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| Tunde Agbabiaka...a day before he slipped into a coma. |
I have been doing my very
best to celebrate rather than mourn the sudden departure of one of the best
friends any one can have, Tunde Agbabiaka, who passed on in the early hours of
Monday December 17 last year. Yet, the plain truth is that I sorely miss him.
He was one of my closest collaborators in the current phase of life.
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| ...HIS Remains...going... |
He never did, and never will! Instead, I got a “call to prayer” from a mutual friend in the UK. Tunde, he was told, had slipped into a coma and even as efforts were afoot to get him to the hospital, I was requested to join in praying for his recovery.
Now, it is when it happens
close to home, as in this case, that the state of affairs in our nation hits
you beyond the momentary shock you get from reading newspaper reports. Arrangements
were made to transport Tunde to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital at
Idi-Araba not too far from his Falolu Road, Surulere residence. But, lo and
behold, LUTH doctors were “on strike!” His minders were advised to head for the
Lagos State University Teaching Hospital LASUTH in Ikeja. For those who know
anything about the gridlock of December traffic in Lagos, that was like a death
sentence!
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| ...Going... |
Head for Ikeja the party
did. The siren of an ambulance notwithstanding the journey to Ikeja took quite
a while. As they were making their way towards the hospital some family members
and friends were not just praying, they were working the phones to see who
knows who that can facilitate speedy attention to him, at what was now
anticipated to be an overstretched facility. No dice! The one name that
came up belonged to a soft-spoken doctor who was on vacation far away from
base!
As was expected LASUTH was
already a bedlam of sorts and patients were being directed to the Federal
Medical Centre at Apapa Road, Ebute Metta. It took another hour or so to get
Tunde to what was to be his last place abode on terra firma. Some 60 hours
later, he passed on. He was buried two days ago.
I met Tunde in 1973 at the
Times Journalism Institute (then Times Newspaper Training Centre). Although he
was born into Islam, he was then an adherent of the Baha’i faith. He was always
in search of man’s deeper essence and spirituality, a subject about which most
of us, his colleagues were at best lukewarm. At our very best, most of us were
humanists and anchored our journalism on its shifting ethics. Tunde operated at
a different, deeper level. So while most of us were as concerned about the essence
of governance vis-à-vis the human condition and the ends of justice and equity,
as Tunde was, he seemed propelled by a higher force.
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| gone...going night, Afroguard |
In later life, he embraced Christianity and was a kind of associate member of Christian Men’s Network Nigeria, which I coordinate. In our various informal Bible studies, Tunde would return again and again to the theme of Christ’s meekness and humility. He would wonder how many of our leaders, church leaders not exempted, would tolerate their followers talk to them the way Jesus’ disciples did on at least two recorded occasions. One was at the scene of the healing of the woman with the issue of blood, where Jesus asked the question, “who touched me?” The disciples’ retort was akin to: Haba, master, in this crowd? (see Luke 8:45). The other was at the calming of the storm.
The other was at the
calming of the storm in Mark 4. The sharp rebuke by his disciples: “Master,
carest thou not that we perish? (verse 38) Tunde would contend would have
earned the speaker a suspension or sack from work from many of today’s leaders.
It is a tribute to the “nothing
by half” lifestyle of the man that he was at a deliverance service at the
Cornelius House Christian Centre the day before he went into a coma. He was
also deeply committed to the vision of publishing for the Kingdom of God, which
found outlet in KINGDOMPeople magazine of which he was not just a Contributing
Editor but a great source of encouragement.
All of that is in the past
now. I must accept your departure as a reality! I must accept that this is not
a nightmare from which I would wake up. I must live with the fact that you have
translated to the other side of the divide, with all those lofty visions and
missions interred with your bones.
That someone with your
pedigree; someone with your nobility of heart, and acuity of mind; one
irreversibly committed to not join the multitude to do evil and who did not let
pass any opportunity to fight against it as often as was possible…that you
could slip into anonymity and simply fizzle out, like the coma from which you
never recovered, speak volumes about the depth of our socio-economic and moral abyss.
As I reflect upon your
activities, especially in the last five years, a Biblical passage in the book
of Hebrews kept coming strongly to my mind. It’s from the chapter widely
accepted as the Faith Hall of Fame or, if you like, the Gallery of Faith
Heroes. It reads thus:
“And
others had trial of cruel
mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: They were
stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they
wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted,
tormented; (Of whom the world was not
worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in
dens and caves of the earth” (Hebrews 11:36-38; emphasise added).
Nigeria is not worthy of you, Tunde. Rest now, Afroguard. Rest, my friend, my brother, my collaborator, my associate, my chief cheer-leader; till we meet again.
