By Banji Ayoola
Emmanuel Olugbenga Olaofe, we will always remember how good you were, how loving, how genuine you were in your words and deeds, how you charged wherever you entered with your personal warmth, with your volition which aimed at everything that was good and of benefit to all.
Now that you are called away from the earth, from our midst suddenly, that you are leaving us, we say a very warm Good Bye deep from within our hearts, we accompany you lovingly with Prayers, with our warm wishes and pure thoughts. May the Mercy and Love of the Lord abide with you and brighten up, and illuminate your path!
Please Lord! May it please Thee to comfort us! For indeed we, his Classmates especially of the 1979 Set at the Baptist College, Iwo, have lost a dear friend! A true friend who touched the life positively of whoever crossed his path!
As one of our prefects, Emmanuel Olugbenga Olaofe helped to rally us behind all that was good. His leadership ability and human relations skills he used to our advantage on several occasions as one of our trusted links with the authorities while defending our interests.
At the same time, he helped to endear us to the powers that be. With his talents, he helped calm many storms before they could gather into unmanageable crises that could disrupt the school calendar.
Olaofe E.O. was everywhere – sports, organ playing, cleaning, academics, chapel service, all school activities – everywhere.
He was a moving spirit behind the Julius Caesar cast, working closely with Mama Alma Rohm and the entire cast to ensure success. He was an akikanju okunrin, an akoni! Our own Mark Anthony!
He was good! Emmanuel Olugbenga Olaofe, may your path be blessed! May you be granted all the help that you need on your path! And may you be granted the strength and recognition you need to move vigorously upwards towards Paradise, upwards towards the Light!
Lord! Please Be Thou with our good friend who has just departed the earth. Take his soul into Thy Good Care and let him be lavished with Thy Favour on his new path. Please be Thou with him.
As he steps out with the Radiance of Thy Light, of Thy Mighty Power brilliantly illuminating his path, please Be Thou with him.
As he moves now towards the home, Thy luminous Kingdom, striving for necessary new and helping recognitions, having lived an earth life richly devoted to giving Joy to others, to genuinely caring for and serving others, to giving lovingly to others from what Thou endowed him with out of Thy Great Abundance, of struggling to know Thy Ways and please Thee, and serve Thee, please be Thou with him.
As strong believers in Thy everlasting Goodness and Love, we know that Thy Mercy for our dear friend is ever abiding.
We beseech Thee Father to please guide and help his soul along this journey that he now undertakes. Please, let Thy Goodness follow him. Please help him on.
May his path be blessed. May he be surrounded and accompanied by helpers as he moves on in his journey. May he be granted the recognition, strength and help that he needs as he steps into, and move vigorously, in the beyond upwards towards the Light!
However, one thing is certain. Our dear Emmanuel Olugbenga Olaofe still lives in the wonderful Creation of our Good Lord, the Only One, the Creator, Owner and Ruler of the Heaven and the earth, of the whole universes, the Almighty Father and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He still lives in the Goodness and Mercy of the Lord our God. His Goodness and Mercy still abide with him, as They abide with us all.
The only difference is that he has shed the physical body he used while he was on earth with us. And he has moved out of this body and of this earth, free of the pains he had suffered and endured in that body until he left the earth. To continue his journey in the wonderful Creation of the Most High.
What our dear Olaofe E. O. needs most from us now, as his friends and lovers are our Prayers, good wishes and thoughts that his path in the beyond be eased, that he comes across and is given all the help he needs on his path.
Let us pray fervently and continuously pray for him. Let us pray that helpers lovingly come to his aid as he is stepping into the beyond.
Let us pray that helpers surround and accompany him all through. Let us send him our good thoughts and wishes, and continuously do so, that the Help of the Good Lord, our Lord and God will lead him on!
Good Bye!
