BABA LATEEF AKANBI LADEJO: THE POWER OF A SOFT VOICE, THE WISDOM OF A FATHER, AND THE GIFT OF BEING UNDERSTOOD

There are some people who have always remained somewhere in the quiet corners of my mind. Baba Lateef Akanbi Ladejo is one of them. Today, I am profoundly grateful to God Almighty that he is alive to read these words of appreciation, affection, and reflection.

I have always loved the idea of giving people their flowers while they are alive, while they can see them, appreciate them, and perhaps understand the depth of the impressions they have made on other people’s lives. Why should we wait until someone is gone before we begin to celebrate the virtues we have witnessed? Why should gratitude be postponed until it can no longer be received personally?

Some people deserve to hear what they mean to us. Some deserve to know that their seemingly ordinary words and actions have remained extraordinary in another person’s memory. Baba Ladejo is one of such people.

How I Came to Know Baba Ladejo

I did not know Baba Ladejo very well until I became the President of the Students’ Union at the University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, now the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta.

He was a staff member of the Students’ Affairs Office. By virtue of his position, our paths crossed on several occasions, particularly during some of the critical moments that defined our engagement with the university administration.

By my own estimation at the time, he was one of the most elderly persons around at the time and occupying a small office in the Senate Building. That little office became one of the places where the human dimensions of university administration occasionally revealed themselves.

As Students’ Union President, the prevailing orientation was that the President should take issues directly to the Vice Chancellor. Consequently, there were times when I would not ordinarily have considered discussing certain matters with Baba Ladejo or the Dean. Our attention was often directed towards the highest authority, as though the resolution of every difficult situation depended exclusively on the person occupying the highest office.

Yet, despite our disposition, Baba always had a smile for us.

That smile is one of the things I remember fondly. I also remember his handwriting. Baba had a big, bold, unmistakable handwriting that seemed to occupy the paper with the same confidence with which he occupied a conversation when he finally chose to speak. It was large, distinctive, and memorable. Even now, the thought of that handwriting takes me back to those days and the little details through which memory preserves the people we have encountered. His voice too was unmistakable.

But beyond the smile, the small office, and the handwriting, there was something much more profound about Baba Ladejo. It was his disposition at moments of crisis.

The period of my Students’ Union leadership was a time when student unionism still carried the heavy imprint of the military interregnum. Force, confrontation, resistance, and the demonstration of strength often occupied the centre of student activism. Many of us had grown accustomed to the idea that a serious problem required an equally forceful response.

We believed in our causes. We wanted to be heard. We were often impatient with what we considered institutional insensitivity. And when emotions ran high, the language of engagement could easily become the language of confrontation.

Baba Ladejo, however, seemed to approach these situations from a different place.

At meetings, everyone would have spoken. The arguments would have been marshalled, the grammar exhausted, and the positions established. When the tension appeared better, he would open a window and allowed fresh air into the conversation.

He would talk to us after the meeting. Most times, he would speak the Yoruba language. His Yoruba was not merely a change of language. It was a change of perspective. He spoke with the depth of someone drawing from a reservoir of lived experience, cultural understanding, human observation, and practical wisdom. He had a way of connecting the immediate disagreement to the larger realities of life.

He could draw lessons from ordinary human relationships, family experiences, community life, and the consequences of decisions made in anger. His narratives were deep, relatable, and disarming. They made you consider dimensions of a problem that might have escaped you while you were busy defending your own position.

What I found particularly remarkable was that Baba was never judgmental. He did not approach us as troublesome young people who needed to be condemned or subdued. He appeared to understand what we were trying to achieve and why we were pursuing it, even when he did not necessarily agree with our methods.

He would listen, appreciate the underlying concerns, and then offer alternatives.

He did not always tell us that our grievances were unfounded. Rather, he seemed to suggest that a legitimate grievance could still be pursued through a better approach. He understood the difference between the validity of a cause and the wisdom of the strategy adopted to advance it.

The Day His Question Changed the Atmosphere

There is one episode I can never forget.

There was a very serious, spontaneous demonstration on campus. It was one of those moments that shook everyone and left the university community struggling to understand the scale of what had happened and what might follow.

When the situation subsided a little, a meeting was immediately convened. Such prompt meetings were part of the university’s administrative response to crises at the time. The expectation was that bringing the relevant people together would help restore order and establish a way forward.

But we could not arrive at anything concrete.

The meeting had run its course without producing a satisfactory resolution. The Vice Chancellor eventually felt that the university might have to be closed.

That was a grave prospect. Closing a university is never merely an administrative announcement. It affects students, parents, academic activities, staff, institutional relationships, and the wider community. It can calm a volatile situation, but it can also deepen tensions, harden positions, and create consequences that may outlive the crisis that prompted it.

As we were leaving the building, Baba Ladejo called my name. He called me a couple of times, drawing my attention to himself.

Then he asked me a question in Yoruba:

“Ṣé o de ro wipe best decision lẹ́ take yen?” Do you think that you took the best decision?

It was a simple question, but it carried considerable weight.

He did not accuse me of being unreasonable. He did not tell me that the Students’ Union had caused the problem or that the university authorities were necessarily right. He asked a question that compelled me to examine the situation beyond the immediate emotions of the moment.

It was a probing question, delivered without hostility. It invited reflection rather than resistance.

There and then on the corridor, we engaged in a conversation, and something shifted.

The possibility of closure was reconsidered, and the announcement of the closure was suspended.

I have never forgotten that episode because it taught me something I did not fully appreciate at the time: sometimes, the most consequential intervention in a crisis is not a command, a threat, a legal argument, or an elaborate presentation. Sometimes, it is a well-timed question from someone who understands the human beings behind the positions they have taken.

The Soft Voice That Can Prevent a Storm

There is a particular kind of voice that does not need to be loud to command attention. It does not depend on the volume of its delivery, the complexity of its vocabulary, or the authority of the office occupied by the person speaking.

It is a soft voice that probes the conscience, challenges assumptions, and invites people to reconsider the consequences of their decisions.

Baba Ladejo possessed that kind of voice.

It was much later that I began to appreciate Baba Ladejo’s role more fully.

At the time, I saw him primarily as a member of staff in the Students’ Affairs Office. With the benefit of hindsight, I have come to appreciate that his role was much more than that of an administrative staff member.

He occupied what I would describe as a pastoral role within the university community.

I use the word pastoral not necessarily in a religious or clerical sense, but in the sense of someone who provides human guidance, emotional perspective, quiet counsel, and a measure of wisdom when people are struggling to find their way.

A pastoral presence recognises that people are more than their official positions. Students are more than their protests. Administrators are more than their decisions. Leaders are more than the offices they occupy. Behind every confrontation are human beings carrying expectations, frustrations, fears, convictions, and personal histories.

Such a person understands that sometimes people do not need another person to tell them what the rules say. They need someone to help them see what their actions might mean for others.

They need someone who can speak to their conscience without attacking their dignity.

They need someone who can disagree without alienating them.

They need someone who can help them discover a way forward without making them feel defeated.

Many institutions lack this kind of presence. They may have committees, disciplinary procedures, legal advisers, security arrangements, and established channels of communication. Yet they may still lack the human wisdom required to prevent avoidable crises.

When every disagreement becomes a contest of authority, every complaint becomes an act of insubordination, and every challenge is interpreted as an attempt to undermine leadership, institutions become unnecessarily fragile.

The absence of wise, empathetic intermediaries can turn manageable disagreements into prolonged conflicts.

Baba’s example reminds me that an institution needs not only people who can enforce its rules but also people who can help its members understand one another. It needs people who can recognise when a difficult situation requires firmness, when it requires patience, and when it requires the courage to ask a different question.

That is not a small responsibility. It is an indispensable contribution to institutional stability.

Baba Ladejo, You Deserve Your Flowers

Baba Lateef Akanbi Ladejo, this is my tribute to you.

Thank you for the smiles you gave us, even when our youthful dispositions may not have made us the easiest people to engage.

Thank you for the wisdom you shared without demanding recognition.

Thank you for the questions that made us think beyond our immediate positions.

Thank you for seeing the concerns behind our agitation, even when you might have preferred a different approach.

Thank you for demonstrating that disagreement does not have to become hostility, that authority does not have to become arrogance, and that wisdom does not have to announce itself loudly to be effective.

Thank you for reminding us that there is always value in considering another perspective, especially when emotions are high and the temptation to act decisively is strongest.

You may have occupied a modest office, but the wisdom you brought into difficult situations was anything but modest.

You may not have been the person everyone instinctively sought out at the beginning of a crisis, but you had a way of becoming particularly important when the available arguments had failed to produce a satisfactory answer.

You may not have spoken the most elaborate English in the room, but your words in Yoruba could carry a depth that transcended language.

And you may not have sought the spotlight, but your quiet interventions have earned you a lasting place in my personal recollections of university life.

As I reflect on those years, I am reminded that some of the most valuable people in our lives are not necessarily those who make the greatest noise. They are those who help us become wiser, more thoughtful, and more conscious of the consequences of our choices.

You were one of those people.

I pray that God Almighty grants you many more years in good health, peace, joy, and fulfilment. May you continue to enjoy the fruits of your labour and the affection of everyone whose life you have touched. May the wisdom you have shared continue to find expression in the lives of others, and may the kindness you have shown return to you in abundant measure.

Above all, I am grateful that you are here to read this tribute. I am grateful for the opportunity to say these things while you can receive them. I am grateful that the memories I carry can be translated into words of appreciation addressed directly to you.

Happy Birthday, Baba Lateef Akanbi Ladejo.

May the Almighty God preserve you, strengthen you, and bless your remaining years with abundant peace and happiness.