Tribute to “Brother Sola” at 70

I have known Professor Phillip Olusola Olatunji for more than a generation and, he might have increased in years (and physical dimensions), he remains essentially the same person to me; he remains “Brother Sola”. Our first encounter must have occurred very early in my first year at the Lagos Medical School, where he was a then returning student. I was attending my first meeting at the Christian Fellowship Group (CFG) and, my eyes were keen to locate a role-model among the older members of the group. His greeting was crisp unassuming yet warm and inviting, as if soliciting a friendship without any pretentions. It was easy for me to trust him because there was something academic and methodical in his simple answers to my ‘serious’ probing questions about the ‘senior’ members and the philosophical terrain of the Christian Society to which I was committing as my social ‘home’ in my ensuing 5-year stint at the Lagos University. I soon found myself paying him social visits at his hostel accommodation, which was within a couple of hundred metres, or so, from mine. We quickly bonded as I soon discovered that he was quite an academically capable and diligent student. For example, I was impressed that he was one of the few of the members in his class who quickly and creditably scaled through the much dreaded 2nd MB examinations. My respect for his gumption escalated when I found that he had actually obtained a non-science degree before he elected to return to study medicine. Yet, he would carry himself with the humility of a high school graduate, as most of us other students were, and throw banters which were occasionally laced with cutting criticisms. Brother Sola was and has remained an outspoken ‘radical’; he has always espoused ‘leftist’ ideas in his views. He would express them regardless of whoever was listening. Professionally, Since Lagos Medical School days, I have witnessed Professor Olatunji’s evolution from being a Resident Haematologist, at the University College Ibadan, to the status of a Professor of Haematology, a journey that came complete with the vagaries of the Nigerian condition, all of which he bore with dig

nity and remarkable fortitude. These days, I often find myself in meetings of top members of the profession, where his views are highly regarded and often held in canonical terms. He remains an icon of transparency, unflappable faith and I can say, for me, a role-model still, and whose armour has no chink whatsoever. Happy Birthday Sir. Dr Olusegun Ojo Professor of Morbid Anatomy Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife