With gratitude to Allah, the Maker and Knower of all things, I write this tribute in memory of Alhaji AbdulWaheed Akin Olajide, W.A. Olajide. He was a former Managing Director of the University Press Plc, Jericho, Ibadan, a distinguished member of the Nigerian Publishers Association (NPA), the first Secretary to Oyo State Government in the late Governor Abiola Ajimobi administration (2011-2015), and died on Tuesday, 25 August, 2026 at 76.
I shared with him a familial relationship because he took me as a family member, and “friendship” of 28 years from 1998 when I met him at the Muslim Association of Nigeria (MAN), Ibadan, Islamic Centre. He loved me almost immediately, and in 2000, I became the Branch Secretary in the cabinet headed by W.A. Olajide. It didn’t take long before he adopted the phrase, ”k’osi kekere ore…,” meaning “friendship doesn’t discriminate against age lines in describing his relationship with me. It was a beneficial relationship in which I enjoyed an uncommon confidence. He truly loved and challenged me.
Alhaji Olajide was one of a kind, deep in reasoning and very calculating. He was an avid and voracious reader as well as enthusiastic in knowledge-search for the benefit of humanity in the service of Allah. He readily accepted the Will of Allah as the only One who knew the outcome before the beginning, but W.A. also believed in the efficacy of prayers in changing the condition of things for the better.
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He had vision, and, in particular, this can be seen in the many “firsts” that were recorded in his time as the Chairman and President of MAN respectively. Among these are the lockup shops and the secondary school in Ibadan, Al Mirqat magazine, inter-school academic competition, and others that are related to knowledge advancement at the National Headquarters. He worked for the progress of the Association, and I do not know of any individual who surpassed his commitment to the growth and capacity building of members of MAN. For me, especially since 2023 when I was elected President of MAN. It has been a great working relationship dominated by cross-fertilisation of ideas for the nurturing and sustenance of achievements made by him and others in the past. Alhaji Olajide was blessed with a great ability to remember names and activities among his peers, schoolmates and others from near and far.
He was a devoted family man with immense affection for family members and, in particular, his biological children and grandchildren. Also, I can attest to his love for the grandchildren whose lives he helped in moulding at the Muslim Model College and Sankore College, Ibadan.
He is survived by immediate and extended families who should be proud of his legacies and their connection to the special breed named AbdulWaheed Akin Olajide. May Allah forgive his iniquities, expand, illuminate his grave, grant the soul of W.A.Olajide Aljanah Firdaus and comfort all that he left behind. Amin Thuma Amin.
Dhikrullah Adewale Yagboyaju
President, Muslim Association of Nigeria (MAN)
& Professor, Department of Political Science, Faculty of The Social Sciences, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.
