Ebenezer Oloba: How nephew to slain Abuja preacher, Eunice Olawale, died in US car crash
On Thursday, February 23, 2017, Ebenezer Oloba texted his loving mother promising to make her proud. Before then, he promised a Nigeria-based cousin he hadn’t seen in a decade and half he would visit Nigeria this April.
Both promises will not be kept, and not because Oloba wasn’t a man of his words.
“He prayed for his mother and reminded her all her efforts on him when he was in Nigeria,” Oloba’s cousin, Emmanuel Apata, told Newsroom.
“He promised to be good and focus on his studies in order to pay her back,” Apata said.
Two days after texting the emotional promise, Oloba died in a car crash. The tragedy came seven months after Oloba’s aunt, Eunice Olawale Elisha, was murdered in Nigeria by suspected religious extremists the police are yet to identify.
Oloba’s parents, both based in the United States, worked hard to send him to school. His father is a pastor of Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Vineyard of Mercy, in Atlanta Georgia. He, according to a family source, has close ties to revered CAC super minister S. K. Abiara.
Oloba’s mother is an evangelist. She’s well-known to the CAC leadership. She was in Nigeria few months ago to attend the burial Abiara’s wife. She flew back to the US three weeks before her dear son died in last Saturday’s crash.
Ebenezer Oloba was a student of Texas A&M University-Kingsville (TAMUK). He was behind the wheel of Chevrolet Cruze that fateful afternoon heading to a student government conference in College Station, Texas.
Spokesperson for Texas Department of Public Safety, Sgt. Nathan Brandley, said Oloba’s car crashed into a river around 2pm on US Highway 77, about 20 miles north of Refugio.
The car veered off the right side of the road just before the San Antonio River Bridge, and into the river. Oloba and Oscar Felipe Fuentes – his 19-year-old friend – were pronounced dead at the scene.
Authorities are investigating the cause of the fatal crash.
Apata confirmed to Newsroom TAMUK offered to foot the bill for Oloba’s and Fuentes’ burial. Students held a candlelight vigil for the duo on Tuesday night.
“Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Ebenezer ‘Tosin’ and Oscar,” Terisa Riley, TAMUK’s senior vice president for student affairs, enrollment management and university administration, said in a statement on Sunday.
“We know that they were very involved in the campus community and well-liked by everyone.”
Apata, who hasn’t set eyes on Oloba in 16 years, said the 23-year-old’s death “is a big loss to our family”.
“He is so humble and brilliant, a devout Christian,” he said. “I saw him last when he was around seven years old. I thought I would see him again soon as promised to come to Nigeria by April.
“He sent me two music keyboards for my church last year. He can give anything for God’s work. That is why he is a loss to me.
“He is a big loss to CAC and the entire family, and to Ondo State and Nigeria as a whole,” Apata said.
Ebenezer Tosin Oloba hailed from Itaogbolu, Akure North of Ondo State.
His family is full of pastors, evangelists and prophets. One of them, Eunice Olawale, was killed while preaching in Abuja on the morning of July 9, 2016.
Apata, himself a pastor, said the family would need great grace to handle two deaths in seven months.
Ebenezer Tosin Oloba is survived by three brother as well as his parents.
