The Pope's last request

As Pope John Paul II was dying; he sent for Tafa Balogun and Dipereye to come to the Vatican.When they arrived, they were ushered to his bedroom. As they entered, the clergyman held out his hands and motioned them to sit on each side
of the bed.

The Pope grasped their hands, sighed contentedly, smiled and stared at the ceiling.

For a time, no one said anything. Both Tafa and Dipereye were touched and flattered that the old Pope would ask them to be with him during his final moment.

They were also puzzled because the Pope never gave any indication that he liked either one of them. Finally, Tafa asked,

"Father, what for did you ask the two of us to come ‘here?"

The old Pope mustered up some strength & said weakly,

"Jesus died between two thieves, I will like to die like him"

Author: Adedeji Olowe

Adédèjì is the founder of Lendsqr, the loan infrastructure fintech powering lenders at scale. Before this, he led Trium Limited, the corporate VC of the Coronation Group, which invested in Woven Finance, Sparkle Bank, Clane, and L1ght, amongst others. He has almost two decades of banking experience, including stints as the Divisional Head of Electronic Banking at Fidelity Bank Plc. He drove the turnaround of the bank’s digital business. He was previously responsible for United Bank for Africa Group’s payment card business across 19 countries. Alongside other industry veterans, he founded Open Banking Nigeria, the nonprofit driving the development and adoption of a common API standard for the Nigerian financial industry. Beyond open APIs, Adédèjì works deeply within the fintech ecosystem; he’s the board chairman at Paystack. Adédèjì is a renowned fintech pundit and has been blogging on technology and payments at dejiolowe.com since 2001.

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