OLUWATOSIN BLESSING DEMEHIN AND THE "SACRAMENTO" OF HONOURING OUR LIVING LEGENDS AND PATRIOTS

I wrote, in one of my "transgressive" poems, that "we become effigies worthy of canonisation only when we die". This is in Nigerian context and I wrote it unapologetically, based on my personal experience. Leaders who would never attend a book launch of a rising "Star" will rather go on spending spree at the funerary rite of passage in honour of the dead legend, they never honoured alive. That is who we unpretentiously are. I have watched impatiently the way State Governors whose state's citizens/ambassadors represented Nigeria in the Female National Team (Super Falcons) had been hosting their ambassadors. I have waited till the Government of Ondo State under the watch of Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu and Lucky Ayedatiwa will honour our own brand, Princess Oluwatosin Blessing Demehin ( the custodian of Jersey number 15); yet without a date. If the Ondo State Government does not know that Demehin was a luminous ambassador of the state in the team, I am telling them vehemently now that Oluwatosin Blessing Demehin is a Princess of both Ilaje-Etikan and Ilaje-Ugbo in Ondo South Senatorial District.

Demehin's father is from the noble royal family of Oba Akintimehin, the twelfth Olikan of Etikan Land where the current Olikan of Etikan Land, Oba Temidayo Solomon Owoyele-Oholo, Akintimehin the 2nd hails from. She deserves our commendation and plaudits and we need to make her feel that we appreciated her patriotic representation. On this note, I call on the Government of Ondo State, Chairman of Ilaje Local Government Area, the Olugbo of Ugbo Land (Oba) F.E.O. Akinruntan, CON; Okoro Ajiga the 1st, the Olikan of Etikan Land, Oba Temidayo Solomon and all Ilaje leaders to find a day to honour Oluwatosin Blessing Demehin before she returns to her diasporic space. This is as sacrosanct as a sacrament! I am not saying it because she is an Etikan princess but because she didn't represent Etikan; but NIGERIA in the tournament.

S. Ola Ajimisan writes from the Sunshine State.