Dotun Oladipo: Why Does Sudden Death Take the Good and Spare the Wicked? by Yushau A. Shuaib

Dotun Oladipo: Why Does Sudden Death Take the Good and Spare the Wicked?

By Yushau A. Shuaib

On the afternoon of Tuesday, August 25, 2026, I exchanged messages with Dotun Oladipo — respected journalist, former President of the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP), and publisher of The Eagle Online. I sent him a report on the unfolding political rivalry in Katsina State — between the camps of Governor Dikko Radda and Tinubu’s adviser, Ibrahim Masari — which allegedly led to the arrest of security aides attached to the governor — for publication on his platform.

In his characteristically simple and professional manner, Dotun asked me to forward it to his Gmail address instead of the Yahoo account I had previously used. I obliged. Within minutes, the article was published, and a few hours later, he promoted it as the lead story in his WhatsApp news broadcast.

That was Dotun: no bureaucracy, no excuses, no endless promises. If a material was newsworthy and suitable for his platform, he acted promptly.

The next day, as I prepared to attend a programme, my son Gidado called.

“Dotun Oladipo is trending everywhere,” he said.

I smiled instinctively. When good people trend, one hopes it is for good reasons — an appointment, an award, a promotion, or another professional milestone.

Then he completed the sentence.

“They say he is dead.”

“What? What!” I screamed.

It struck like a thunderbolt. I immediately returned to our last conversation. I checked the messages. I looked again at the article he had published. Everything had happened less than twenty‑four hours earlier. How could a man who had just attended to a professional request suddenly become the subject of an obituary?

Reports said Dotun died at 56 after suddenly taking ill at his office in Lagos….