Like everyone else alive, all around us, each day brings about new births and new deaths. In recent times, I have lost some great members of my family, friends, mentors and acquaintances. Here are just a few of them- Godson Offoaro, Pascal Ndinechi, Charles John, Ode Ikwue and Dap Xin.
Like everyone else alive, all around us, each day brings about new births and new deaths. In recent times, I have lost some great members of my family, friends, mentors and acquaintances. Here are just a few of them- Godson Offoaro, Pascal Ndinechi, Charles John, Ode Ikwue and Dap Xin.
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Godson Offoaro is the one probably known to most readers. He was a columnist for Nigeriaworld.com from 2000 to 2010 when he joined the Sun newspaper. His column first appeared in August of 2000. And for most of us involved in political commentary, whenever a new columnist emerges, our antennas rise. You want to know what he or she is observing from his or her own end of the world. Sometimes it inspires you. Sometimes it challenges you. At other times it validates you. But hardly can you look away.
In September of 2000, Godson made a reference to a report I filed from Dallas at the venue of the World Igbo Congress convention, titled “D is For Dallas”. He quoted a statement Ikemba Nnewi made which I captured in my report. “It is better to be a majority in a minority party than a minority in a majority party," Ikemba said. It was the same week I read that other than the person who said something quotable the next in importance is the person who quoted it first.
For the next ten years, Godson was a staple of the online commentary world. At a point in 2004, he left the United States and moved back to Nigeria. At first he wanted to participate in the political process. When he failed to survive the merciless political environment called Nigeria, he opted to be a business man. In every path of his way, he kept writing. He kept bearing witness to the experiences he was going through. That included when he had a stint working for former Gov. Ikedi Ohakim of Imo State. His series of articles on the challenges of settling back at home after years abroad deserve an award.
I never got the chance to meet Godson. I didn’t even get the chance to talk to him. The only email exchange we had were one or two commendations made here and there. Those were the days before the comment system when readers actually sent their feedbacks via email to you.
Godson Offoaro passed away a few days ago at the National Hospital Abuja. I never got the chance to shake his bold hand or even eat the goat head (isi ewu) he famously said he could prepare better than professionals. Now what we are left with are archives of his works tucked away at different websites that published him.
Mr. Pascal Ndinechi was my high school principal at Nnobi High School, Nnobi. He was one of those who molded me into the person I am. Since I finished high school, I made it a point to visit him each time I was home. It gave me an opportunity to express my appreciation. During those visits, I saw how the nation Nigeria had treated a retiree like him. I noted when his Peugeot 504 was permanently packed in the garage, four tires taken out and replaced by building blocks. For years, the home he was building before he retired remained uncompleted. Lizards played in it and goats took shelter inside. During the administration of Gov. Chinwoke Mbadinuju of Anambra State, he was amongst those retirees who collapsed at the state capital Awka where they were protesting non-payment of their meager pensions. Gov. Mbadinuju sent police to disperse them with teargas. “I have no money to pay real workers,” the bible-carry governor barked, “and here I am being bothered by these dead woods.”
Each time I went to see him, even as his health deteriorated, I noticed a glint in his eyes every time I walked in. He would go into his room and bring out a special wine. He would ask questions about where I had been and what I had done with my life. He wanted to know if I was still carrying the torch – the torch he gave to every student that passed through his school. It was a torch that said we should care about something bigger than ourselves. It was a torch that said that the greatest thing we could bequeath the world was not to accumulate silver and gold or to build tall houses and write our names on them, but to leave the world better than we saw it. Pascal was a soldier for education and enlightenment all the way to the end.
I met Charles John in London in the most challenging days of my life there. He was a teacher and I was a young immigrant trying to find my way through that unfamiliar Island. Then I was sharing a Council flat with young immigrants like me. We survived on chicken wings. When you see a whole chicken in the fridge a note is often pasted on it – “This chicken belongs to XXX. Do not cook”. Charles embraced me like an uncle. In the coldest time of winter when work was done, we spent time together. He would tell me stories of his journey abroad and his preparation for a return home. He helped me when I needed to find a place of my own. When I left the U.K., I kept in touch, though not as much as I would have wanted. I visited him once but my plan for him to visit me in the U.S. never materialized before he passed away.
During my National Youth Service Corp program in Akwanga, Nassarawa State, I met Ode Ikwue. I don’t remember how we became friends, but we did. It was an unlikely friendship. He was a basketball star at UNIJOS and I was just another out of the mill graduate from FUTA. Everyone loved him; NYSC camp officials, fellow corpers but most importantly women. I became his right hand man. He took me wherever he went. His friends became my friends. I was his cannon fodder. When he was late to visit one of his girlfriends he would blame it on me. Once he told some girls at their hostel that he was late because he had to take me to the clinic. When asked what was wrong with me he looked at me and with a straight face said to the girls, “He woke up and found it hard to urinate.” He was that funny, very charitable and warm.
Our friendship extended beyond the NYSC camp. While I remained in Akwanga to teach at the College of education, he got a job in a bank near Jos. I visited him in Jos several times. I met his sisters at UNIJOS and other friends of his. People fall over each other to carter for me because of him. He had a beautiful sister named Elekeche. She was awesome. I wrote a lot of poems for her, none of which I had the guts to give her. For a long time, Elekeche was the name of all female characters in all of my stories. I left for Lagos after youth service and we lost touch. A few years ago, thanks to Facebook, I found Ode. We became friends again. We exchanged messages and promised to speak soon. Some months back, I got a prompt that it was his birthday. I went over to his page to leave a birthday greeting. I saw messages left for him by friends asking him to rest in peace. He passed away weeks before.
Dap Xin was my Facebook friend. That was all I knew about him. He asked to be my friend and I accepted. Over time, I noticed that when I wrote something he would read it and find a paragraph he considered important. He would take it and place it in an electronic marble. And then he would blast it on his status page. It happened again and again. Unconsciously, it became one of my measures of whether I said anything important each week. I looked forward to seeing what he considered quotable. Some weeks he would place nothing on the marble, others he would. I understood. A few weeks ago, I noticed that I had not received any updates from him - nothing on the marble – not mine and not someone else’s. I decided to visit Dap’s Facebook page. I saw messages left for him by friends asking him to rest in peace. He passed away weeks before. His real name was Dapo Osewa.
I wish I had spent more time with Godson, Pascal, Charles, Ode, and Dap. I wish I had known them more. I wish I had listened to them more. I wish I had chatted with them more. I wish I had given them all that I could give.
There are people we know may die. There are people we fear may die. And there are people that we are shocked to hear that they died. But those are just tricks that our minds play to stop us from facing the only reality there is which is that because everyone of us will die at some point, it follows that anyone of us can die at anytime.
“Death destroys a man,” Edward M. Forster said. “But the idea of death saves him.” What are you going to be remembered for when death comes?
Make each day count for you and for those dear to you. Make each person you meet know that they count now that it matters. Tomorrow is pregnant. Nobody knows what it will bear. And when tomorrow comes, if ever it does, it always comes too late.
Adieu Godson. Adieu Charles. Adieu Ode. Adieu Dap. Adieu to all you my family, friends, mentors and acquaintances to whom I did not have the chance to say goodbye to. But I know you will understand because a wise man said that, “only the dead are educated.”
As I learned in Pascal’s class, the essence of life is for us to live it so well that when it is over we have earned an epitaph like this John Maxwell Edmonds’ poem:
“Tell them of us and say
For your tomorrow
We gave our today.”-
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