WHEN someone you love dies, someone bigger than you, someone you have profound respect and admiration for, few things come to your subconscious: you suddenly realise how ‘small’ you are and how ‘big’ death certainly is, and how it can deal with someone you think is as tough as nails. Perhaps that’s why the Bible describes death as the ‘last enemy’ that will be ‘destroyed’. I hate reflecting on death. It makes me sad, because goodbye is easier to say but sometimes hard to take. The easy part of goodbye is when you know you will meet again, maybe, soon. The hardest part is when you know you would not meet again in this planet, earth. That kind of goodbye is mind-numbing and most disheartening. That’s why I don’t like saying goodbye.
October 12, 2019, would in a long time to come be an unforgettable day for me. It was not because of the torrential rain in Lagos that Saturday that left many areas flooded. A news story in the social media struck me like a thunderbolt. It was like terror has squeezed me into a corner. I tried to come to terms with what I had just read. What I had read was a post in the CHAMPION Emeritus, a platform where former staffers of Champion newspaper Ltd interact in the Whatsapp social media. Mr. Emeka Obasi, a veteran sports historian had posted this: “We have lost Dele Paul Agekameh last night”. Emeka added that Dele’s wife informed him Saturday morning that Dele died at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) at 10.30pm, Friday. For a moment, I couldn’t focus on reality. It was like the future had died. Immediately, I abandoned the editorial I was writing. Fear had conscripted me like a prisoner. If I had not known Emeka Obasi for over 20 years as someone you can trust, I would have said he was a purveyor of fake news. My worst fear was confirmed later, that indeed, Dele has passed on.
You see, some people achieved success without accomplishments. There’s a difference between the two: Success is public. It’s a garland given by others, and it’s counted in cash, readership and reputation. On the other hand, accomplishment is personal and private. Few people get both in equal measure. But Dele did. At a time our society, and indeed, the journalism profession, is in short supply of men and women of conviction, people who can stand for nobler principles, Dele was like an apple on a tree – you know where he stands on any issue worthy of public discourse. He has reputation. That he was a top-notched, thoughtful and insightful journalist was never in doubt. His column in The NATION newspaper every Wednesday, speaks volumes of what he believed in. I was attracted by his prose style of writing. He was a multiple awards winner of the Nigeria Media Merit Awards, our equivalent of America’s Pulitzer prize. Sadly, his last outing in The Nation was a farewell to his friend, Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police, Fredrick Taiwo Lakanu, who retired last Saturday, October 12.
My first encounter with Dele wasn’t at Champion House. Frankly, I didn’t even know he once worked there until he told me in 2007. What brought us together was something quite sad, a personal loss to me. It was in 2002. The convoy of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, then governor of Bayelsa state, killed my uncle’s wife, Salomey Awaraka along Port Harcourt/Patani road. She, along with her friend, Mrs Victoria Nsofor, a senior officer of the Nigeria Immigration Service, were coming from a wedding when the governor’s convoy rammed into their BMW saloon car. My uncle’s wife died few hours after a ‘good Samaritan’ rushed her to a hospital. The accident left Mrs Nsofor paralysed from her waist down. She died in May 2012, ten years after all medical treatment abroad to make her walk again failed.
You can guess what we went through. Our pain was that Alamieyeseigha showed no compassion, nor compensation, not that such would bring back the dead. How did Dele come in, you may ask? I didn’t know Dele was a friend of Alamieyeseigha. He called me, saying he read my tearful account of my uncle wife’s heartbreaking death in the Sunday Champion where I was Editor for over five years. He promised to intervene if we would allow him, so that the governor would send at least emissaries to condole with my uncle and family in Izombe, Oguta local government area of Imo state. I told Dele, he could go ahead, but in any case, we had since moved on. We needed recovery, not revenge, forgiveness, not hate or resentment against the governor, healing, not reopening of old wounds. “Lets leave vengeance to God”, I told Dele.
On that note, my friendship with Dele began. It blossomed year after year. He urged me to feel free with him. I found out he was a unique person; his kindness is undiluted and immeasurable. He wouldn’t ask anything in return for any favour. Again, I discovered that could be part of his gifting. When you win, you hear from everyone, but when you lose, you only hear from true, authentic friends. I found that to be true in 2007. Champion had terminated my appointment on February 14, 2007. No reason was given. And that was fine. In retrospect, that was one of the most memorable moments. People I thought were my friends couldn’t take my calls anymore. But, Dele called me many times. One day, he asked me to meet him at Eko Hotel & Suites on Victoria Island, Lagos. On reaching there, he took me to the 3rd floor, and into a luxury apartment. I was surprised who our host was: his name is Dr. Steve Azaike (now a professor). Azaike, is a raffish looking young man, outstandingly brilliant. He uses ideas like ax handle. He introduced himself as the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) of Bayelsa state. He was under 40 years then.
For about an hour, he and Dele, took me through mountaintop experiences, including how to handle a job loss. I won’t forget this one: they told me there is a difference between job and work, even though some people use the two words to mean the same thing. Looking at me straight in the eye, Dele said, ‘Dan, you can be fired from your job, but nobody can fire you from your work’. I didn’t quite get his drift, and Dr Azaike completed it, by saying, “Job is someone else’s property but work is your life”. That was something uplifting that I had not heard until then.
Dele made that happen. And when you make better things happen to others, God will make best things happen to you and your family. Dele didn’t stop there. When he thought I had no car, he offered me one of his own. I told him, ‘Thank you, sir, I have two already, and that’s okay for me’. When one of my colleagues in Champion, Mrs. Adeze Ojukwu, needed funds for kidney transplant in India in 2010, Dele gave over N400,000 even when he didn’t know her. He did similar thing when another friend of mine, Mr. Daniels Ikhide was stabbed in the chest in November, 2012, and needed urgent surgery. Again, he didn’t know Mr. Ikhide.
I owe Dele an immeasurable depth of gratitude, the same way I appreciate another departed veteran journalist, Mr. Dimgba Igwe, former Deputy Managing Director of Sun Publishing Ltd, whose death on September 6, 2014, left me grief-stricken for months. Dimgba brought me to the Sun Editorial Board without a formal application, and offered me a salary twice what I last earned in Champion. Dimgba humoured me that my work at Champion House was enough resume to get a job in the Sun newspaper. Mr. Femi Adesina, (now Special Adviser, Media and Publicity) facilitated that.
Whatever the Sun may have achieved today, he, and his bosom friend, Mr. Mike Awoyinfa, gave their all. As editor of Sunday Champion, the only I know I did for these two terrific guys was to review their book: 50 Business Icons in Nigeria”. That was in 2001, two years before the Sun was founded. The big part of the job of being a leader is being a good teacher. It was their collegial approach, etched in passion, people, perseverance and creativity that have wormed Sun to the hearts of many.
Altogether, if life is measured by the impressions an individual has made on the lives of others, I am a big-time beneficiary of the kindheartedness of quite a number of people. Dele will remain top of my mentors, someone whose advice you take and it profits you. His virtues of honesty, strength of character, fairness, justice and hard work, are some of the things, I think, God will be looking at to make his wife and children secure and lacking in nothing that they may need in life. You know why? Because, when you help others, you sow treasures for those you leave behind when death comes.
The post Dele Agekameh: When someone you love dies appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.