As mother earth prepares to swallow yet another one of Africa’s finest sons, Christopher Olusola Kolade, on Tuesday, October 28th, I take a brief walk down memory lane to one of several awesome moments in our relationship which commenced in 1994, when our paths crossed at Cadbury Nigeria.
Dr. Kolade and his alter ego, Mr. Gamaliel Onosode, were probably two of the greatest business leaders Nigeria ever produced. While Onosode was Chairman, Kolade was Managing Director of Cadbury Nigeria, once upon a time-and your sincerely was the Media Relations Manager at some point.
It’s a great honor and privilege to have known both men fairly closely to the point of fetching from and drinking of their fountains of knowledge, wisdom and excellence and benefiting directly from the halo affect of their esteemed personalities and principled lives of ethics, integrity, discipline and respect.
There’s one more attribute both men shared which I, like many, found strange: their seeming immunity to the hilarious effects of jokes.

Dudes hardly laughed in public!!! I used to wonder what they ate or drank before leaving home. Stoicism was probably their favorite “tea”! One of our mutual friends could swear they never laughed in public!
Well, that’s slightly a terminological inexactitude because I once made Dr. Kolade to laugh well well, although it was after several failed attempts.
The occasion was the 2001 Cadbury Awards ceremony. I was the Master of Ceremonies, a job I took over from Chido Nwakanma and Lampe Omoyele, two great Cadbury alumni.
Unbeknownst to me, that was my last major MC job at Cadbury before I moved to the new and more lucrative telecommunications industry with Econet Wireless Nigeria. Hahaha 😂
Anyway, while preparing for the event (and there’s a lot of preparation that goes down before one took the microphone with Kolade as head of table), I wondered what I would ever do or say to make the Chairman to laugh or at least smile. Hehehe 😂
My boss, Mr. Ejiofor, didn’t help much in terms of offering me a tip. All he said was something like “Emeka, keep improving and trying and one day you’ll get your wish”. As I left home that morning, stricken by the usual unease that grabbed every MC until his job was done, I assured myself that “this old man must laugh today”!!!
As part of my intro at the event, I informed the audience that I came prepared not only to deliver a memorable experience but also not to end the show except Dr. Kolade laughed.
I lamented how much effort I had wasted over the past events, big and small, without getting even a smile from Dr. Kolade, who himself looked like he swore an oath never to laugh at my jokes! I threatened to keep everyone at the venue until Dr. Kolade laughed.
At this point, Dr. Kolade started laughing. Gotcha!
In fact, when it was his turn to address the event, he didn’t forget to open with a generous compliment on my compering and confessed that he didn’t laugh easily-not that my jokes weren’t funny! Chai!
Like I yanked off his mask, CK laughed at most of my jokes that day and at the end of the show, I courageously “ordered” him (by the powers conferred on me as the MC) to pose for a photo with me, which he humbly did-as you can see in the attached picture.
There are men and there are men. Kolade was some men! What Yorubas call okunrinmeta ati abo!!!
May his memories be a blessing!🙏🏾🙏🏾🙏🏾
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