Ngozi: The beat goes on

I join other “Campuslifers” to remember the late Mrs. Ngozi Agbo, the campus amazon who wrote this column prior to her death and oversaw the Campuslife section of this newspaper. Gilbert Alasa, an award-winning writer and a proud product of the Campuslife vision wrote this tribute. Though a collective effort, Ngozi nurtured Campuslife like her baby. She passed on seven years ago last Tuesday.

For the past seven years, we have wailed and sobbed, kissing the back of trees. We have become philosophers, probing the very mystery of existence. We have questioned death and even wondered why it took Aunty so soon. We have sighed time and again and even tempted to question her Maker for taking her life while the weight of many Nigerian youths rested on her shoulders. We have looked to the sky for answers that never came. But all of these points to the words of George Elliot that: “our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”

So, Aunty Ngozi is never dead. She’s like John Keats’ poetry of the earth. While the symphonies of Mother Nature, in Keats’ view, are endless, same can be said of the eternal impact that colours the Aunty Ngozi’s story. And to imagine that all of these took place just within a space of a few years of running the Campus Life project, attests to the efficacy of her assignment.

Hence, instead of chanting dirges and waling songs, our gaze has shifted to the victory in her death. We have begun to appreciate the story she told with her transitory existence, drawing valuable lessons that allow us live in the consciousness of tomorrow. We are now moved, not by the pain her death wreaked on us, but by the inspiration of her legacies. And as we trudge this material world, our lives should begin to mirror the values she lived for, and nudging our common humanity to stand in the gap for Nigeria and Nigerians muffled by the rumpuses in the system.

If anything, Aunty Ngozi successfully passed the baton to an emerging generation of leaders whose exploits would help redefine the future of this nation. Today, many of her “children,” as she fondly called us are challenging status quo and rewriting history in various industries and endeavours not just in Nigeria, but the world at large. Talk about the media, advocacy, health, business, international development, politics, finance, etc. That’s a story for another day.

After God, I owe all I become today to my encounter with this woman. She believed in me at a time when I didn’t believe in myself. Aunty Ngozi gave me a voice in a noisy world where no one gives you a chance. She allowed me sing my own song and tolerated the occasional wrong note. She taught me that with hard work and focus, each of us can rise to the pinnacle of achievement, irrespective of where and how our journey started.

It all began in 2008, first time I stumbled on the eight-page Campus Life pull-out in The Nation newspaper. At first, I was awed by the enormity of talent and passion brimming from the pages of what later became a trendsetter for Nigeria’s media. And to my amazement, all the reporters were students; some were even 100-Level students! So I decided to “shoot” Aunty Ngozi a mail, telling her how I loved to be part of the movement. Her response was prompt and reassuring:

“Gilbert, I must say I’m impressed with your mastery of the English Language even in this small mail. You don’t sound at all like those green-eyed Jambites one sees around.  I however regret to tell you that we must wait until you get into a higher institution. I’ve been asking my bosses for additional pages so we can include people like you as well as NYSC members who I feel have something interesting to say. Pray for favour for me.”

Just before I could scream Jack, my by-line became a regular feature on the platform every other week. I explored Campus Life to build a wider following, knocking on every door, challenging injustice, speaking for those who could not speak for themselves and talking to everyone that matter on campus and even outside. For me, this was the very genesis of my journey into significance. And every day, I am grateful that though I may not have taken the right decision at every point of my life. But joining Campus Life was certainly my most rewarding decision ever; not just for the opportunities it brought my way but the inspiration and assurance that my life indeed counts.

As we commemorated Aunty Ngozi’s death last Tuesday, we must appreciate the victory in her death; that Aunty literarily resurrected and transfigured into the hundreds of stars who cut their teeth under her tutelage. And that Aunty Ngozi brought redemption to a world in search of meaning and healing. We should remember the beautiful soul she left behind, a wonderful son. His success as a young man should form a barometer with which we assess our own success. We should remember his birthdays and be part of his journey into the man Aunty Ngozi would be proud of.

As Italian dramatist and Noble Prize-winning writer Luigi Pirandello noted in Henry IV, we start dying as soon as we are born. So death should not scare us. What will be tragic is to have journeyed through this world without answering the very questions of our destiny. And as our weary days slowly tick away, impact should remain how we keep score. It is only then we can truly say we have transcended our years on earth– as Abram Maslow saw.

So rather than bask in tears going forward, we should appreciate the gift we found in Aunty Ngozi as divine instrument to build the tens of hundreds of young people inspiring change in this country today.

We should be grateful for the exploits of Dayo Ibitoye who leads the digital media team at Chevron’s PIND Foundation as well as Ngozi Emmanuel who became the youngest female university lecturer in Nigeria. We should be grateful for Femi Asu, correspondent with Punch Newspaper who won the 2015 CNN African Journalist of the year and Jumoke Awe who champions the cause of the girl-child, Comfort Onyanga Ogon doing amazing things with women in the Niger Delta and others too numerous to mention here .

We should also be grateful for Wale Ajetunmobi who, for the past six years, has taken the gauntlet of coordinating and managing the pages, and raising the next generation of “Campuslifers,” and many more. All these represent the immortality of Aunty Ngozi’s soul.

There are others that are equally making exploits that space will not allow me to state here, but suffice to say we are here to make an impact that will resonate well into the future.

In his novel The Stranger, Albert Camus inspired the line: “Since we are all going to die, it’s obvious that when and how don’t matter.”  The circumstances of our death clearly don’t count, only impact does. As we prepare to pass our own baton, we should live in the consciousness of our date with posterity.