committing the sin that brought woe to the world. It was the first time I learned of man as a free moral agent. Always beamy with a laugh like an earthquake, he was one of the most genuine humans I ever met. Principled without subversion, wise without ostentation and friendly but not corny, he did not elicit any surprises when he was appointed the spiritual adviser of the G.K.S., a post he held before his final breath. My dad used to call him Olu.
The cares and pursuits of life kept us apart for decades until recently when we spoke. He was now in old age without losing any of his sparkle of old. At 91, we can say, in the words of Dylan Thomas, he went “gentle into that good night.”
