Category: Opinion

If you never met Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo, who died last Sunday, you missed an exceptional human being. Anyone who knew him would attest to this.

Yes, I know that when some someone dies, we tend to speak well of them. In every culture, unless someone has really been a scoundrel, good upbringing encourages us to say good things when they pass.

Well, Onukaba is one of the few about whom you need no effort to say something sweet because there was nothing “bitter” about him. You do not remember him without remembering just how genuine he was.

I met ‘Kaba in 1983, when we served on the foundation staff of a newspaper in Lagos called The Guardian. He always said that he landed at The Guardian by accident; upon graduation from the university, he’d had no idea what he would do with himself. Nonetheless, in a few years he did excellently well, reaching the highest levels of The Guardian on Sunday, and inexplicably becoming a friend of one Olusegun Obasanjo.

That relationship had begun when Onukaba did an adverse story about the General and continued when he forayed into government in 1999 at the invitation of the new President Obasanjo. It sadly ended on Sunday after he attended an event hosted by the former president.

But this is not his biography. I provide this background only to support what those who knew him have said in the past week: Onukaba was an extremely decent and special person.

It was because of his exemplary character that you will hear even casual acquaintances describe him not just as a friend, but as a brother. Everyone will tell you of his simplicity of person, his humility of spirit, his sensitivity to injustice.

He was also a man of exact standards, which is why he excelled at so many things. But he will always be remembered by friends and admirers for his presence as a person. He had the unique ability to infuse a room with tranquility and warmth, treating people high and low with the same disarming respect.

On Monday, as news of his passing spread, I spoke to some old friends on the phone who could only communicate in syllables, any verbal coherence drowned in tears.

It was impossible to answer all the questions. Indeed, it was impossible to answer any of the questions. It is one thing for a man in the prime of his life to die of illness, but another to be killed in an avoidable road crash or in an attack by armed robbers as so many of ours continue to be.

Just three months ago, I had the privilege of touring Indonesia and Singapore, an event I have been too ashamed to mention in this column. But to visit places where human life matters, where talent and character is encouraged and honoured-and where public resources are dedicated to the public end, and development means moving society forward rather than worshipping the massive egos and insatiable stomachs of depraved rulers-is to understand why Onukaba should not have died.

Let us be clear what the passage of this extraordinary man in his prime means: every trip on a Nigerian highway is a gamble, and that is why the world avoids us.

You can be had as much in the daytime as at night: by roads that were never built to meaningful security standards; by a bloated governor who is angry you did not stop for his convoy; by armed robbers; by a hungry policeman, by a cattle herdsman.

The truth-as daily reports testify-is that Nigerians are being had by all of them. I write about Onukaba only because I know him; many are dying and have died and will die whom I do not know. I am sure you have lost someone. And the leaders and former leaders in whose hands are, and have been, the responsibility and the responsibility to provide and protect tell us they have done extremely well because Nigeria has not fallen apart.

Perhaps Nigeria hasn’t fallen apart, but that does not mean it is not in pieces. We have pieces of us wandering in every country in the world fleeing our meaninglessness. There are pieces lost within Nigeria, denied place and grace. There are pieces in the Sahara or in the Mediterranean trying to reach somewhere, anywhere.

And we have many being routinely and needlessly laid six feet below, in their prime. That now includes my brother, Onukaba. Our nation has become a carnivorous beast which perpetuates itself-and our darkness-by feeding on its young, its most vulnerable and its most productive.

Hopefully, the tragic death of Onukaba and people like him will also remind Nigerians of this simple fact: we know how the disrepair of Nigeria came about. The time has come to stop blaming the animals responsible for it and take responsibility for the work of repair through vigorous political engagement and education, and summoning the courage to distinguish the road to heaven from the road to hell. That a governor is of your stock does not mean he is honest; nor does it mean your child will not die on a bad road he authored.

Yes, you can become “rich” in Nigeria, especially if you choose to adopt the sordid ways for which we are known. But as Lily Tomlin once observed, “The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.”

There can never be such a thing as a “successful” Nigerian if he cannot guarantee he will return alive from a trip to his village, or to the other end of the city, or to Abuja from Otta.

There can be no such thing as a “successful” Nigerian if he is afraid to send his child to school; or as long as a sitting president-or the wife of a sitting president-scorns the best medical facility in the country for treatment abroad. There can be no such thing as a “successful” Nigerian as long as we prefer relatives and weaklings for high office and celebrate thieves and thugs.

That is because that is how we created this despicable abattoir of persons and talent and opportunities which minimizes us in so many ways.

But Onukaba, may his wonderful soul rest in peace, should not die in vain and abandon his young family to be laughed at. That is why I have collaborated in establishing a Trust Fund, at FBN Quest, to ensure that his three young children receive a good education. That work will be concluded this week.

Dust up your address book. Let us celebrate the man by standing up for him.

As phone call after phone call woke me up in the early hours of March 6, 2017, my gaze was glued to my travelling bag on the left side of the foot of my bed.  The bag had been lying there, packed, since the evening of Thursday, March 2, 2017.

It was an unending relay of calls from friends, colleagues, political associates, even family members.  Some were enquiries, some were confirmations, some were outright exclamations, yet some were lamentations.

My bosom friend, Adinoyi-Ojo Onukaba and I, had spoken early that Thursday, and discussed the possibility of going to Abeokuta to attend ceremonies commemorating the 80th birthday of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. We both served in the administration of the former helmsman and shared various levels of relationships with him.

Travelling together to places and events: formal, semi-formal, political, social, across the world had been a dominant feature of our relationship over the years.  Indeed, Onukaba and I had both just returned from Makurdi, Benue State, Monday, February 27, 2017, after attending a string of events commemorating the ascension of a mutual friend of ours, higher up the rungs of the public service. And we rode in the same car.  Tivlumun Nyitse my longstanding friend who is also a journalist, and Emmanuel Manger, the Benue State Commissioner for Works, were among our hosts.

Baba, as most of us Obasanjo protégés refer to the old man, would be delighted to see us, Onukaba and I reasoned.  So we agreed to harmonise our travel plans so we could both go as our usual “tag team”, to the event.

Coming out of sleep Friday, March 3, however, I felt some pain on the sole of my left foot, as I stepped out of bed.  I limped about for a while, hoping the pain will subside so I get some locomotional equilibrium.  It didn’t seem to get better and I had to be seen by a pharmacist friend who prescribed PrimpexCortrimozole tablets and NCP cream, to manage the situation.

I quickly apprised Onukaba of my situation.  I told him I will be utterly miserable and dysfunctional in the anticipated behemoth the Abeokuta function was most likely going to be.  I told him that the way I was, I would not be able to wear smart, slip-on shoes and will be limping around in pain in that mass of human traffic, answering questions from friends.  I imagine he was not happy we wouldn’t be in each other’s company on the trip.  But he simply told me: “I understand.  I will try to make it…”

By his itinerary which we discussed the Thursday before, he was to attend a meeting in Lokoja, Saturday, March 4, 2017 disengage therefrom, begin his road trip to Abeokuta, and pass the night on the way, so as to be in Abeokuta early enough on Sunday, March 5.

Thoughts of him kept tugging at my mind in the evening of Sunday, March 5.  We hadn’t spoken in nearly two days which was most unusual.  I was keen to know how his trip went, so I called his two lines repeatedly between 7:37 pm and 7:40 pm.  The calls never connected.  I called his wife, Memunat’s line as well.  I excused it all to the perennially erratic telecommunications network which has come to be a part of our daily living.

Much as one call after another, in the early hours of Monday, March 6, repeatedly called my attention to facebook posts, tweets and headlines scrolling on the newsbar of several television stations, I could not bring myself to piece together the confounding puzzle.

I called Onukaba’s line, for some reason at 9:32 am that Monday, and somebody took the call.  It dropped after 11 seconds.  I remained unyielding and called again at 9:33 am, virtually barging through, this time around.  I introduced myself and wanted to know who was at the other end.  He introduced himself.  He was a familiar person, a kinsman of Onukaba.  He then narrated the tragic incident in a five-minute conversation which seemed like eternity.

We met in December 1998 on the Publicity Team of the Obasanjo Campaign Organisation, immediately he returned from his decade-long stint in the United States and the United Nations system. We hit it off since that first meeting and we remained what soccer aficionados will refer to as “five and six”, in reference to the on-field inseparability of the central defence pair of a football squad.

Onukaba joined a team of some of the brightest and finest minds in the Nigerian media, who were working on the Obasanjo Project. Very ably led by the highly cerebral, experienced and urbane Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, the team included Chris Mammah, Farouk Omar Ibrahim, Segun Ayobolu, the late Femi Olatunde, Emeka Nwosu, Louis Okoroma  and I.

From that list of media professionals who drove and shaped public discourse on the Obasanjo agenda, Mammah and Onukaba were the very first to be appointed into the new administration. Vice President Atiku Abubakar who had a subsisting relationship with both men, which pre-dated the Obasanjo Presidential Project, wasted no time in naming Mammah and Onukaba his aides on Special Duties and Media, respectively.

Onukaba’s first stint as presidential aide was very brief. He was soon appointed Managing Director of the Daily Times of Nigeria PLC, about August 1999. He thus became the third doctorate degree holder to head the media conglomerate, after Dr. Patrick Dele Cole and Dr. Yemi Ogunbiyi.

Despite the occupationally-inspired geographical separation, we remained best of friends.  October 19, 2002, Onukaba invited me to Benin City, amongst select friends, to take Rachael Akiomuado Ogirri, for a wife.  It was a quiet ceremony, since Onukaba was just emerging from a not too successful union, consummated in 1999.

Onukaba returned to The Presidency June 2003, following his appointment by Vice President Atiku Abubakar, as Senior Special Assistant on Media, subsequent upon the inauguration of the Obasanjo-Atiku ticket for a second term.  I was also re-appointed by President Obasanjo into the President’s Secretariat, to my old schedule, the Special Duties brief.

My family was his family, his folks were my people.  Of course, he was my regular guest in Isanlu my hometown on several social engagements and get-aways from the hustle of politics in the capital.

At the height of the animosity between the former President and his deputy, which culminated in Onukaba’s forced resignation, it was a compassionate Atiku Abubakar who, knowing that Onukaba was bereaved, and was managing a grieving and expectant wife, offered a palliative. He arranged for Onukaba, an all-expenses paid, three-month break in the United States.  Ebikere, his first daughter, was born within that period.  And as ever, I made out time to go and seek him out in Maryland.  We regularly hung out with Sunday Dare who was heading the Hausa Service of the Voice of America (VOA) at the time, and several of our other friends.

Onukaba was as plain as a white sheet of paper. You would never find Onukaba introducing himself with his well earned “Dr.” title.  He was that unassuming, that humble.   He could not understand why, for instance, the rift between his bosses in The Presidency, which consumed his job, equally incinerated the opportunity he had to own a house in Abuja. Under the monetisation programme of the Federal Government, he had the right of first refusal over the house he lived in as Presidential aide. He lost the accommodation in the deathly politicking of that milieu.

Onukaba lost his beloved wife, Rachael, on August 29, 2009, to cerebral malaria.  She was just 32 and she left him with two precocious little children, Asuku, aged six at the time and Ebikere, four years old.

Onukaba trudged on without a wife and helpmate for six years. This was until he bowed to persistent pressures from family and friends to take a new wife.  He consented and sometime mid-2015, I joined less than a dozen invited friends of his, to ask the hand of former Memunat Aliyu in marriage, in Kaduna. Like he explained, it had to be low-keyed, because it was his third marriage in 16 years, by no fault of his. The union was blessed with a beautiful baby girl, Onyeche, on December 25, 2015.

Onukaba wrote and produced several plays including:A Resting Place, Her Majesty’s Visit, Tower of Burden, Virginity Fee, The New God, Nine Lives andSoomalliya, between 1991 and 1995.  They were produced at various times in theatres in the U.S. and Kenya, and have since been staged and published in Nigeria. In 2010, his play, The Killing Swamp, (2009), an imaginative dramatisation of the final hours of Ken Saro Wiwa, the Nigerian writer and environmental rights activist who was hanged on  November 10, 1995, made the list of finalists for the 2010 NLNG Nigerian Literature Prize.

Onukaba published the very first and perhaps most authoritative biography on Nigeria’s former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, in 1997.  Titled: Olusegun Obasanjo: In the Eyes of Time, it was released by Pine Hill Press Inc, New York.  He followed up in 2006 with a biography of his former boss and benefactor, Vice President Atiku Abubakar, titled: Atiku: The Story of Atiku Abubakar.  He equally published The Mbuti: A Profile of a Group of Hunter-Gatherers in the Ituri Rain Forest of Congo. More recently, he authored a biography of his late wife, Rachael, which he calledRemembering Rachael (2012).

Take a deserved rest from the stomp and shove on this side, beloved brother.

• Olusunle is a journalist, poet and writer.

Following an executive order on immigration  made at the beginning of the year, by the new US President, Donald Trump, the country’s immigration service allegedly became more aggressive creating anxiety for some travellers. Initially, Nigerians believed they were not likely to be hurt by the plan not just because its enforcement was blocked by federal courts but because the revised order did not include Nigeria among the seven countries on the target list. Unfortunately, some Nigerians have reportedly been refused entry without reasons. The development should ordinarily have bothered the handlers of our foreign affairs, but that was not exactly the case. It became the lot of concerned Nigerians in the Diaspora to fill the gap. Two influential Nigerian community associations in the U.S. the Nigerian Lawyers Association and the Organisation for the Advancement of Nigeria (OAN) were the first to act.  Having found that some U.S. law enforcement officials had become overzealous with extreme vetting since the roll out of the travel order and were sometimes going beyond their Constitutional bound, the groups organized sensitization programmes for Nigerians who have relatives travelling to the U.S. The programmes revealed a number of rights. First, that a security officer does not have the right to ask unnecessary questions from travelers. Second, that the law prescribes that no one can be delayed for more than six hours. So if after six hours of arrival of the relevant flight, people do not see their relatives, then they should immediately meet immigration attorneys to file for their release. Third, that some Nigerian attorneys had volunteered to be part of the Legal Aid Society who can easily come to the aid of any Nigerian stranded at the airports. The proactive Nigerian patriotic groups were neither being confrontational nor were they questioning the executive orders; instead, they were bothered by what they termed “unintended consequences of inappropriate questioning.” Meanwhile, both the Nigerian Embassy in the US and our foreign affairs ministry did not appear to be aware of the development let alone to seek to stop the humiliation of any Nigerian. In due course, those adversely affected formally sent complaints to Abike Dabiri- Erewa, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Matters. They complained that although they had valid visas, they were denied entry to the US and sent back to Nigeria on the next available flights. Dabiri-Erewa having received no less than four cases in 2 weeks advised Nigerians who had no “compelling or essential reasons to visit the US to consider delaying their trip until there is clarity in the new immigration policy.” Less than 24 hours later, Godfrey Onyema, our foreign affairs minister fiercely faulted Erewa’s position. At a news conference on the subject, the minister said:  “On the issue of Nigerians being turned back from the US, this is not the case. I have reached out to the US Ambassador to Nigeria and the country’s high level officials who said nothing of such had happened. If the Nigerian government is speaking on any external relations, you will hear it from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs or the Office of the President. I can tell you to ignore the advice to reconsider travelling to the US because there is no basis for that.” Nigeria in our view was worse off with the minister’s supposed clarification on the subject. To start with, he didn’t say anything substantive about the issue at stake. Instead he was more interested in the territorial defence of his ministry. When asked by the media to define the functions of the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign affairs and Diaspora matters, he didn’t say. If so, how did he know what the office could not do? The claim that US officials also disagreed with Erewa does not prove that undue humiliation of Nigerians did not happen; the US officials were probably defending their country. Otherwise how do we explain the case of one Femi Olaniyi who was reportedly deported on the 21 of February 2017, from his point of entry in Los Angeles?  Femi said he was put in a cold cell and held for 4 days and that his phones were seized making it impossible for him to have access to his family or anyone else. Another Nigerian, Francis Adekola, who narrated his own travel ordeal to Punch newspapers, said he was detained for over 10 hours before he was placed on an aircraft and returned to Abuja via Johannesburg. The most irritating rationalization of the deportation allegations is the minister’s argument that the story could not have been true because the Nigeran Ambassador to the US was unaware of the reports. If a Nigerian was not allowed to enter the US at all, how does such a citizen reach our Ambassador? Besides, what we have in the US or anywhere else are not viable foreign missions but some proliferated structures here and there described as embassies, consulates and high commissions.  Even when Nigeria was not in recession they always faced a lot of embarrassment for their inability to resolve basic challenges like settling ordinary electricity and telephone bills. At a point the irrepressible Ojo Madueke of blessed memory told our House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Policy that in New York “we have a mission where the Ambassador’s car would have to be pushed on the road in an important capital in the world.” Thus, we see as instructive, the statement by our own President, Muhammadu Buhari a few months back that “there is no point keeping embassies all over the world with dilapidated and demoralised staff.” Who can such people help? Nigerians can therefore not relate with our foreign missions until they are transformed – a job we assumed Onyema was brought in to do instead of getting engaged in territorial squabbles. Indeed, if his ministry was proactive, there would have been no vacuum for anyone else to seek to fill. Besides, our minister should not echo such rationalization as that Nigerians deported may have had personal problems; rather he is expected to take great pains to investigate and remedy any allegation of inhuman treatment meted on any Nigeria even if it is just one citizen.

I first encountered him on the pages of one of Nigeria’s greatest newspapers of all time, The Guardian. His name then was Shuaibu Ojo but he later changed to Onukaba Adinoyi-Ojo. At the time, I read everything he wrote except those that escaped my attention. I was his devotee, to put it mildly. He was a pen god and many like me worshipped his writing prowess. He wrote with so much authority and maturity that made me assume he was an old man until I met him. There were many distinguished writers and reporters at The Guardian – Stanley Macebuh, Patrick Dele-Cole, Chinweizu, Olatunji Dare, Odia Ofeimun, Yemi Ogunbiyi, Sonala Olumhense, Greg Obong-Oshotse, Edwin Madunagu, Tunji Lardner Jnr, Seyi Olu Awofeso, Andy Akporugo, Amma Ogan, Tunde Thompson, Nduka Irabor, Eluem Emeka Izeze, Ben Tomoloju, Mitchell Obi, and others – but Onukaba stood out in his own right as a reporter and writer. The Guardian was home for literary giants and Onukaba was clearly one of them even though he was relatively younger than most. Any self-respecting writer therefore wanted to appear on The Guardiaan’s effervescent pages. I was one of such dreamers but didn’t know how to go about it.

Onukaba was God-sent. Our paths crossed by pure chance. I was managing Motel Royal Limited, a holiday resort in Ile-Ife owned by The Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade Olubuse II. Onukaba loved culture and came on several occasion to do stories on the Ife palace and its festivals. Olojo was the biggest cultural event in the traditional calendar of a town reputed to be the cradle of civilisation and`famous for its 401 deities. Onukaba was lodged as a guest of His Majesty at the hotel during one of such festivals at the time when I was managing the hotel. I recognised his famous name as soon as his registration was forwarded to my office. I sent word out that I would love to meet him as soon as he arrived.

Ours was a case of love at first sight. I found Onukaba to be my age mate. This was the first surprise. I was shocked to see that he was smaller if not shorter than his gangling pen. He must have wondered why I stared endlessly at him. He wouldn’t know or even imagine how much I respected his brains. As a budding writer, I craved his talents. We got talking and we realised we shared common interests, especially our love for the African Writers’ series. It was fashionable in those days to impress people with authors and books you’d read, not like these days when your bank statement is the easiest way to show off. Onukaba was stunned about my robust knowledge of African culture. I regaled him with tales of Ife idols. He was fascinated by my Bachelor’s degree in Yoruba from the then University of Ife as well as my plan to be the first graduate of Yoruba Studies ever to attempt a Master’s degree in Literature-in-English.

Onukaba encouraged me to write a piece on the popular Olojo Festival for the African Guardian magazine which was edited by Nduka Irabor. I co-authored the essay with Kwesi Sampson and Onukaba was our courier to Lagos. A few weeks later, the article was published by the magazine. It was the biggest thing to happen to me personally and I was on top of the world. I bought copies and showed to anyone who cared to listen to me. Being published in any of The Guardian titles was a big deal to everyone at the time, and I was no exception.

Onukaba encouraged me to write more. Through him and the inspiration of Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, I started contributing as regularly as possible to the op-ed page. Dr Ogunbiyi was a lecturer from the Dramatic Arts Department at the University of Ife but later served his sabbatical at The Guardian and rose to become a Director at Rutam House, Lagos. I was paid N25 per article and always waited to publish four essays before travelling from Ife where I was now a post-graduate student to Lagos to receive the princely sum of N100. Trust me, it was a lot of money to an indigent student like me and it came in handy on several occasions. The Naira had great value in those days.

I remember my first article in The Guardian titled, ‘The Politics of Language’. It was a defence of Ngugi wa Thiong’o when he decided to stop writing in English language and chose his Kikuyu language and Odia Ofeimun was miffed about the decision. Of course, Ofeimun fired back thunderously at me to attack what he called my jejune thesis. This was how I got initiated into that exalted company of writers in Lagos. I kept writing for The Guardian and was also appearing in the Sunday Tribune at the introduction of my best friend Adedamola Aderemi, the Prince of Ile-Ife because of his conjugal ties to the Awolowo family. The Sunday Tribune had a fantastic Editor in Mr Folu Olamiti who did everything to encourage me. Onukaba followed my trajectory with keen interest. He rhapsodised about how beautifully I wrote.

Despite being able to establish myself as a writer, my real love was teaching. My ambition was to be a teacher, marry a teacher and live happily ever thereafter. But man proposes and God disposes. I searched and scratched everywhere for a teaching job but there was none anywhere. In frustration, I became exasperated. All my friends had jobs except me. And I was dying in silence, almost going off my rockers. I met Onukaba in Lagos and he said he could introduce me to a few Editors but could not really promise anything. He asked if I was ready to migrate to Lagos and my response was an instant yes.

Onukaba invited me to his office at Rutam House one afternoon and he took me round the powerful offices. He suggested that it might be easier to get a job from the African Guardian and he physically walked me to the office of Nduka Irabor, the Editor. My heart palpitated as we walked in. Onukaba was a confident speaker and his voice boomed as he introduced me to the big man. I was in awe of Nduka who had become larger than life since his sojourn in Buhari’s prison alongside his co-conspirator, Mr Tunde Thompson. Both men had been detained and jailed under a draconian decree in those dark days of dictatorship in Nigeria.

Onukaba left me to discuss with Nduka, my would-be boss, but the deal fell through and my destiny led me elsewhere. My test was to write a report on night life in Lagos, a topic I felt was too difficult for a JJC (Johnny Just Come) village boy just coming from Ile-Ife, and I simply absconded. I returned to Onukaba and told him I could not oblige with Nduka’s test and offered to go back to Ife. But Onukaba, in his usual indomitable spirit, said I couldn’t go yet, that we must try one more Editor. He personally led me to The African Concord magazine, owned by Chief Moshood Abiola. He told me he was friends with the Editor, Lewis Obi, and he was sure Lewis must have encountered my writings somehow because I had gained some recognition and popularity.

In all honesty, The Concord Press was not my idea of an ideal media organisation. My heart and soul had been substantially poisoned against its proprietor and Chairman, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola. The barrage of attacks against Abiola by his opponents was enough to stultify anybody’s enthusiasm in the man and his business. Onukaba taught me to keep an open mind and this would become very useful throughout my entire career. He believed a good journalist should give everyone his right to fair hearing. Onukaba’s level of maturity was uncommon. At any rate, I needed a job so badly. And according to an old adage “a one-legged man cannot say the man carrying him stinks…”

I followed Onukaba to The African Concord office near the Murtala Muhammed International Airport. Unknown to me that’s where my Destiny waited patiently. We did not meet Lewis Obi but met his deputy, Bayo Onanuga and his right hand man, Babafemi Ojudu. They told us Lewis was out but I could wait for him. To my greatest surprise, when Lewis came in, he invited me into his office. I told him Onukaba brought me to see him. He was obviously fond of that great name and he gave me a listening ear. I did not mince words. A man cannot hide his body from the undertaker who would bury him, my dear mum had told me repeatedly. I told Lewis I needed a job, pronto.

Lewis looked up and scanned my face as if searching for a specific expression. I tried to keep a straight poker face. When he finally responded, I couldn’t believe my luck. “How much salary would you like to earn…”, he asked, almost rhetorically. I didn’t know what to say. How can you ask a poor needy boy such a question? Besides, I didn’t know what salaries journalists commanded and for me simply to join the ranks of the employed was the most important thing! I remained tongue-tied and speechless! Lagos, with its unusual ways, was as strange as London to me. To cut a long story short, Lewis employed me on the spot and I remained eternally grateful to Onukaba.

Onukaba would later travel to the US for studies and jobs. He earned himself a handsome PhD and we started calling him Doctor. We were proud of our friend. He later worked at the United Nations and I visited him and Sonala Olumhense once in New York. When Ovation International was berthing in the city of London in 1996, I invited both of them as Contributing Editors and they graciously accepted to support the ambitious project without hesitation. They generously made impeccable and intellectual contributions to the journal. It is impossible to repay their kindness fully but their names are indelibly etched in our common history.

Onukaba returned home to Nigeria and we met every now and then, particularly when I myself returned from self-exile. He was a great disciple of General Olusegun Obasanjo and was an authority on the life history of one of Africa’s living legends. Onukaba left everything to launch a global campaign for the release of Obasanjo when he was incarcerated by General Sani Abacha. Onukaba was forever loyal and dependable. He joined Obasanjo’s government naturally and was posted to the office of the Vice President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, where he formed another permanent bond as usual. He authored authoritative biographies of both these Nigerian leaders, amongst other books that he wrote or co-authored. I could go on and on and on about Onukaba and his many parts but space would not permit me. In summary, he was a journalist, playwright, dramatist, author, envoy, administrator, politician and lecturer. Above all he was an admirable friend and great family man.  Everything he undertook, he did with great passion, consummate ease, excellently, gracefully and effectively.

Onukaba died under very bizarre circumstances last Saturday as he returned from the celebration of Obasanjo’s 80^th birthday. It would have been unfathomable for Onukaba not to have attended any of the ceremonies lined up for a living legend he admired so much. His deep loyalty to people and causes would not have allowed such escape. Onukaba played the role that was expected of him but died on his way home.

This bitch of a life!