By Adagbo Onoja
Readers of Intervention would have to bear yet another story on my mother, the late Ikponya Abba, aka Ojongo whose death and burial has already received bountiful reporting on this platform in the past one month. This time, it is to say a big ‘thank you’ to everyone because it, indeed, became everyone’s burial.
The ‘thank you’ is just due because the rite of the 14th day after the burial has just been completed back home in Benue State and the burial is now regarded as successful and concluded. It has not just been successful and concluded but completely in tandem with the template specifically drawn upon for her by the children.
That the template was followed and achieved is a tribute to the unbelievable takeover of the burial at all levels by the diverse elements who made all manner of contributions – moral, psychological, financial and what else. The truth is that one found himself a spectator as individuals from far and near took the centre stage in the very involving rites of passage. That is how I, the chief mourner, became a spectator in his mother’s funeral.
I, therefore, wish to formally express my profound gratitude and thanks for each and everyone’s invaluable contributions to my mother’s burial. It is very much appreciated. And may God reward you all in His own majestic folds!
The problem here is, as the Idoma folk saying goes, ‘thank you’ cannot be calibrated. ‘Thank you’ for a million Naira is the same ‘thank you’ for fifty kobo. It is assumed that the word ‘big’ will make my ‘thank you’ adequate in this case.
The truth is that the totality of the experience of burying a mother has been a sobering one. I had this attitude that the death of a peasant woman who almost clocked 90 years is not a subject of news in Africa. For those who would blame me for this attitude, let me track it to Dr. Patrick Dele Cole from whom it was inferred. As Managing Director of the now defunct Daily Times, Dele Cole narrowly escaped Obasanjo’s fury as the two disagreed on Daily Times’ coverage of the spate of armed robbery in Nigeria in the late 1970s when Obasanjo was the military Head of State. It is a long time I read the interview but I think he said that it was the late Gen Shehu Yar’Adua who saved him from Obasanjo’s anger and being sacked.
The difference between Obasanjo and Dele Cole centered on each’s perspective on the issue. Obasanjo felt that as a partially government owned news outlet, Daily Times ought to have played down on the spate of armed robbery. Dele Cole did not think Obasanjo was right. He defended Daily Times’ full blast coverage of incidences of armed robbery. His argument is that it was the headache of the government to overwhelm armed robbery while it was the business of the Daily Times to fully report on whatever was happening around Nigeria. And since armed robbery was happening, the newspaper should fully report it. He had this analogy that if his mother went crazy, it was his job as the son to take her to a psychiatric hospital but the job of Daily Times reporters covering madness to report the story. I found Dele Cole’s analogy so logically fascinating till today. It remains fascinating too that he didn’t see any contradiction in that division of labour between a mother and a son on the one hand and a reporter working in a medium whose Managing Director the mother had gone crazy.
So, when my mother died, I did not think a formal announcement was very important. I had already been working on a quasi-academic essay on the phenomenon I think she speaks to, something much wider than a mother-son issue. That was what I thought was due to her rather than disrupting people’s flow of activities because my mother had died. On this, I was over ruled as some journalist did a shorter news item that went wider than could be imagined. Thereafter, I had no hiding place, bombarded by telephone calls, solidary messages, financial assistance and more. I have since published the tribute but it did a different job from the shorter stuff. What it all means is that when it is death, the world stands with you and Dele Cole’s analogy doesn’t quite apply, as fascinating a liberal analogy as it is.
All these touch on something else I am rethinking. My son once insisted he deserved to be featured on Intervention. His insistence came up when he obtained a distinction in Mathematics in the secondary school and considered it his own opportunity to be a newsmaker. I told him it could not be done. I wondered to him what people would think if my biological son became a newsmaker in a platform I was the Editorial Director. It wouldn’t look fine. My son got something else but not coverage in Intervention. The same thing would have happened to my mother but for the insistence of others. Is it myself who needs to rethink or not? This is an ethical issue I am sure others are confronting too!
Anyway, thanks immensely to you all for the overwhelming solidarity. It is true Intervention is journalistically present at as many deaths and burials since it was founded. Still, this level of solidarity was not expected. Thank you again!
