The witticism of the erstwhile Radio Kaduna Tiv soloist that the dead does not weep his own funeral cannot be over quoted. There is no superior text than it to apply in this case. For, if Chris Abashi were still alive and his daughter was getting married, the world would know. It was not beyond him to call and ask whoever he wanted if he or she had not heard that Awazi, (that is the one about to get married next March) is getting married.
It was just the mercurial way about him. Otherwise, Abashi was not a vain glorious or showy fellow. He was a hard core ideologue of radical nationalism and politics was what drove him. But he was too mercurial for his politics to be about scheming and plotting. No. It was more elevated. The testimonial is in his records as Chairman of Nasarawa Eggon at the beginning of the Fourth Republic. So, he was a comrade who performed in office.
There is no doubt about it that the mindset to perform exceptionally derived inherently from his radical convictions and its morality. The truth, however, is that it also had a powerful in put from the most unlikely source. When he was president of NANS in the early 1980s, Abashi led the Exco to pay a visit to Anthony Okojie, the then Catholic Archbishop of Lagos. His tenure as local government chairperson many years later was very much informed by whatever wisdom the Archbishop must have imparted to him. Imagine the scenario of a communist who was working on Catholic wisdom. With Abashi, the world can be so diffuse as to make all those marketing identity rigidities a superfluous lot.
But then death came calling and what follows especially when the breadwinner goes. Theirs included a tragedy – fire chose to gut their house completely. But they survived it all, thanks to God but also to a ‘never say die’ Mrs Abashi. And now, the children are coming. Three are graduates now, leaving only one as undergraduate now and even that is emerging as a member of the literati already. It is one of the three graduates, the one in Electrical/Electronics, who is getting married. There is a Chemical Engineer and then a Medical Doctor.
Now, Mrs Cece Abashi is craving the indulgence of all the comrades to grace the wedding as friends of Chris, her late husband. We appreciate the comrades who have been with us in our struggle and we want to see them again, she told Intervention on phone. Awazi, the love struck bride, agrees with her mother.
