AFROGUARD...OF WHOM THE WORLD WAS NOT WORTHY...

Tunde Agbabiaka...a  day
 before  he slipped into a coma.

"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..."

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.

...HIS Remains...going...

His voice still rings in my ears as he spoke down the scratchy line of the Airtel network on Wednesday, December 12. To my “hello Tunde”, I still can hear him say: “Remington! Are you out of the woods yet?” And when I answered, “not quite” and told him what part of an on-going KINGDOMPeople project was still being expected from him , he was quick to reply, ‘I’ll see you on Friday.”

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!

...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.

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.