On the morning he was to be buried, I woke up sad. I was in no position to attend his funeral because I was behind bars. All I could do was pray for the repose of his soul. The burden on my heart was so heavy that when I climbed down from my six-spring bed, I enjoined the cell pastor to allow me say a word or two at the morning devotion.
I simply felt like singing a sad song, but I resolved not to shed a tear. I will not weep lest I be mistaken for a banshee. I hail from the Small Brave City-State. I shall be brave about it. I am glad to report that I did not shed a tear when I told my cell mates how I got to meet my friend whose remains were to be interred that day in Biseni.
I cut the story short, and they wanted me to continue for awhile. But how do you continue a story in prison when you have no idea what the warders have in store for you? Everyone was on the look-out for the surprise attack that just might spring from the squad of warders who could come, unannounced, to conduct a search in the cells for anything contraband that might be found amongst the inmates, such as a telephone or what Lailo called the continental leaf.
I cleared my throat, greeted the cell members and gave a brief account of how I met ThankGod Igwe, who was to be buried that morning in Biseni. I had met ThankGod for the first time in my life when I flew from Lagos to Port Harcourt for my first corporate assignment on behalf of Quest Communications, the advertising company I worked for in my humble capacity as Client Services Assistant.
My boss, Ohi Alegbe had sent me on errand to place an advert in The Tide newspaper to announce the opening of the Port Harcourt branch of Cooperative Development Bank, our major client at the time. The only person I knew at The Tide then was my long-standing friend, Loveday Herbert, who was on the sports beat. Loveday introduced ThankGod to me, and between them, they placed the full page advert in the paper to specification and to the satisfaction of my boss.
My next assignment to Port Harcourt drew me closer to the duo. They had become my principal contacts in the Niger Delta press. So when Ohi sent me again to place media ads in April 1994 about the coming to Nigeria of the big-time reggae star, Shabba Ranks, I knew who to rely on. I left the assignment in their capable hands, paid them their bills, and flew back to Lagos, only to be told that Shabba Ranks was no longer built to perform in Port Harcourt.
He would do just fine in Kano and Lagos. In the end, he did not play in Kano either. Or did he? He played to a mammoth crowd at the Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos, and I, who went on errand about him, could not even pass through the needle’s eye of that square on account of the pressing multitude. I took solace only in the enchanting cover story I wrote for the entertainment pages which was duly syndicated in every major Nigerian newspaper of the day, from The Guardian, Concord, PUNCH, to the Nigerian Tide.
So, that’s how I met ThankGod. Two years later, in June 1996, I relocated to Port Harcourt, and took up a job as editor of The Tide on Sunday, the weekly edition of the Rivers State newspaper. ThankGod was editor of the daily, one grade higher than me. We worked hand in hand, but we clashed only once, I confess, when he tried to bully me into accepting his authority as executive editor.
He wanted me to take off a story from the front page, and I insisted on my right to publish it on the front page, no less, because I signed the paper, not him. In the end, I published the story smack as the front page lead, and it won plaudits for the paper. After that, he respected my editorial judgement, and we became friends.
We worked closely for two straight years, and I was hopeful for him when he left for America on a year-long study leave. In the parlance of the day, I was gingered about what the future held for me too. Many years later, when I became General Manager of the Bayelsa State Newspaper Corporation, I could not imagine him working under me in a subordinate capacity, so I appointed him Deputy General Manager and forbade him from answering me sir.
Amongst his closest friends,, ThankGod was known as ‘Attila’. That was the nickname he chose for himself out of admiration for the character and person of the ancient Asian war monger, Attila The Hun. He would direct anyone who didn’t know anything about Attila to go check the internet and find out for themselves. Attila was a man born to hold the world by the scruff of the neck, and shake the nations for faith. He was terrific because he terrified all mankind in the days when he walked upon the face of the earth. His name alone was a scourge to the enemy.
ThankGod liked something about that. He saw in Attila a conqueror rather than a bandit. He saw a brave warrior in Attila rather than a simpleton. He saw a winner in Attila, not a loser. He saw in himself all the positive sides to the character of Attila that the world did not see, and that’s why he adopted the nickname with pride. Invariably, ThankGod saw himself walking in the legendary shoes of Attila whenever he stepped out to conquer his territory in business, in politics, in law, in journalism, and on the farm.
ThankGod did not see barriers to learning. No area of study was forbidden to him, so long as it served to enhance his understanding of the world, and to advance the providential frontiers of knowledge. In his younger days, he might have demonstrated some of the warrior spirit of Attila The Hun, but in his last days ThankGod qualified to be described as a mature negotiator, a peace-loving neighbour, an itinerant gentleman driving his portable car around town, and an enterprising man of sundry ideas.
Ultimately, I came to know ThankGod as a committed journalist, a vibrant barrister at law, an adventurous intellectual, a community activist, a shadow politician, an ardent fish-farmer, a caring husband to his wife, and a loving father to his children.
Even more importantly, for those who knew his secular excesses in times past, he became a fanatical born-again Christian. That is to say, he made a conscious effort to forsake what used to consume his time and passion, and devoted himself single-mindedly to matters of the church and God.
‘As he is laid to rest today’, said Apostle Paul, sympathising with me on behalf of the rest of the cell, ‘we pray that God would receive the soul of our brother into his fatherly bosom’. Amen was uniformly echoed by every member of the cell. I took a deep breath and felt great relief, even as I waited for the cell gate to grind open.
