Not the oldest in this very recent picture but not the youngest either, another signal missed!
By Adagbo Onoja
A spectre is haunting Adagbo Onoja. All his friends and well wishers have conspired with Facebook to expel him from the #EndSARS generation on ground of age as from October 31st, 2020.
I should have anticipated the expulsion even if by merely paying attention to the way the one parading himself here as the first born has made a midget of me by his overwhelming height. I could also have seen it coming by the number of people adding ‘Sir’ when talking to me without them knowing how resentful I am to all of that reminder that age is no longer on my side. I should have known that it is not just because they are students or something like that but a way of acknowledging age gap between them and myself.
I thank you all who sent me birthday messages yesterday, some by telephone, majority on Facebook. From what I see there, it will be too long a list to publish here at the same time that it would be wrong move to publish some and not all. I have it on the authority of Prof Omolade Adunbi that ‘carry-over’ is somehow a universal practice. Standing on that protocol, I say ‘see you all again in a few years time when I would be crossing over to the club of 60s even as I suspect that I am going to be the Obasanjo of the Middle Belt: at over 80, he is still @ it.
And Now the Apology
Of late, stories on this platform have come with so much proof reading gaps. It was most horrible in the story on the death of Dr. Salihu Bappa published late last Friday.
With the readership of that story standing at 8364 as at 9.21 am Sunday, November 1, 2020, it means the proof reading gap must have advertised this platform negatively.
As the one who anchored the story in question and as a member of the virtual community that shapes the stories published on this platform, it behooves on me to apologise and to assure that efforts will be made to improve on proof reading. It is possible that the speed of putting that story accounts for the errors just as an ageing shift editor might have also been the reason.
Against this background, it is worth thanking all those who were alarmed and called for immediate corrections. They were particularly worried about where the sentence “Bappa taught and lived in Zaria” came out as “Bappa taught and lied in Zaria” and so on. Such prompt interventions saved the day before the readership went much, much higher.
All in all, it is a reminder that this platform is very much still a work-in-progress!
