Akeem Lasisi
As the Head, West Africa, BBC, Toyosi Ogunseye, emerges the Vice President of the World Editors Forum, I remember this poem I composed for her last year. That was when she was leaving Punch Nigeria Limited where she was the Editor of ‘The Sunday Punch’…
OMOTOOYOSI!
(For Toyosi Ogunseye)
The child is worthy enough to stir up dance
Especially when her feet her decked with diamond crests
Yet her eyes are cast on the mountain top
When we need to interview the Pluto god
She makes it happen with little sweat
Because her limit is far beyond the sky
The child is worthy enough to stir up cheers
When she makes the sun her stepping stone
And she hosts the rainbow in her tender heart
When the beat becomes too hot
And sources turn deadly slippery like a rattle snake
Never saying OVER, she wears a mask to get the news
To become an editor is not a decade’s job
But being an angel of many firsts,
She shortened the trip on her eagle’s wings
Because intelligence meets focus in the depth of her mind
In a PUNCH where only males had ruled the hub in a donkey’s years
She turned the table with the presence of mind
An editor is as good as the lead they fly
When competition turns tough on breaking news
She beats the pack with an angle rare.
But now just when we think she is cool with the Sunday Crescent
And we bask in the hope for the Daily Moon
She teases the microphone with breaking news
Saying, ‘Guys,
Lo first and then behold
I have a call from the Buckingham Voice.’
And so Omotooyosi,
In tune with the essence of your African name
Omo-too-yo-si:
The child is worthy enough to stir up dance
Especially when her presence jingles with Knights and Dames
And her eyes are cast on the seventh sky.
– Akeem Lasisi
