Article: Azuh Amatus pays tribute to Dimgba Igwe: 'Goodbye great boss'

Dimgba Igwe

By AZUH AMATUS: I still can’t believe that my boss, Pastor Dimgba Igwe, who spoke with me less than 24 hours before a heartless and careless driver knocked him down around his Okota, Lagos residence, while jogging is gone forever.

It is still very hard for me to accept the painful reality that the boss who calls me virtually every day with a calm but authoritative voice to inquire about my editorial contents for the week, will never ask me again, “Editor, where are you, are you already at the office?

God, why did you allow them to kill my amiable boss and teacher who regularly supervises my cover stories most Wednesdays and Fridays with his twin brother and another great boss of mine, Mike Awoyinfa?

The tears have not stopped flowing in my eyes like raindrops since the sad news hit me like a volcanic eruption that fateful Saturday morning while on my way home from work.

I slept at the office very late on Friday night after putting Sunday Express to bed.

I woke up the next morning, which was that black Saturday, feeling unusually tired. That was very unlike me, because I normally do one or two stuffs on my computer before going home whenever I slept over. I was very close to my home when I got a call from a sister and colleague at The Sun, Mrs. Tessy Igomu.

“Azuh, what happened to Oga Dimgba?,” she asked in an unstable voice.

“Nothing, I just left the office, where I passed the night and we even spoke the previous night,” I stammered.

With trepidation, I quickly added, “Did anything happen to my boss?”

She dropped the bombshell, “Oga Dimgba is dead.”

My screams and the screeching of my car to a halt ended the conversation abruptly.

With tears in my eyes and my body quaking seriously, I immediately cleared inside a filling station and put a call to my Publisher, Mr. Mike Awoyinfa, who was holidaying in the UK with his family, but could not reach him after several attempts, because I only have his Nigerian number. I tried Mr. Femi Adesina, the MD/EIC of The Sun and he picked on my first dial.

“Sir, what happened to Oga Dimgba,” I asked him in a trembling voice, while praying that he won’t confirm the ugly news I just heard.

“Azuh, Pastor Dimgba is dead. I left the mortuary not long ago where we just deposited his body. He was knocked down by a hit and run driver while jogging this morning around his neighbourhood,” he said in a very solemn voice.

I did not even allow Mr. Adesina to finish his statement before releasing the already welled up tears waiting to let loose. I was still crying inside my car with the ignition turned off, when the fuel attendants, who noticed my long and suspicious, stay in their vicinity came knocking on my car.

Apparently, they wanted to come and harass me, but upon approaching and seeing a grown up man crying and weeping like a baby, they calmed down and even comforted me after I told them the sad news with tears still cascading down my face that morning.

I waited for another few minutes at the filling station to compose myself before hitting the express way again.

On getting home, I tried hiding my face and ceaseless tears from my wife and inquisitive kids. But she asked what happened upon seeing my red shot eyes and moody face.

“What happened to your eyes dear?” She asked in a worried voice.

My oga, Pastor Dimgba is dead.

Her shout immediately woke our new-born-baby who was sleeping in a corner of her room.

After telling her what happened amid tears, which I tried but could not conceal in her presence. In fact, we both cried, I left home and immediately headed straight to the Okota residence of my late boss.

The journey to Okota was one of my toughest since I started driving. While driving alone in my car, different thoughts were running riot in my mind amid a banging headache.

Why would God allow such a Godly man and intellectual power house die in his prime?

Who could have done this to my boss?

How would my other boss and his best friend, Mike Awoyinfa cope without his brother from another mother?

How do I break the bad news to my team at Entertainment Express and Sunday Express newspapers?

So, I won’t see my boss anymore, chat with him or even take orders from him again?

So, he won’t come into my office again, which is beside the one he shares with his devastated twin brother and our publisher Mike Awoyinfa, to jokingly say: “Editor, this your office is fine o. I think it’s the finest office here o.”

How about my boss’s wife and children, how are they reacting to this evil news? Who will comfort them in this trying moment?

The many Nollywood stars, family members, friends and colleagues that called to confirm and commiserate with me further compounded my woes, because the moment they dropped, my tears would increase, this was the torture until I got to my late associate publisher’s residence in Okota.

At Okota, the mood was somber with family and church members praying and crying fervently. 

I couldn’t control my tears at the corner where I sat, especially when Mrs. Obioma Igwe, the widow my boss left behind with their four lovely children, told their driver to start all their cars, that her husband would soon be back to pick one of the automobiles for the speaking engagement he had that Saturday morning. It was a very touching scene.

That was when the immortal words of Madame de Stael: “We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love,” really made huge meaning to me.

At their residence, I spent my whole day sobbing quietly and occasionally praying to God to reverse the misfortune starring us in the face, but painfully that never happened.

At that same spot, I had flash backs of my several memorable encounters with this revered jewel of journalism, consummate and incisive columnist, newspaper administrator par excellence, great author, teacher and preacher of the gospel, responsible father and family man, and above all, very kind and considerate boss cum mentor.

My late boss had the listening ears of a good father and was a God-fearing leader with a good heart.

I met him first at The Sun newspapers, which Mr. Mike Awoyinfa and himself created and nurtured to an enviable height.

During my six years stint at The Sun, the closest I got to him was during my wedding in 2006, when I went to his office to present him with my wedding invitation.

He didn’t come but gave me one of the biggest gifts I got for my wedding- a microwave, which we still use at home.

However, when the offer to work with him and my boss, Mr. Awoyinfa came, I was initially very, very scared, because of their intimidating personalities and the cult like figures they possessed at The Sun. But after consulting widely, especially with Mr. Femi Adesina, another mentor of mine, who told me I would enjoy and learn more from both great men, I decided to take the bold step. And till date, I’ve not regretted and would continue to be grateful to them.

Since my sojourn here in the last three years plus, both men took me under their wings and made me feel at home like one of their sons, which truly I am.

They both corrected and praised me with equal measures and really brought out the best in me as a journalist and young editor of a national paper.

I cannot forget how happy I was when they both stormed Azia, my home town in Ihiala LGA of Anambra State, when I lost my dad in 2012.

Their moral and financial supports were invaluable.

In fact, the last time I had this magnitude of raindrops was when my dad died. After that I told myself, I won’t cry like a baby again, until, when may be, my widowed mum dies at a very old age.

But like they say, man proposes, God disposes.

In fact, I never knew my tears were so noticeable until, Mr. Hanson Igwe, my late boss’s elder brother, told me to be strong for my team, when I took them on a condolence visit to Mr. Dimgba Igwe’s residence, on Monday, September 8. I could not hold back tears while consoling and commiserating with Mrs. Igwe on behalf of my team.

God, why must it be my boss? Such a man of peace who proffers solutions and answers to every problem brought before him.

I will take solace in the fact that I worked closely with you and tapped hugely from your immense experience, exemplary lifestyle and fatherly advice in the last three years sir.

But sir, what will now happen to our planned trip to Akwa Ibom, which tickets Oga Mike and I had already bought?

You called and told me to get ready for a trip to present Governor Godswill Akpabio with the Most Supportive Governor In Entertainment In Nigeria award, which he won at our recently held Express Star Awards (ESA)

So, you will never take part and make your usual deep and meaningful contributions in our ESA meetings again?

Your vision and mission for ESA, a project very dear to your heart, which you always shared with me still echoes in my head. I still remember our last discussion on ESA inside your office. A place I will never see you sit again and discuss editorial contents and the way forward for our papers with me in your gentle voice.

Our website, www.expressng.com, which you told me 24 hours before your sudden death to revamp and also advised me on how to make it stand out, is now fully operational. Painfully, activity on the site began with the painful news of your death and the many reactions that followed it, starting with the condolence from President Goodluck Jonathan. This wasn’t how we planned the re-launch of our website during your last meeting and chat with me sir.

I still have the sms you sent me sir.

“Azuh the key to success however is constant updating. Activity is the name of the game,” this was your last message to me a day before the evil hands of death stole you from us courtesy of that callous driver that will never go scot free or know peace again.

 Sir, even last weekend, I planned the most difficult cover of my life as editor with a big picture of you saying GOODBYE to the world and all of us at Entertainment Express and Sunday Express Newspapers.

God, this thing called life that you gave us in your infinite mercies, is so transient, diurnal, fugacious and ephemeral.

I cried all day in my office last Wednesday while planning that sorrowful and painful cover story with you as my lead story and picture. Normally, you would have been by my side dishing out instructions, commending or constructively criticizing my work with your twin brother, Mr. Mike Awoyinfa, whom when extra pleased with my work would stretch out his hand to me for a golden and rare handshake.

The tears continued again during our Friday production when I put you on the cover of Sunday Express.

It is so painful because I will never see or talk to you again, especially on Wednesdays and Fridays, your favourite days of calling me to ask: “Editor, what is your cover like o. Send it to me and Mike, we are waiting o.”

Oh you wicked death! Why did you do this to us at Express Multimedia Limited?

Markus Zusak, once said: “It kills me sometimes, how people die.”

I totally agree with Zusak, especially when few good men like you die while jogging to keep fit in order to stay healthy and elongate your life of service to God and humanity.

Truth is that as I write this tribute all alone in my office, which you always tell me is beautiful, the tears have refused to stop flowing and I don’t know when it would stop as long as I remain here as the editor of Entertainment Express and Sunday Express, the lively and leading entertainment tabloids, you and your creative partner conceived, created and found me worthy as its editor.

Sir, you will sorely and hugely be missed by all of us here on a daily basis, especially on production days. But we are being comforted by the fact that you have gone to rest finally with your Maker, whose works you taught and preached with so much passion during your memorable odyssey here on earth.

It won’t be easy, but we will try our best to continue with the good works you taught us at Express Multimedia Limited.

Despite my ceaseless tears and agony of losing you in such a tragic manner, I’m also being comforted by the immortal words of Mark Wells, who opined:

“The Christian does not consider death to be the end of his life, but the end of his troubles.”

Adieu my great boss, teacher, motivator and mentor.

The Nigerian journalism profession has lost one of its finest brains. The pen profession has lost one of its most respected voices. An Iroko has fallen in the wilderness of journalism. There will never be another Dimgba Igwe in Nigerian journalism.

Please, in your quiet time, also pray for my publisher, Mr. Mike Awoyinfa. He is visibly devastated since cutting short his vacation to come home and mourn his soul mate. In his moving tribute to his departed twin brother, “Pray For Me,” he implored us to do that for him at this trying moment of his life. He said he needs our prayers.

“Lots of them. Because I don’t know how I can cope without my friend, my business partner, my co-author, my soul mate, my chief critic…,” mourning Awoyinfa wrote.

In the last three years, I have worked closely with both great men and also knew the bond and affinity that existed between both creative minds.

As we continue to grieve and mourn the sudden and painful loss of our associate publisher, Pastor Dimgba Igwe, at just 58, I sincerely concur with the words of famous female author, JK Rowling: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

Goodbye and goodnight dear great boss.

Azuh Amatus, a journalist, blogger, member, Nigerian Guild of Editors, is the editor of Entertainment Express and Sunday Express newspapers, he wrote in from Okota, Lagos, via azuhamtus@yahoo.com