You wont believe this. 08055001932 is still in my phone. I have
not deleted it and don’t know when I will do so. You guessed right!
08055001932 is Oga Dimgba’s phone line. True! While alive, he did
not often call me on it. But on the few occasions he did it was like
going through with him, a foundational course in education, even if
informal.The last time he called me on it, which was a few months before
he died, I had missed his call. Five times! Which was very unusual
because I had always picked his call after the first or two rings. But
when this last one came through, I was not around. In fact, I had left
my phone for charging at a power point in my office and had gone out to
sort out some personal matters somewhere.
You should imagine my surprise and discomfiture then when on picking
up my phone from the power charging point I discovered that I had five
missed calls and all from him! Quickly, I called back, full of
explanations and apologies. He readily accepted them in his
characteristic forgiving manner after which he passed to me a phone
number of a man who claimed to be a regular reader of his column on
Tuesday and who had reported a problem he felt I should be in a position
to handle as the man had requested for a fellow Igbo man or journalist
like him who could understand him.
But before ending the discussion, he warned me to be very careful with the man, as he seemed to be a name-dropper. He does not know him from Adam, he said, yet the man acts familiarly as if they had known each other from birth. I took the number and his good counsel and waited for the man’s call. And truly, when the man called he started talking as if he was Oga Dimgba’s blood brother. In the course of time, I came to know that all that was intended to make me drop my guard. But having been warned ahead of time, I never did. And, so when the man who was supposed to talk about a school he was opening somewhere in Surulere, according to Oga Dimgba, left that and began to engage in cock-and-bull story about his goods that were seized by authorities at Tin Can Island, I immediately knew that I was dealing with a fraudster.
Originally, he had wanted me to visit him in his residence somewhere in Surulere. But I declined and asked him to see me either at The Sun corporate headquarters office located at Coscharis St. Kirikiri Industrial Estate, Apapa. He promised to do so but till this hour he never did. I later called Oga Dimgba and reported our conversation to him. He totally agreed with my stance on the matter.
That’s not the first time he would call to put across a request. On one occasion when Abia State University (ABSU) students had had some misunderstanding and disagreement with both the authorities and state government, which later led to the closure of the university and disruption of academic activities for some months, a student, using a pen name or pseudonym, had written, in horrible English unbefitting a 300 level student he claimed to be, a letter to Governor Theodore Orji, outlining their plight and pleading for his intervention. But he had routed it through Oga Dimgba. He forwarded it to me for publication after warning me ahead of time of the terribleness of the writer’s English.
One other occasion he had cause to approach me for help was when Pastor Dickson Anyanwu who happened to be the pastoral mentor of students of Rainbow College, located somewhere off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, had asked, on behalf of the school, for a little publicity on some international awards the students representatives won in some mathematical/science quiz competition. I humbly obliged, after he called to let me know that he got my number from Oga Dimgba. What he didn’t know was that Oga Dimgba had earlier called, as it’s characteristic of him, to inform me to expect his call.
While alive, there were many interesting encounters that I had with him. They include his call to congratulate me on the undercover report I did on Christian Praying Assembly (CPA), Ajao Estate, Lagos, Rev. King’s church. “Kudos, Chika, I want more of that,” he said to me after reading the story published in Sunday Sun, about my risky visit to the church under the guise of a worshipper. Then he was the Deputy Managing Director and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Sun.
But the most memorable of those encounters is the one that I had with him after I wrote a story on Mama Joe, one of the minor characters that you meet with in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. In several interviews, Chimamanda had revealed that of all the characters that inhabit her book, Mama Joe who plaits Kambili and Aunty Ifeoma’s hairs, is the only one that is alive and well, while others are fictitious.
Following that hint, I was to get to meeting and interviewing Mama Joe, somewhere in the rustic town of Nsukka, through the help of Chimamanda and her mother, Madam Ifeoma Adichie. It turned out that Mama Joe used to plait not only Chimamanda’s hair but also other female members of her family, including her Mum’s.
In the story, Mama Joe talked at length about herself, her relationship with Chimamanda and her family, about some things you didn’t know about Chimamanda as well as the things that Chimamanda wrote about her in her book, Purple Hibiscus, concerning her queer mannerisms, all of which she confirmed to be true.
After reading the enthralling story, Oga Dimgba who incidentally used to call every junior staff or colleague, Oga, sent for me through his secretary. I was still wondering what I did wrong to be so summoned to his expansive office when he opened one of his drawers and brought an envelope and handed over to me. I opened it and found that it contained some money. “It’s for you,” he said. “I like what you did with the Mama Joe story. You just weaved a fantastic story around an otherwise minor character. Please, keep it up.”
Overwhelmed with joy, I thanked him profusely and raced back to my office to count the money. It turned out to be a whopping N20, 000! To tell you the truth, it was a big monetary gift at the time it came because of some pressing financial needs that I had. It was a big relief! When therefore the other day I was scrolling through my phone and Oga Dimgba Igwe’s name and number popped up, you should understand why I couldn’t bring myself to delete it.
I remember the story that Dr. Ngozi Ezenwa-Ohaeto, of the Department of English Language and Literature, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, and the widow of late Prof. Ezenwa Ohaeto, the highly cerebral and celebrated international poet, essayist, critic and biographer of Chinua Achebe, once told me. One day, after her husband’s unfortunate death from cancer, she was looking for a document when she decided to place a call to him through his phone number that was still stored in her phone.
Like me, she, obviously, could not bring herself to delete it. She had gladly and anticipatorily started dialing the number when she suddenly came back to her senses that the owner was not alive, and would not help her out with her request. Jolted back to the present, she left what she was doing or looking for at that moment, and found a quite place in her bedroom, and sat down there and wept. Memories are, surely, made of this
But before ending the discussion, he warned me to be very careful with the man, as he seemed to be a name-dropper. He does not know him from Adam, he said, yet the man acts familiarly as if they had known each other from birth. I took the number and his good counsel and waited for the man’s call. And truly, when the man called he started talking as if he was Oga Dimgba’s blood brother. In the course of time, I came to know that all that was intended to make me drop my guard. But having been warned ahead of time, I never did. And, so when the man who was supposed to talk about a school he was opening somewhere in Surulere, according to Oga Dimgba, left that and began to engage in cock-and-bull story about his goods that were seized by authorities at Tin Can Island, I immediately knew that I was dealing with a fraudster.
Originally, he had wanted me to visit him in his residence somewhere in Surulere. But I declined and asked him to see me either at The Sun corporate headquarters office located at Coscharis St. Kirikiri Industrial Estate, Apapa. He promised to do so but till this hour he never did. I later called Oga Dimgba and reported our conversation to him. He totally agreed with my stance on the matter.
That’s not the first time he would call to put across a request. On one occasion when Abia State University (ABSU) students had had some misunderstanding and disagreement with both the authorities and state government, which later led to the closure of the university and disruption of academic activities for some months, a student, using a pen name or pseudonym, had written, in horrible English unbefitting a 300 level student he claimed to be, a letter to Governor Theodore Orji, outlining their plight and pleading for his intervention. But he had routed it through Oga Dimgba. He forwarded it to me for publication after warning me ahead of time of the terribleness of the writer’s English.
One other occasion he had cause to approach me for help was when Pastor Dickson Anyanwu who happened to be the pastoral mentor of students of Rainbow College, located somewhere off the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, had asked, on behalf of the school, for a little publicity on some international awards the students representatives won in some mathematical/science quiz competition. I humbly obliged, after he called to let me know that he got my number from Oga Dimgba. What he didn’t know was that Oga Dimgba had earlier called, as it’s characteristic of him, to inform me to expect his call.
While alive, there were many interesting encounters that I had with him. They include his call to congratulate me on the undercover report I did on Christian Praying Assembly (CPA), Ajao Estate, Lagos, Rev. King’s church. “Kudos, Chika, I want more of that,” he said to me after reading the story published in Sunday Sun, about my risky visit to the church under the guise of a worshipper. Then he was the Deputy Managing Director and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of The Sun.
But the most memorable of those encounters is the one that I had with him after I wrote a story on Mama Joe, one of the minor characters that you meet with in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus. In several interviews, Chimamanda had revealed that of all the characters that inhabit her book, Mama Joe who plaits Kambili and Aunty Ifeoma’s hairs, is the only one that is alive and well, while others are fictitious.
Following that hint, I was to get to meeting and interviewing Mama Joe, somewhere in the rustic town of Nsukka, through the help of Chimamanda and her mother, Madam Ifeoma Adichie. It turned out that Mama Joe used to plait not only Chimamanda’s hair but also other female members of her family, including her Mum’s.
In the story, Mama Joe talked at length about herself, her relationship with Chimamanda and her family, about some things you didn’t know about Chimamanda as well as the things that Chimamanda wrote about her in her book, Purple Hibiscus, concerning her queer mannerisms, all of which she confirmed to be true.
After reading the enthralling story, Oga Dimgba who incidentally used to call every junior staff or colleague, Oga, sent for me through his secretary. I was still wondering what I did wrong to be so summoned to his expansive office when he opened one of his drawers and brought an envelope and handed over to me. I opened it and found that it contained some money. “It’s for you,” he said. “I like what you did with the Mama Joe story. You just weaved a fantastic story around an otherwise minor character. Please, keep it up.”
Overwhelmed with joy, I thanked him profusely and raced back to my office to count the money. It turned out to be a whopping N20, 000! To tell you the truth, it was a big monetary gift at the time it came because of some pressing financial needs that I had. It was a big relief! When therefore the other day I was scrolling through my phone and Oga Dimgba Igwe’s name and number popped up, you should understand why I couldn’t bring myself to delete it.
I remember the story that Dr. Ngozi Ezenwa-Ohaeto, of the Department of English Language and Literature, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, and the widow of late Prof. Ezenwa Ohaeto, the highly cerebral and celebrated international poet, essayist, critic and biographer of Chinua Achebe, once told me. One day, after her husband’s unfortunate death from cancer, she was looking for a document when she decided to place a call to him through his phone number that was still stored in her phone.
Like me, she, obviously, could not bring herself to delete it. She had gladly and anticipatorily started dialing the number when she suddenly came back to her senses that the owner was not alive, and would not help her out with her request. Jolted back to the present, she left what she was doing or looking for at that moment, and found a quite place in her bedroom, and sat down there and wept. Memories are, surely, made of this
No comments:
Post a Comment