Adewunmi-Adebisi Adenike, Okun ooo Iye mi, Odigbaa…
By Omoniyi Ibietan
In this picture, Adenike, you wondered. Right now, we are still wondering too because your exit, just before dawn of a major, lifetime celebration, is shocking. We cannot process this despite our knowledge of the ultimate exit of all humans from planet earth. It is painful and I have read awesome tributes as people shared in this grief, each one curating experiences of his or her life’s intersection with yours, and the narratives are beautiful and consoling
Our brother, Asaju Tunde, has spoken for many of us, so his tribute should suffice for me. But I realised there’s something that has not been written, and I am circumstanced as the only one who could tell it. It is your contribution to my study for the award of PhD in Communication.
The study was a mixed methods research, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. In choosing the sampling technique for the qualitative approach, I chose a non-probability sampling type called Snowball Sampling. For those familiar with the methodology, its success as well as the validity depend on the ability of the researcher to identify central participants who then assist the researcher to identify other potentially credible subjects that would constitute the population.
The method is so named because of its congruence and analogy to snowballing as a meteorological phenomenon. Just as a single snowball rolls down a hill, it gathers others and becomes massified.
Adenike! You were one of my key snowballs. When I contacted you on the recommendation of Funmi Adewola, it was like throwing a stone into a pond. The ripple effect was astonishing. I would discover later that you and I shared common history, coming from the same part of Kogi State and with overlapping field of experience in our childhood, spent in the peculiarly multicultural and lovely city of Ilorin.
Importantly, it bears restating that your goodwill, following that referral, earned me sufficient and amazing sample which indeed enriched the quality of my work, right from the pilot phase to the main field work.
I have since been awarded the degree, the quality of assessments from my supervisor and my external examiners even spurred me to expand the geography and scope of my thesis into a book slated to be presented next month, as an audacious contribution to knowledge. Sadly, you couldn’t wait.
We will never forget you. It is the reason I have shared this to the world to know. So history may bear witness that you enriched the human civilisation in more ways than words can capture.
The Almighty God will comfort your beloved husband (a rare human with uncommon humility), as well as your parents, the larger family, and your big community of friends.
Adenike! Odigbaa…
Peace upon your soul. AMEN!