William Shakespeare says in his political play “Julius Caesar”, “The heavens themselves blaze forth the deaths of princes.” And so they did Dan Agbese’s death Monday Nov. 17 in Lagos. Dan Agbese was a prince in his own right, for he held the title “Chief of Agilaland” in Benue State. There is a bit of irony here: the chief didn’t die at home but in a ‘foreign’ land. Let’s rewind the story some decades – three or four – back.
I had heard about Agbese long before I met him. It was in the late 1970s. Then, Agbese was editing and keeping a regular column in the Nigeria Standard newspaper, owned by the government of old Benue Plateau State. The man was a gifted prose writer. Words to him were like clay in the potter’s hands. I can’t recall the title of the column Agbese was penning but I remember one piece in particular. In it, he told how one day he managed to escape from the boredom of reporting a government event. While the speech-making was on, he stole away to a nearby food and liqueur joint, ordered a bottle of Rock lager beer and a steaming bowl of goat meat pepper soup. Every often, his teeth would pull away with chunky meat, which he promptly swallowed and followed this with several sips from the beer bottle. I’m not too sure I got the story, as Agbese told it, completely right. But the telling of it was so witty that you were bound to laugh while you raced with it to the end. I didn’t quite like the newspaper but because of Agbese I made sure to get a copy the day his column appeared.
1983, our very first face- to-meeting. Fresh after NYSC, I had just joined the New Nigerian newspaper, founded by the old Northern Regional government and now taken over by the federal government. Agbese had moved over from the Standard to edit this star paper. The office of the editor of New Nigerian was a no-go area for all reporters. The only person who could approach it was the news editor. If a reporter was summoned by the editor it only meant trouble. One hot afternoon, I received my summons. “Tawey, the Editor wants you to see him,” his secretary called out as she entered the newsroom. How I wished the cemented floor would give way under me and I be swallowed up! I walked towards the office, legs shaking and head buzzing in confusion. I knocked uncertainly on the door. “Come in”, a voice said. “Tawey, I want you to be my editorial research assistant; you will research my editorial topics and let me have your findings before noon. Heard me?” the voice said without the face ever lifting. [At that time, New Nigerian had no editorial board as yet. The editor wrote all the editorial comments, Monday to Friday, alone.] I mumbled “yes, sir.” But inside of me I was asking myself what does a rooky reporter know about editorials, not to talk of researching them? “You may leave now but come back in an hour’s time.” I hurried out of his office, my forehead sweaty. It was a hard task but I managed to pull through and he seemed satisfied with my work. Truth be told, I gained extra traction in my journalism experience, something that would stand me in good stead in later years.
Then there was a long break. The Muhammadu Buhari coup of December 1984 toppled the government of President Shehu Shagari. And it ‘toppled’ Agbese too out of the editorial chair at New Nigerian. He went back to his home state of Benue and was made the general manager of Radio Benue. From there he joined up with three other brilliant journalists – Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu and Yakubu Mohammed. The quartet founded the authoritative and entertaining news magazine, NEWSWATCH, based in Lagos. However, the paper would soon suffer some tragedies, first the assassination of its pioneer Editor-in-Chief Dele Giwa through a letter bomb in 1986 and finally its contested takeover by a complete stranger. With Agbese now gone, only two of Nigeria’s very best journalists at the time are still alive – Ekpu and Mohammed, both far gone in age.
Yes, Agbese and I met again in 1990 in Lagos. Then I had left New Nigerian and joined Mohammed Haruna’s newly established Citizen newsmagazine. I was posted that year to head its Lagos Bureau. Not long after, the paper began to manifest symptoms of a terminal illness. I thought I should ship out fast and which port to call at but NEWSWATCH! After all, the paper was good, in fact, the best and my former editor at New Nigerian, Agbese, would give me a job, surely? No, it didn’t happen. He couldn’t take me on board because, in his own words, the editorial team was already top heavy. I believed I understood him and left Lagos, arriving back in Kaduna to find Citizen in its death throes.
That was the last meeting between Agbese and me. I had heard that after the loss of NEWSWATCH, he came to Abuja and did a stint with Daily Trust as its editorial ombudsman and also kept a column. He did stuffs for other newspapers too. I managed to obtain his cellphone number but, regrettably, never got round to calling. Then the news hit me: Agbese was dead. Thanks to his bossom friend Simon Shango, I learned he died in not too cool circumstances. He had lost his two legs and spent his last two years in a wheelchair, donated by a friend because he was too poor to buy one. Shango believes poverty killed his “close associate”. I believe otherwise. If Agbese had wanted to be rich it was his to be in wealth. But he recognized the genius in him and knew that wealth and genius were not bedfellows. Marie Corelli, in her epic book “The Sorrows Of Satan” defines genius as an “indescribable quality” that encompasses “high thoughts, poetry, divine instincts, and prophetic probings into the heart of humanity.” It is that un-purchaseable power” characterized by “independence of action and indifference to opinion.” Agbese possessed that power and wouldn’t trade it for money. That was the Agbese I knew and respected. I believe he lived the life he chose and held it well.
