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Tag: Tribute

  • ‘I thought I knew Maradona but I knew nothing’

    ‘I thought I knew Maradona but I knew nothing’

    By Guillem Balague

    It was less than a month ago that I wrote how Diego Maradona had, against all odds, reached his 60th birthday. A day, I suggested, many had doubted this most complex of men would see.

    As we mourn his passing, it seems almost irrelevant to say that we could all see this coming, that we knew his body was gradually giving up, and his mind was beginning to struggle, because somehow where Diego Armando Maradona was concerned, the normal rules never seemed to apply.

    As much as I thought I knew Maradona, I realised once I began to research my book on him that I knew virtually nothing.

    And the reason for that is because there were 100 different Maradonas. The magician, the cheat, the god, the flawed genius, the loving father, the serially unfaithful husband, the generous benefactor, the foul-mouthed oaf, the boy from the barrio with magic in his boots and the man who made it to the top of the mountain and fell down it, his body broken by cocaine.

    Diego didn’t look after himself very well, but football, to its shame, didn’t look after him either. For years while he was playing, in Argentina, Spain and Italy, he was being injected with all manner of drugs to relieve the constant pain he was in, often without having a clue what was being given to him.

    From the moment he joined Argentinos Juniors as a youngster, it was obvious that this was no normal player. Today his skills would afford him greater protection. Back then they merely served as the red rag of provocation that would guarantee he would be the victim of brutal challenges wherever he played.

    Those challenges, many unpunished, left him to deal with a host of dreadful injuries throughout his career and ensured he spent much of his life in crippling pain.

    Among them, during his time at Barcelona, was the notorious 1983 tackle by Athletic Club’s Andoni Goicoechea – nicknamed the Butcher of Bilbao in the UK. Maradona was left with a broken ankle. To this day, Goicoechea has a glass display case at home in which he keeps the boots he wore when he made that dreadful challenge, boots that to him have a more complete meaning – later in what was a terrible week for him too as he felt the pressure of having stopped Maradona’s career, he would wear them to score a European Cup goal. To Goicoechea, it is a stark reminder of the highs and lows of football.

    The rules changed as a direct result of some of the injuries Maradona received. When I interviewed him a few years ago, he told me he thought players such as Lionel Messi owed him a great deal because some of the tackles he had endured would never be allowed today.

    By the time he had arrived at Napoli in 1984, he was on course to represent more than just a team but the hopes, dreams and aspirations of a whole country. Then came that unforgettable quarter-final match against England in the 1986 World Cup.

    That Sunday in Mexico City, the world saw one man single-handedly – in more than one sense of the phrase – lift the mood of a depressed and downtrodden nation into the stratosphere. With two goals in the space of four minutes, he allowed them to dare to dream that they, like him, could be the best in the world. He did it, as we well know, first by nefarious and then spellbindingly brilliant means.

    In those moments, he went from star player to legend.

    One of the people closest to him said that, as he could produce goals like his second, he didn’t need to score any like his first. Maradona laughed it off, happy to represent so many frustrations and to have such a loyal following.

    Last month, I also wrote that to understand Diego properly, you have to know the enigma that is Argentina; a country that needs such figures to be its messiahs, to carry it to the level of greatness of which it considers itself worthy. It also needs to be appreciated that this was a man who lived a story of incredible paradoxes, of a host of mistakes and subsequent corrections, of epic feats, of declines and resurrections.

    Diego was a rebel. He was a rebel who had power – and not only knew it but was also prepared to use it frequently for any number of good causes or friends who needed his help.

    When he was a young superstar with Argentinos, the club would play friendlies in Argentina and abroad and use Diego as the star of the show to get payment. It was the era of the first colour televisions and all the players were desperate to receive their, until then, unpaid win bonuses so they could buy one. They only received their money, though, when the 18-year-old Diego told the Argentinos president that if they weren’t paid then he wouldn’t play.

    He was a pioneer for so many people in this sport and for so many aspects of the game that are now accepted as perfectly normal.

    He was the first player to have a full-time agent, the first to have a physical trainer, one of the first players who would stand up and be counted and fight for the rights of the players to get a fair deal.

    He was one of the first to fight for the safety of those forced to play in dangerous sweltering weather – of the sort experienced at the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. He was the first player to be prepared to shout from the rooftops his belief that Fifa was rotten to the core.

    And he did it well before FBI investigators began uncovering corruption within football’s world governing body. He did it at a time when no-one wanted to rock the boat.

    He rebelled because he believed in a sense of natural justice. He believed it was the footballers who should be the stars of the show and not the governing bodies. Throughout his career, he fought for a fairer deal, for more respect for talented players, including himself.

    Napoli would prove to be his greatest club triumph but also the scene for his saddest decline. He made Napoli and Napoli made him… and then they broke him. And he broke himself.

    In his first season, the club struggled to work with him, unwilling to take on board his obvious talent. They finished eighth.

    So it might be fair to say that Maradona’s peak started after that, in the 1985-86 season, when the team clicked. Then they began to understand how important he was to the club, and finished third the following year.

    And then on the back of Argentina’s 1986 World Cup triumph, he led Napoli to their first Scudetto. By way of proving it was no fluke, he led them to that season’s Coppa Italia as well.

    This was in 1987. Trapped in a goldfish bowl of a city where he could not move without being pursued by a mix of fans and paparazzi, he had resorted to taking cocaine in the toilet of his luxury home. He was already addicted, had started to miss training and was now surrounding himself with those sycophants happy to humour him along a dark path towards self-destruction while telling him how great he was and how much fun he was having.

    He was already decaying.

    He still managed to secure another championship with Napoli in 1989-90. But he was a shadow of the player he had been a few years earlier.

    “Just imagine,” he told me with more than a small sense of regret, “what I could have been, what I could have achieved if I had been clean.”

    It is all part of the puzzle that is Maradona and what makes researching my book about him so fascinating.

    Who was he really? Against England, he was a streetwise rewriter of rules and then a genius, all within less than 250 seconds. As a footballer and a man, he lived a life that hit the very highest of peaks before descending into the deepest, darkest troughs of despair. He was unable to cope with the god-like status bestowed upon him, yet was seemingly incapable of surviving without it.

    He was misunderstood. As a result of being misunderstood, he felt he was unloved. It is impossible to find any other player who represented so many things to so many people, who lived the dream he wanted, the one they wanted too.

    But what I will remember most is not the blunt, rude, overbearing character he could undoubtedly be but rather the man who was kind and considerate. I remember the man prepared to ignore a dozen or so Argentina shirts put out for him to sign and instead pick the top of my beloved Biggleswade United, the non-league club where I am chairman, and then ask me if I wanted him to be photographed with him holding it up.

    We will not see his like again.

    BBC

  • Opinion: Farewell, Uncle Bisi Lawrence who loved Lagos more than America

    Opinion: Farewell, Uncle Bisi Lawrence who loved Lagos more than America

    By Ikeddy ISIGUZO

    WHATEVER you think of Uncle Bisi Lawrence – he passed Wednesday 11 November 2020 at 87 – there were no doubts that he was passionate about Lagos, a passion rooted in his youthful days in a dream Lagos. One proof – when the Voice of America offered him a permanent place in Washington, along with citizenship, he was affronted.

    Washington was nowhere near Lagos, he told #MyLagosStory in an April 2017 documentary series that marked 50 years of the creation of Lagos. “I left after four years. No place in America had anything to offer that Lagos didn’t have something better,” his voice modulating to stress the import of his choice. He was talking of Lagos, almost 50 years ago.

    “I attended CMS Grammar, Lagos, not the one in Bariga,” he continued in the #MyLagosStory documentary. He grew up in the Campos area of Lagos, “when it was one of the friendliest spots on earth”. It was a Lagos of dance and song, with the best people in sports, entertaining, politics, and the professions gravitating to Lagos for the opportunities it held, he said.

    Lagos then, he said was crime free. “It was like paradise,” he recounted, noting that they danced from Campos Square, on Easter Sundays, to Yaba, and danced back in the night without any incidents. “People walked a lot. There were no danfo, only one public transport service that an Italian ran.”

    Uncle Bisi Lawrence was more things than his love of Lagos and his legendary white attire. He was a man of garb, grit, and guts who lived a fulfilled life that flowed to others – I was one of them.

    BizLaw, as many called him, after one of the most enduring of the numerous columns he wrote for Vanguard, was a man of many parts, not in the sense of all of us having many components. He knew something about almost everything. These reflected in his Vanguard columns which in the earlier days ranged from radio, television and newspaper reviews to the weather, sports, and the famous interview column Conversations which were for those 70 years and above.

    Conversations took BizLaw round Nigeria, by road. He drove himself, a comment on the state of our roads then, and safety across Nigeria. The depth of the discussions in Conversations showed the divergent tangents from a Nigeria that was. They also displayed in huge hues the grit of BizLaw who excelled in broadcasting and the print media, exiting from broadcasting as the General Manager/Chief Executive Officer of Radio Lagos in the early 80s.

    While at Radio Lagos (Alhaji Lateef Jakande was Governor of Lagos State), he midwifed Lagos Television, which pioneered 24-hour television in Nigeria, though it was initially on weekends. Lagos Television’s duel with the Nigerian Television Authority for audiences improved broadcast content until the military intervention on 31 December 1983 blunted the opportunities the competition presented.

    His voice on Nigeria Broadcasting Service, later Service, the forebear of Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, was a delight. “We were taught to pronounce words correctly. We spent hours getting the correct pronouncement of words, even names, no matter in which language, before going on air” he once told me. “No excuses were acceptable,” said BizLaw who read English at the University of Ibadan.

    The first time I met BizLaw was on the pages of The Punch. He was writing a must-read, authoritative sports column. I was concerned that a broadcast journalist was taking the place of print journalists. When I finally met him at Vanguard in 1984, I took an instant liking to him. He wrote so much weekly that I held him in wonderous contemplation.

    I found out he liked me too. He called me Ikeee, with a drawl that turned the name into a song in my ears. He was the chairman at my wedding in 1989 and saved me professionally when I wanted to depart Vanguard in April 1986 to join a soft sell magazine. He would not hear of it. Chris Okojie, my boss, and brother, reported “the madness”, as they both deemed it, to him.

    We debated the matter until well past midnight when he won. He had threatened to cut relations with the magazine founder, who he had known for decades. We downed a bottle of Seagram to seal the deal, I was staying.

    BizLaw’s feet were where to sit if one wanted to learn writing, speech, and loads of history of Nigeria, particularly, Lagos where he seemed to know everyone in each of the prominent, and not so prominent households. He knew who had Portuguese, Sierra Leonean, or nearby Lagos origins.

    In the same way, he would dissect the ancient Benin Kingdom, where he had some roots, as if he was ever prepared to be asked those questions. It could be a casual discussion, a mention of a name or place, something about a date. He would correct kindly, educate thoroughly on the issues, with his avuncular simper moderating the settings.

    BizLaw would recount events with the same punctiliousness he attached to his writings. It did not matter if they took place decades ago or someone told him. He covered the 1998 World Cup in France with younger colleagues Onochie Anibeze and Tony Ubani and was often seen in the company of Chuka Momoh and Dele Adetiba with whom he shared interests in sports and broadcasting, among other things.

    The easiest way to get into his wrong side was to correct his script wrongly. He was usually unforgiving of that. His script would arrive with all the indications of the nuances they bore. Those tonalities expressed in an italicised word, a comma, a quote, or a seemingly meaningless capitalised line, could be ruined by an Editor who aligned them to house rules.

    He meant what he wrote. He wrote what he meant, choosing his words without waste but weight. His anger over a ruined script was often lost on those who thought he was too fussy about his scripts. When I gained his confidence to manage his scripts, I also made demands from him, among them that the script would get to Vanguard much earlier, for him to read the edited copy before press.

    Without telephones then, it was the only way to get back to him with concerns. He was in the diminishing tribe of those with persistence about things being done well, properly, correctly. He had enough reminiscences about life to bring people to knowledge, if not conviction.

    “I had achieved all my set goals in broadcasting. I had received expert training at the BBC, worked for years at the VOA in Washington, headed a radio station, and even founded another in Nigeria, got bored and retired. I was not even 50 years old yet and looked forward to years of delightful indolence ahead. I started a beer parlour – where I was my own best customer,” he wrote in a June 2015 column in Vanguard, a birthday message to Uncle Sam, Vanguard founder, who turned 80 then. Uncle Sam kept visiting BizLaw’s Ibi T’o Tutu (The Cool Place), his beer parlour, where he claimed he was the only patron, until BizLaw agreed to work for Vanguard.

    A couple of us visited the beer-hole until he shut it down. I am not sure if we paid for the quaffs.

    When he marked his 80th birthday in October 2016 (pictures courtesy of Onochie Anibeze), it was a simple ceremony of friends, families, surrounding him and sharing banters that transcended generations. The venue was beside Gasikiya College, Ijora Badia, Lagos, a school his elder brother Jonathan Olatunde Lawrence, the first African to graduate from Oxford University in Nuclear Physics, founded originally in Yaba 57 years ago.

    BizLaw’s contributions to sports, outside his writings and committees he headed, were mainly in the Nigeria Football Association, where at various times he was Team Manager, Publicity Secretary, and Vice Chairman.

    He had impactful presence at Vanguard and beyond, in words, indeed and in deeds. His wordsmithery was inimitable. His columns milked moments without being momentary. We have lost one of the best raconteurs with delivery doused in sobering timbres.

    Farewell, Uncle BizLaw, for whom the written and spoken words were art, act, and artistry rolled into cascading columns of communication without cant. You will be missed but you left so much that when we turn, we feel lives you touched.

    May the Almighty grant you rest.

  • J.P Clark: A Tribute, By Chris Anyokwu

    J.P Clark: A Tribute, By Chris Anyokwu

    As a young schoolboy being introduced to African Literature, I was mesmerized and rendered speechless by the myth of an inscrutable muse, some vague indefinable, revenant unlike everyday people, who superintended over the printed page. This awe-inspiring quality of the phenomenon called “Book” was made all the more mind-bending owing in large part to the so- called infallibility of the page, an omnidirectional kingdom whose king, for good measure, was suitably fleshless, ineffable. As readers of literature, we could, as starry-eyed callow minds, eff the ineffable through immersion into the bracing sea of literary art. We thus managed to put flesh to the chimera who, like the spider, spun piquant yarns that enthrall. How can any educated person from these parts deny knowledge of such oft- anthologized poems such as “Ibadan”, “Streamside Exchange”, “Night Rain”, “Abiku”. “Olokun”, “Fulani cattle” and “Agbor Dancer”? As schoolboys and girls, even on our way back from school, we would engage one another in poetry recital contest: here we go: “Ibadan, running splash of rust and gold, flung and scattered among seven hills ,like broken china in the sun”. Thus, intoning, chanting and declaiming J.P Clark’s poetry, we succeeded in reducing the tedium of the long trek. Such indeed is the lucid directness of the lines, the prancing poetry shimmering like diamonds on the page, the sheer evocative power of the figured fancy provoked through an adroit command of the sonic resources of the language thronged and teeming with a vitalism distilled masterfully from our lush and luxuriant biodiversity and ecosystems of quasi-mystical interaction with bones and silence. Dubbed by a worthy ephebe Niyi Osundare, the most lyrical poet from Africa, John Pepper Clark-Bekederemo was able to inspire a generation of Nigerian, nay, African poets and playwrights through the felicity of phrasing that his work typifies. To date, Clark has continued to encourage through the power of personal example both established voices and emergent singers, all of them sculpting poetic parables which eternally aspire towards the imperishable cry.

    But J.P Clark like the fabled Janus,to be sure, is double-faced: beyond the textualised jocundities of his mellow verse, Clark the man by critical consensus came across as standoffish, distant, and even disdainful of good- hearted praise.

    In his characteristically waspish style, Biodun Jeyifo adverts our attention to Clark’s middle name, to wit: PEPPER.BJ, as Jeyifos is fondly called, performs a succinct epistemic disquisition on the lexical item “Pepper” and delivers a coup de grace on the bearer. In brief, BJ quips that as the name, so is the bearer, and, therefore, JP’s superciliousness could be understood in the context of the ontologic alchemy of his unusual name-PEPPER. By the same token, Femi Osofisan also expresses on many occasions a similar sense of bemusement at JP Clark’s hauteur. Osofisan wonders on end why such a global figure, beloved of people, should deliberately cultivate such a reclusive, austere Olympian remoteness like a hermit at war with worldliness and society.

    But I can confidently declare that the alleged “arrogance” of Clark is all humbug. Those who were really close to JP Clark would tell you he was a very friendly and affable bloke. Please permit me to share this anecdote with you as proof of my rebuttal. A few years ago, J.P Clark and I were guests at the ninetieth birthday anniversary of the late Gabriel Immomotine Okara at Yenegoa , Bayelsa state. As soon as we disembarked from the plane at Port Harcourt, we had both boarded the car provided for us by the organizers of the event, that is, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) Bayelsa chapter. JP and I became instant friends, swapping beautiful turns of phrase between us. He had offered me chocolates which he was eating at the time and I had wondered how come such a “god” was indulging in life’s little extras. He allowed me into his room during the event and thereafter continued to show me such avuncular affection and was concerned about my personal career development. He was also generous with his books, for instance he gave me copies of his magnum opus, Ozidi Saga.

    JP Clark was a great man. Writing on his plays and his poetry, Abiola Francis Irele, arguably the greatest critic of African literature, characterizes JP Clark as “A National Voice”. Innocuous as this may sound, it is by no means a flippant compliment paid the author, particularly against the back drop of our clamorous and rowdy clannishness, ethnic revanchism and allied limitations. Most people only feel the need to write only when they wish to canvass and propagate their tribal pieties. Like our politicians who never rise beyond the tug of the belly or, at best, championing ethnic agendas, some of our writers are defined or definable by the overarching ethnicization of vision. Not so, JP who was cut from a nobler cloth.

    JP, as he was ever so fondly called by his friends and epigones, was Whitmanesque: he was large, containing multitudes. He was a master dramatist and playwright producing tons of plays straddling various genres and modes. Although some critics have seen fit to churlishly give him short shrift over what they claim is an attempt at archaicizing and classicizing his orally-rooted histrionic allegories, JP Clark’s dramatic oeuvre is as capacious as they come, beginning with Three Plays (Song of a Goat, The Masquerades and The Raft) chronicling the triumphs and troughs of the postcolony and going on to compose more homely, familiar locally-relevant plays highlighting the challenges and prospects of nation-building as well as the sweet and sour of private life. Apart from drama, JP Clark is a force to reckon with in nonfiction as his inimitable memoir America, Their America amply exemplifies; oral literature, folklore and dramatic practice and theory. He was also a journalist, theatre director and producer and politician. The grand old man, JP was human in every sense and like some people untrammeled by societal halters, he loved and sated everything good and beautiful, and as far as that goes, your guess is as good as mine.

    But, pray, why was JP Clark always modestly attired in spite of his considerable resources? Any personal reason(s) or ideology for that? In his lifetime, Clark-Bekederemo patented the short-sleeve shirt,a simple or plain pair of trousers complete with a matching pair of leather sandals. Dressing down was JP’s trademark such that everybody around him always felt overdressed and therefore ill at ease. Another version of Tai Solarin, JP was indeed Spartan in sartorial outlook, distant in deportment and understated and self-effacing in presence.

    Regarding his creative writing, some have opined that the progressive prosaicness of his later poetry was suggestive of a kind of class suicide signposted by his abandonment of all the architectonics of embourgeoisement, the repudiation of liberal humanism and literary elitism and embrace of a more demotic earthiness of the Volk. Cometh the hour, cometh the man: our uncertain times require the urgencies of “is and was”. Again: perhaps he was reacting to the vitriol and diatribes aimed at him (alongside Wole Soyinka, Okigbo etc) by the Bolekaja Troika and decided to strip his work of modernist abstruseness for which the Ibadan-Nsukka school of Nigerian poetry was known. Yet again, perhaps what Lewis Nkosi calls the “lapse of rigour” was creeping into the veteran’s work due to a pained response to the seemingly endless manifestations of the Nigerian condition. Little wonder as the evening shadows started lengthening, the songbird started singing of the Remains of the Tides. “Remains” here intimates corpses, which in turn approximate mortality, passage or death. JP was all but set for the boatman long before the curtain call. By the same token, “Tides” speaks to the ecology of art, the interfusion of the environment, literature, politics and metaphysics, all of which are superintended over by Olokun the Creatrix in Clarks in Clark’s fabulous universe.

    Goodnight, JP,sleep well.

    Chris Anyokwu

    Dept of English,

    UNILAG.

     

  • Buhari pays tribute to renowned writer, J.P. Clark

    Buhari pays tribute to renowned writer, J.P. Clark

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday paid tribute to renowned Nigerian writer, Professor John Pepper Clark who died at 85.

    This is enclosed in a press statement released by Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.

    On behalf of the Federal Government, Buhari extended condolence to the Clark-Fuludu Bekederemo family on the passing of Emeritus Professor of Literature, Prof. John Pepper Clark.

    According to the president, J.P Clark is one of Nigeria’s finest poets, dramatist and recipient of the Nigerian National Order of Merit Award for literary excellence, whose repertoire of published works depicts the hard work of a great man, devoted to a lifetime of writing, knowledge and promotion of the indigenous culture of the Ijaw nation.

    Acknowledging that Prof. J.P. Clark’s exit has, indeed, left an indelible mark in the literary world, President Buhari took solace that his body of literary works, which earned him recognition and respect both at home and abroad.

    He believes that Clark’s works would continue to inspire upcoming Nigerian writers to pursue literary excellence and flourish in their chosen vocation.

    He then prayed for the peaceful repose of the soul departed

  • Lupita Nyong’o breaks silence, pays tribute to Chadwick Boseman

    Lupita Nyong’o breaks silence, pays tribute to Chadwick Boseman

    Revered actress, Lupita Nyong’O has broken her silence to pay public tribute to her late colleague and friend, Chadwick Boseman.

     

    In an emotional laden statement, Lupita opened up on her encounter with Boseman, commending his unique work ethic.

    The actress wrote: “I write these words from a place of hopelessness, to honor a man who had great hope. I am struggling to think and speak about my friend, Chadwick Boseman, in the past tense. It doesn’t make sense.

     

    “The news of his passing is a punch to my gut every morning. I am aware that we are all mortal, but you come across some people in life that possess an immortal energy, that seems like they have existed before, that are exactly where they are supposed to always be – here! … that seem ageless… Chadwick was one of those people.

     

    “Chadwick was a man who made the most of his time, and somehow also managed to take his time. I didn’t know him for long, but he had a profound effect on me in the time that I did.”

     

    Lupita captioned the post: “For the beloved #ChadwickBoseman. #TakeYourTimeButDontWasteYourTime.”

     

    Read the full post below:

    https://www.instagram.com/p/CE4GuxDpuQu/

  • Why post humous tribute makes no sense – Dele Sobowale

    Why post humous tribute makes no sense – Dele Sobowale

    By Dele Sobowale

    “If you love and care for me, tell me while I am alive. Don’t send me flowers and write a poem when I am dead.” Allen Lazar, quoted by Ali M Ali.

    VANGUARD, Tuesday, AUGUST 25, 2020, p 24.

    My colleague and a great journalist reminded us of the words of Lazar as he was doing exactly the opposite. He published on that day a Tribute to our common colleague – Wada Maida. It was titled, “Wada MAIDA: Sunset at Dusk.” It was great prose – the best of Ali M Ali. But, it was no better than sending flowers or writing a poem which Wada would never read. I only hope Ali had told Wada how he felt about him while still alive.

    I made the same mistake in February when Malam Ismaila Isa Funtua and I met at Uncle Sam’s house. It was our third meeting. I have heard a lot of great things about Funtua – as well as some not so good gossips. On balance, he came across as a good fellow. He never gave me a kobo. Those he helped were very specific about his charity; while his adversaries were generally vague. That is why their accusations were labelled “gossips”. I remain open minded. I wanted to tell Funtua how impressive his acts of generosity have impacted positively some people known to me. I didn’t because we started talking about writing his biography. He invited me to Abuja the next day. I declined for some personal reasons. We agreed instead to meet after his return from the Holy Pilgrimage.

    Three totally divine and unforeseen events occurred in rapid succession making it impossible for us to ever meet again. First, I was knocked down by prostrate cancer and hospitalised for three months. Second, COVID-19 locked down everybody. Third Ismaila, died. Now, I can never tell him all the nice things. The best I can now do is to write a book for the living to read.

    Before Ismaila’s death, I was called one day by our class President – Igbobi College 58-62 Set – Sir Segun George, a Saul turned to Paul by the Lord. He wanted donations for one of our members. When told about the Medical bills which I am still trying to pay, Segun apologised for turning to me. But, that was not before telling me what our classmate was going through. Secretly, I promised to share any monetary gifts with out classmate as soon as it is received. Uncle Appolo sent an undisclosed amount from Sapele – for which I remain eternally grateful. The entire amount would not clear my own bills, but, my classmate’s situation was even worse. So, I divided the amount 50-50. I would go the next day to visit him. COVID-19 be damned. Next day, I woke up with terrible pains. So, the visit was postponed till the next day. The man died late that evening. He would never know how much I cared. Now, I kick myself for not defying the pains to go on the day the money was received. I felt as if something had been taken from the departed which would have provided parting comfort.

    So, my mind is now made up. I will henceforth, from time to time, write Tributes to the Living – people who can read them while alive. That way, I will owe no debts of tributes to write after they die – if they go before me. I am already on my way out – doing over-time tending to injury time. I hope to discharge many self-imposed debts before the final whistle blows. Already, I have dealt with Babangida, Uncle Sam, Obong Victor Attah, and Madam Ngozi Nkiruka Chukwuka. Now, I will follow with more people from all walks of Nigerian life, all zones and the two genders. I am already compiling a list. I have never met most of them. Finally, at least for now, this is not and should not be a solo effort. If you know of anyone worthy of being celebrated while alive, please get in touch. The more of them the merrier.

    IGBO PRESIDENCY IS AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME.

    “There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic, nor popular; but, he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”

    Martin Luther King, Jr, 1929-1968.

    By a strange coincidence, this statement by the late African-American Civil Rights leader was my choice as lead off for this article today. And, there it was on the Thinker’s Corner of the DAILY INDEPENDENT on Monday, August 24, 2020. As a companion idea to the first one, I had also distilled from Reverend King’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail” one reason why the rest of Nigeria must allow the Igbo to produce the President in 2003. “Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed for ever.” That was in that letter to the American white political power structure sent out to the media on January 16, 1963.

    In Nigeria today, a member of IPOB or MASSOB sitting in a Police cell could issue the same statement and he will be absolutely correct. In every election, since the pre-independence General Elections of 1959, sixty years ago, which brought Alhaji Tafawa Balewa in as Prime Minister, till the last one in 2019, which enthroned Buhari as President, Igbos have been part of every elected Federal government. In fact they have partnered more with the North in forming the government at the centre until now. Not once had they been given a chance to reach the top position. A concrete political ceiling appears to have been installed by the rest of us – which is even worse than what black Americans suffer in the US. To be quite candid, the rest of us have lost our conscience when it comes to Igbo presidency. I want to openly dissociate myself from the collective injustice against Igbo people and to offer my services to those embarking on making that dream a reality. Permit me therefore to answer some of those who directly or indirectly are attempting to confuse issues by their utterances.

    One of the people I have known for the longest time, 75 years, in my life – Chief Bode George recently announced that restructuring is more important than zoning. I strongly disagree. Bode, who is rumoured to be nursing presidential ambitions, can never be an objective commentator – because the idea is not in his interest. I am being polite to my life long friend in that statement. More to the point, Igbo presidency in 2023 and restructuring are not mutually exclusive. Whether or not we alter the present ruinous political system, which Bode’s Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, nurtured, an election must take place. There is absolutely no reason why the major parties cannot agree to field Igbo candidates as they nominated Yoruba candidates in 1999. Human beings, still very much alive, decided that Obasanjo and Falae should contest in 1999. Another set of human beings can also repeat the same thing in 2023 about Igbo Presidency. I don’t care if thirty political parties field Igbo candidates. Each of us will go out and work for our candidate and may the majority carry that glorious day – when it happens. We don’t need God to come down and do for us what we can do ourselves – if we have sufficient goodwill.

    At this junction, permit me to make three pertinent observations. First, I have been asked repeatedly why a Yoruba man from Lagos State is championing the cause of Igbos more than some of their own people. Second, some others have pointed out to me the division in Ndigbo regarding whether it is worthwhile to pursue the idea at all; or just follow dissidents down the road. Third, the question has been raised about whether the North will support the idea; and without which it is dead on arrival. Let me answer each briefly for now.

    One, we will be electing a Nigerian President who happens to be an Igbo in 2023. Even Lagos Area Boys have a stake in our future leader. He/she needs lots of votes from Lagos and somebody has to go and gather them for him or her. I am one of the hewers of wood and drawers of water for this project. I need nobody to “bankroll” my intervention and I have no political ambition. I seek no appointment after the election. I just want my country to do the right thing.

    Two, the slave trade did not end because all the victims (meaning our fore-fathers) agreed to put a stop to it. The beginning of the end came when some white people – members of the “Master race” developed the conscience to say “Stop”. They still had to do battle with white and African slave traders before it came to a halt. Unanimity is never required when an enterprise calls for courage, vision and commitment. In fact, some of the intended beneficiaries sometimes are hostile to the idea. My experience in the US Civil Rights was an example.

    Three, the monolithic North, which acted in unison for 60 years, has crumbled. In fact, the hitherto unobservable fact gained momentum in the last five years. And, if asked to point to the most important factor in creating a new North, I will not hesitate to mention HERDSMEN and the way their crimes against fellow Northerners have been handled by the Federal Government. While, every farmer in Nigeria, whose farm had been destroyed, family members killed, raped or kidnapped, has a right to complain, Northern farmers have been the major victims of Mayetti Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, MACBAN. Herdsmen have dismembered the North and provided the opportunity for Igbo Presidency.

    Those are summaries of longer essays which will appear in the future. But, readers can chew on those in the meantime. Just before we go, I want to quickly touch on one trending matter – just, touch, please.

    ECONOMIC APOCALYPSE IS HERE. IT WAS CALLED CHANGE IN 2015.

    “Economy sinks to 3-decade record low . As real non-oil GDP records first fall in 3 years.” VANGUARD, Tuesday, August 25, 2020.

    “6.1% shrinking of economy: FG won’t be able to service rising debts, fund budget — MAN, others. PUNCH, Tuesday, August 25, 2020.

    “Economy: Industry leaders warn of gloom ahead.” VANGUARD, August 26,

    “Shrinking of Economy: Experts warn of mass poverty, predict recession in Q3”

    PUNCH, August 26, 2020.

    The Federal Government’s reaction to all these was “don’t worry.” One of their errand boys called my economics “expired Area Boys stuff”. I agree totally. On March 10, 2020, four days after I was totally paralysed by prostrate cancer, I produced this prediction from the “Expired Area Boys Book of Economics”.

    COVID-19 HAS CLOBBERED BUDGET 2020 INTO A COMA.

    “Coronavirus: FG Considers Reviewing 2020 Budget.

    “DAILY INDEPENDENT, March 5, 2020, p 1.

    “55 Nigerian oil cargo unsold as demand tumbles.”

    PUNCH, March 6, 2020, p 23.

    BUHARI APPOINTS BUDGET REVIEW ADVISERS.

    For once President Buhari did not waste time in approving a budget review committee of advisers. That is a step in the right direction. Other steps must necessarily follow – But permit me to be the bearer of bad news. ANOTHER RECESSION IS LOOMING ON THE NIGERIAN ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT.

    That was five full months before the recession became official. Don’t you wish the Vice President employs more “Expired Area Boys Economists” instead of the morons running the show?

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  • Goodluck Jonathan drops tribute as Tolulope Arotile is laid to rest

    Goodluck Jonathan drops tribute as Tolulope Arotile is laid to rest

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan has dropped a heartwarming tribute for Tolulope Arotile as body of the late Flying Officer arrives Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory for burial.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the former President described Arotile as a brave patriot who pushed her self beyond limits to demonstrate her uncommon love for the nation.

    He said Arotile’s memory and legacy will continue to serve as a great inspiration to the youth, especially girls.

    The tribute reads: “My heart goes out to the family and colleagues of late flying officer, Tolulope Arotile. She was a brave patriot who pushed her self beyond limits to demonstrate her uncommon love for our dear nation.

    “In the process, she made us all proud. In 2011 when my administration introduced females into the Nigeria Defence Academy to train as combatants, for the first time, it was to give equal opportunities to all men and women of the armed forces and encourage highly driven female officers like Tolulope to excel in her chosen career, irrespective of their gender.

    “I feel sad that such a young gallant officer would die at the prime of her life. I am however encouraged by the fact that she stood out as a pleasing fulfilment of our dream of an all-embracing Nigeria armed forces devoid of discrimination.

    “By dedicating her young life to protect and defend Nigeria’s strength, honour and unity, her memory and legacy will continue to serve as a great inspiration to our youth especially our girls. May God grant her soul eternal rest”.

  • Umaru Musa Yar’adua: Tribute to a Nigerian leader – Dr. Cairo Ojougboh

    Umaru Musa Yar’adua: Tribute to a Nigerian leader – Dr. Cairo Ojougboh

    By Dr. Cairo Ojougboh

    The 4th of May 2010 was a sad day for every Nigerian; I mean patriotic citizens of this country because it was a day that Nigeria lost one of its best. Late Umaru Yar’adua was one of the best; indeed, very best that happened to the country since its return to democracy in 1999.

    Yar’adua was that leader who had Nigeria at heart; he came with a vision and mission of transforming this country to greater heights. His track record as governor of Katsina State and as the President of this country is a good testimony to that. I happened to serve him as a Special Assistant on National Assembly Matters, I can strongly testify to his courage and zeal of moving this country forward, but because of his ill health, a dream that did not come to reality but the patriotism and the good intention he had are enough reason for every excellent citizen to celebrate him and pour tribute on finest man.

    He was a very simple man; he fondly calls me ‘The Hon. Cairo of Africa’ with a huge smile in his face…Yar’adua’s was a results oriented and goal driven, in one of his manifesto during campaign, he said; “if I become the President of Nigeria, my priority will be to ensure adequate peace and security, power and energy, human capacity development and physical infrastructural development that are critical to the development of a modern economy”.

    That was what Umaru Musa Yar’adua stands for, that’s what he advocates for and that’s the dream he died for Nigeria. Not only that, he was the only Nigerian President that admitted the irregularities that brought him to power during elections; and that is what committed him to constitute the Uwais electoral reform committee which Nigerians benefited from.

    For instance, the super honest President Buhari’s electoral was stolen for several time, but Yar’aua’s electoral reform are the among other things that brought one of Nigeria’s most loved leader into the leadership mantle. Yar’adua will be remembered for his uprightness, integrity, dedication and patriotism to the Nigerian cause. His seven-point agenda were critical to the development of this country which had it been it was continued by his successor, as such Nigeria is on the right cause to its greatness.

    They were:1. Power and Energy 2. Food Security and Agriculture 3. Wealth Creation and Employment 4. Mass Transportation 5. Land Reform 6. Security 7. Qualitative and Functional Education. 1. POWER AND ENERGY – The infrastructural reforms in this critical sector through the development of sufficient and adequate power supply will be to ensure Nigeria’s ability to develop as a modern economy and an industrial nation by the year 2015, which was neglected, until recently President Buhari signed an agreement with German government to supply Nigeria with required power. 2. FOOD SECURITY – This reform is primarily agrarian based. The emphasis on the development of modern technology, research, financial injection into research, production and development of agricultural inputs will revolutionalize the agricultural sector leading to a 5 – 10-fold increase in yield and production.

    This will result in massive domestic and commercial outputs and technological knowledge transfer to farmers. 3. WEALTH CREATION – By virtue of its reliance on revenue from non-renewal oil, Nigeria has yet to develop industrially. This reform is focused on wealth creation through diversified production especially in the agricultural and solid mineral sector. This requires Nigerians to choose to work, as hard work by all is required to achieve this reform. 4. TRANSPORT SECTOR – The transportation sector in Nigeria with its poor roads networks is an inefficient means of mass transit of people and goods. With a goal of a modernized industrialized Nigeria, it is mandatory that Nigeria develops its transport sector.

    While the reforms might take some time to take effect, it is a need that must be addressed. 5. LAND REFORMS – While hundreds of billions of dollars have been lost through unused government-owned landed asset, changes in the land laws and the emergence of land reforms will optimize Nigeria’s growth through the release of lands for commercialized farming and other large scale business by the private sector.

    The final result will ensure improvements and boosts to the production and wealth creation initiatives. 6. SECURITY – An unfriendly security climate precludes both external and internal investment into the nation. Thus, security will be seen as not only a constitutional requirement but also as a necessary infrastructure for the development of a modern Nigerian economy.

    With its particular needs, the Niger Delta security issue will be the primary focus, marshaled not with physical policing or military security, but through honest and accurate dialogue between the people and the Federal Government. 7. EDUCATION – The two-fold reforms in the educational sector will ensure firstly the minimum acceptable international standards of education for all.

    With that achieved, a strategic educational development plan will ensure excellence in both the tutoring and learning of skills in science and technology by students who will be seen as the future innovators and industrialists of Nigeria. This reform will be achieved through massive injection into the Education sector.

    May the soul of Late Yar’adua rest in peace, Nigerians shall continue to remember him as one of their great leaders with golden heart. I am happy that our dearest Buhari is bringing great happiness to the greatest number. Yar’adua in his peaceful repose will be thinking of how Nigeria is doing! I say to my late boss, Nigeria is in the right hand – Buhari is in-charge…

    Dr. Cairo Ojougboh, Executive Director, Projects, NDDC writes from Port-Harcourt.

  • Ex-Delta Gov, James Ibori pays tribute to late Nigerian President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua

    Ex-Delta Gov, James Ibori pays tribute to late Nigerian President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua

    Former Governor of Delta State, James Ibori has extolled the virtues of the late Nigerian leader, former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who died in office 10 years ago.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that the late former Nigerian leader died in office on May 5, 2010.

    Eulogizing the ex-Nigerian leader on his personal Twitter handle @JamesIbori6, the former governor said the late Yar’Adua was a true agent of change who constituted government of National Unity and tolerated opposition.

    TNG reports that the late Yar’Adua was the 13th president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He was governor of Katsina State in from 29 May 1999 to 28 May 2007 before assuming office as president in 29 May, 2007.

  • Ireland’s first black mayor, Adebari pays glowing tribute to late colleague, Jerry Lodge

    Ireland’s first black mayor, Adebari pays glowing tribute to late colleague, Jerry Lodge

    Nigeria’s Rotimi Adebari has paid glowing tribute to his late colleague, Cllr Jerry Lodge whom they both served as councillors together from 2004 to 2014 in Portlaoise, Ireland.

    During his active service years, Adebari made history as the first black mayor in Ireland; a feat that remains unbeaten till today.

    Adebari in a special emotion laden statement eulogised the late Lodge describing him as a selfless and refined politician who played politics without bitterness.

    In his words: “The father of Laois Council is gone and will be sorely missed! I knew Jerry to be a complete gentleman in my ten years of serving alongside him in Portlaoise Town Council and Laois County Council.

    “Jerry never shouted nor raised his voice to get his points across, yet his inputs and contributions to any issue under discussion is valued and taken seriously across party divide.

    “Jerry was a community person and to that community he gave his all! He worked tirelessly to ensure a better County in general and Portlaoise in particular.

    “He never objected to any motion/idea that will improve the quality of life in Portlaoise and the county irrespective of where the motion is coming from. In my 18 years in Porlaoise, Jerry Lodge and Kathleen O’Brien (both now late) stood out as illustrious son and daughter of the town.

    “I remember having coffee with him early this year (January) requesting to know what Portlaoise Municipal Councillors were doing to immortalise Kathleen for all her good work for the town of Portlaoise. We bounced few ideas together and he promised to get back to me in few weeks.

    “Unfortunately, his promise of getting back to me in few weeks was never to be, because he has now gone to join his good friend Kathleen whom we were talking about. They will both be missed.

    “Among other things, Kathleen and Jerry’s determination to see Portlaoise among the tidiest towns in Ireland is unrivalled! These two guys deserve to be immortalised in Portlaoise for all their work. This is one of the ways we can say to future generations that Kathleen and Jerry lived, worked and died for their town (Portlaoise).

    “I sincerely hope the present members of the council will take this on and ensure their efforts and sacrifice for Portlaoise does not go in vain!

    “My heartfelt condolence to Patricia (wife) and his sons, Damian and Pauric. May the Lord comfort you and gives you all the needed strength to bear the loss.

    “May Jerry’s gentle soul rest in perfect peace!,” Adebari prayed.