Man Without Cant: A Funeral Oration By Ray Ekpu.
5 min read
This is one moment in my life when words cannot adequately convey the enormity of my personal grief and the enormity of the collective grief of my colleagues and associates. This is so because Dele Giwa was not only a fine journalist, a devoted patriot and nationalist, but also an admirable leader of men. This is so because of the manner of his death. A man of high visibility, it is an irony of fate that he was hacked down in his prime, at the unripe age of 39, by the anonymous instrument of a parcel bomb, a phenomenon unheard of in the history of our country.
In a different circumstance, William Shakespeare was compelled to say that to praise what is lost makes remembrance dear. Since his assassination on October 19,1986, Dele Giwa has bathed in glowing encomiums poured on him by thousands of Nigerians and foreigners alike who have felt touched, deeply touched, by the termination of his life when that life appeared to be merely about to begin, and when his contributions to the country were invaluable. But no justice can be done to his memory or indeed to history if we should fail to say why he has loomed so large in the consciousness of Nigerians.
Dele was a courageous man, warm, generous, and frank, sometimes frank to a fault. He lacked the inclination for pettiness or the inclination for discrimination on the basis of tribe, religion or class or social station or such other mundane impediments that put a wedge between one man and another. He was invigorating company, he was blessed with an abundance of humour, wit and wisdom, and he was able to get along in the most delightful way with people whose life touched his.
In his public and private life he was a man who lacked cant and chicanery. He knew the meaning of loyalty, loyalty to principle, loyalty to friendship, loyalty to club, loyalty to country. He was not the kind of man who would vote one way in a committee session and vote another way at the general assembly for, he was consistent in his principles, and these principles sprang from the inner wells of his conviction.
As a journalist, he was one of the greatest, living or dead, in Nigeria or anywhere. He was innovative, flexible and enterprising. He displayed tremendous dexterity in the handling of prose and he made words his handmaiden. He loved challenges and he proved that he was capable of handling great challenges and of overcoming such challenges almost effortlessly. He exhibited during his journalistic career that he was not only a man of great talent, but also a man of great courage.
He passed through trials and tribulations, subjecting himself to great personal discomfort in order to demonstrate his commitment to his profession and to humanity. There lies his greatness, for small men only think of themselves while great men think of humanity. For Dele, humanity was his constituency and his thoughts were painted on a global canvas.
Dele was a self-made man who rose from the obscurity of a humdrum existence to the pedestal of national and world prominence. But his prominence did not come by happenstance. It was not like the little nice parcel that he found on his table with a nice blue ribbon tied round it.
It wasn’t delivered to him on a platter of gold or silver for, not being one who was born with a golden or silver spoon in his mouth, he knew the meaning of hard work.
He toiled relentlessly, assiduously, tirelessly, for everything he got and everything he was.
He believed in work as a logical necessity. Like Abraham Lincoln he believed that if God gave us two hands and only one mouth there is no reason why we should starve. In furtherance of his belief, he exerted himself everyday of his life for the accomplishment of higher ideals. For him work was as comfortable as sport. In fact, for him work was sport.
Although in his adult years he had his training in the United States, he did not come back to Nigeria behaving like a quintessential American. He picked and chose the good aspects of American life and converted these to good account. He was a Nigerian and he believed that if God in His infinite wisdom chose to plant him here God had a role for him. He played that role as devotedly as anyone, which is why in life and in death his contributions to the country have been much treasured as the public reaction to his assassination can testify.
His phenomenal achievements have been written on the tablets of our hearts.
It is apparent that Nigerians have come to appreciate that Dele did give rather generously his time, his talents and his thoughts to the building of a new Nigeria. The work is not yet completed.
His death must spur other architects towards greater commitment to the construction of the edifice of our dream.
Dele’s death represents for us – his wife and children, his relations and compatriots, his colleagues and friends – the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune but our prayer ought to be that his ideals and his aspirations should not be interred with his bones.
The four founders of Newswatch: Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese, Yakubu Mohammed.
If by his death he has watered the tree of our national survival, if by his death he has fuelled our desire to toil for a better Nigeria, then his death, painful, tragic, untimely, senseless though it is, would not have been in vain. That is the only way to give life to the dead and to give hope to the living.
Dele’s death is death in the family, in the Giwa family, in the Newswatch family, in the Nigerian family and in the family of humanity. For us at Newswatch his family are part and parcel of us, and we are part and parcel of them.
His responsibilities to his biological family are now our responsibilities and we will ensure that his family does not suffer any deprivation as a result of his departure. That is our commitment.
We wish to renew our pledge, if a renewal is necessary, that we shall do everything in our power to ensure that his assassins, whoever they may be, are dug out and dealt with according to the law. That is our commitment.
In death, Dele has acquired a larger-than-life image. For a man who lived in deed, and not in years, this must be so. And so his death makes us all who treasured his contributions, who treasured his battle against the annihilation of Truth, and who treasured his battle against the blight of Oppression, collective widows.
In the hearts of all of us who loved him and whom he loved – DELE HASN’T DIED – HE LIVES ON.
*Ray Ekpu, veteran journalist and eminent writer is former CEO of Newswatch Communications Limited.
Culled from Newswatch magazine of November 24, 1986.
