HERBERT WIGWE – YOU ARE NEXT
It’s been a long time since a man died in Nigeria. I think it was Awo and Fela that died this kind of death.
A death that united Nigeria in grief. A death that blurred our divisions for a second, giving us a sense of purpose in grief.
Men after men took the podium to cry. Khalifa Sanusi didn’t cry when he was deposed but cried like an orphan at Herbert’s passing . The richest man with the power to make or ruin whole economies stood there and wept like a child.
Men who sack thousands without a care became lithe in grief. Herbert levelled the field as both the high and mighty fell in tears. ohhh my God, what manner of death.
Yesterday, I saw his kinsmen scream in affirmation of his passing. One mourner was screaming, so it’s true, so it’s true Herbert die true true.
The local Government Chairman in all white stood like a man and commanded the Hearse to stop and he started shouting Herbert’s name. He saluted him and waved the hearse away.
That finally broke me. All of them had been crying but me I remained stoic with a sense of pride. He was going to give me N40m on his return for my Awo-UK play and immediately start the process of giving my son, Alvin a scholarship to his famous school.
He had said, Edgar we finalize when I come back. This was Wednesday and on Saturday, he fell from the sky. I sat glued to the chair when the news hit me at the elegant hotel in Victoria Island.
Alvin had fallen in love with the idea of being a pioneer student at Wigwe and when he called to gleefully tell me that he had started classes to enable him pass the JAMB and I told him the man has died, he gasped.
Herbert had so many uncompleted tasks. It was as if he was being wickedly funny with the way he suddenly left. God! Almost everybody all over the Nation has one uncompleted project or the other.
A former Bank MD showed me a chat he had with Herbert the Thursday before he passed on, which they agreed to meet in South Africa which never happened.
The import of all these is that Herbert has raised the bar in dying with class. I have been asking myself, how people will react at my passing.
Will they be united in grief, will the world stand still for me, like him? Will my death numb a whole industry, like his paralysed the finance sector, will my kinsmen line the streets and be wailing like they did for him?
Herbert died wickedly because he now has put too much pressure on the rest of us to go out of character to be as humane, as philanthropic and as caring as he was with a complete dose of humility.
This is really the irony of Herbert’s death. The pressure to realign our ethos and our engagement with society. Something Herbert did very easily without flinching but would be quite Herculean for the rest of us.
You are next. Think.
Duke of Shomolu
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