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Tragedy. That seven-letter word glows permanently on life’s billboard. Difficult to ignore. Impossible to forget. It is its own disturbing reminder; reminder that poor, frail, puny man is nothing but a piece on the chessboard of the gods in the eternal, harrowing game that has no winners but pitiable losers.

Tragedy is the great interrupter of all times. It interrupts well-laid plans. It interrupts healthy ambitions. It interrupts sweet dreams; dreams of a better life, a better tomorrow. And it interrupts life itself, cutting short its journey, making nonsense of its mission. And it makes man, the most intelligent of God’s creatures, the most helpless.

Nothing prepares a man for tragedy. Education doesn’t. Experience doesn’t. Intelligence doesn’t. Age doesn’t. Tragedy steals on man, blocks his path in life and makes him truly a speck of memory on the dark firmament of life’s mystery. A man leaves home with the cheerful voices of his family ringing in his ears; with the glow of ambition lighting his way; with the sweet dreams of a better tomorrow for wife and children singing sweet songs in his ears; with the well-laid plan for a respectable life constantly reviewing itself in his head and then bang! It happens. The shiny piece of polished metal which represented man’s level of thinking, becomes a mangled, twisted piece of metal; the tiny string of life is cut. And death takes over from the wreck wrought by tragedy.

And in that one brief moment, a life is gone; a voice is silenced; a friend, father, husband or loved one has simply ceased to breathe, to exist. All that remains is a piece of flesh and confusion over the purpose of life. And the permanent question without an answer pops up on the horizon: Why? Out of the teeming mass of humanity, why him? Why?

Here in this business of minding other people’s business, tragedy is a way of life, a business even. We live with it. Daily it comes to us via the ticker tape or the air waves: a bomb blast on the streets of Belfast or Beirut or some other permanent seats of senselessness.

Attack by thieves or robbers; assassination of the little tin gods on the wooden thrones of the world. When it comes, it is weighed on the scale of importance, interest and relevance and its value in terms of Naira and kobo is carefully assessed and measured. It is then analysed with detached, clinical, professional judgement and sent back to the ticker tape or chosen media to the larger world.

Tragedy is business. Tragedy is news. Provided it happens to someone else. Someone in Belfast or Chile or Nicaragua or Lebanon or Israel. Someone whose mangled, bleeding body has no known name or familiar face. Someone who is just a statistic; a number. But when tragedy crashes through the roof of your own home, it takes on the ugly, frightening, disturbing shape of reality; shattering your belief in mankind or God or whatever; putting you through the grinder that is confusion embedded in the tiny cells of the brain. And the ugly question marks pops again from nowhere: Why?

Tragedy does not answer your question. No one does. Nothing provides a clue; nothing makes sense of this great, agonising game of nonsense. But there you are, standing on life’s pavement alone where a moment ago you stood with your beloved friend or business colleague or family member. You are alone now. He is gone. None of you had had time to say goodbye. To wish each other well. You plan to go forth together along the chosen path of professional commitment, your ambitions and your collective dreams end up in the smoke of the killer, of tragedy. Poof. He is gone. And you, confused and bewildered are left to mutter and murmur the question no one is capable of answering you: Why?

Those who know these things and lay a certain claim on original intelligence, try to make sense of this mass of confusion. They say those the gods love die young. If so, the gods must have a rather cruel sense of humour. It is not an act of love if it brings sorrow; it is not an act of which interrupts well-laid plans; it is not an act of love if it shatters dreams; it is not an act of love if it termineates life; it is not an act of love if it brings void into the lives of others, throwing a pall of smoke on the path of a chosen life, a chosen career and a chosen sense of mission.

Everything that happens in life must have happened before. A friend had died before; a father had died before; a brother had died before. Still every death, every sudden departure puts man through the grinder of shock.

Consider: October 11, 1986. Number 62 Oregun Road is quiet. There are only two personal cars in the premises. The clatter of the typewriters has died down, the shouting match that is normally the style of conversation in the editorial suite, has died down. And there we are – we two Dele Giwa and yours truly. I step into his office. He is wearing a light beige short sleeve. He gets up and we pump hands, calling each other “brother,” the term of endearment these two years and three weeks that we have occupied these offices in which we set out to dream together with Ray and Yakubu, to plan and forge our path together, determined to remain true and committed to a profession, dedicated to the pursuit of truth and charting of a new course for nation and society.

October 19, 1986. One week later. In a flat at Kenway Road, London, the telephone rings. It is answered. The sound of distance filters into the ear. Lagos on the line. Wife at the other end. The telephone, the greater shortener of distance, is also the biggest messenger of news. This day, it is the unlikely news. Death. Tragedy. Back home. The peace of the Sunday morning and after has been shattered. Between waking and breakfast, tragedy had collided with Dele, his plans, his ambition, his hope, his dreams. Still the news has this familiar thing about it; someone will say sooner or later that nightmare come into the early evening.

Two o’clock in the morning. The telephone again. Yakubu on the other end. “We have taken Dele’s body to the LUTH mortuary.” Hope that the news was a nightmare, was sealed. The world turns on its head. Tears cascade down anew. Agony takes over. Weeping is uncontrollable. Then the eternal question plays itself like a stuck record: Why? Why? Why?

No answer. Such waste. Such pain. Such agony. What does one make of life?

First published on November 3, 1986.