John OWUBOKIRI

n March 2004, an organisation I had worked for in the past as a motivational communicator, Mt. Spiral Foundation, invited me to deliver a key note address at a parley for oil and gas editors/correspondents and executives of the NNPC and other oil and gas companies.

It was to be a day’s affair at the Lagos Sheraton, Ikeja, Lagos and I had been briefed to expect other resource persons, notably Dr. Levi Ajuonuma and Tokunbo Durosharo of Oando Plc and another gentleman from the Shell Production Development Company. I had never met any of the resource persons although I had seen Dr. Ajuonuma on television on several occasions during my law school days in Lagos between ‘91 and ’92.

I had hardly been introduced when Dr. Levi Ajuonuma came at me with his canon-ball personality, offering a cute brown visage wearing a brilliant white smile that I later came to learn was a permanent fixture on his face. “Johnny, welcome! How was your flight? How is Port Harcourt…?” And so he carried on so that by the time the event started I was calling him “Onwa,” the name the journalists at the event called him with the difference that I didn’t know why they called him that.

After the event this gentleman who was the Group General Manager, Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, invited me, Yakubu Lawal, Hector Igbikiowubo and another fellow to a cosy restaurant/bar where he treated us to exquisite meals. He thoroughly enjoyed himself with his colleagues who assured me “Doc” was still a member (of the club of journalists) despite his high office.

Dr Levi Ajuonuma

The 2005 edition of the event took place at the Eko Hotel & Towers and I had the honour of moderating the session. During the discourse, I mistakenly referred to Dr. Ajuonuma as “Mr. Ajuonuma.” Automatically, Ikeddy Isiguzo, Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Vanguard Newspapers who was a resource person at the event and on the high table with us, interjected that he would not have accepted the microphone I was offering my victim at this point.

Dr. Ajuonuma, simple and ever friendly graciously took the microphone I held out and made a pleasant joke of my honest mistake. Our paths crossed again at other intellectual forums but the last was at the Oil and Gas Conference at Abuja in February this year where he was invited to moderate at the panel in which I presented my arguments for the redemption of the ecology of the Niger Delta.

Doc was patient with my long presentation and even offered some praise when I finished, taking me, and I believe, several other participants and guests by surprise as his corporation, the NNPC had been apportioned a load of blame by me for the environmental situation in the Niger Delta.

Two months after our last meeting at the Oil and Gas Conference at Abuja, Dr. Ajuonuma reached out to me through a friend, offering assistance for my trip to Houston for the yearly Oil Technology Conference between April and May. Naturally we met up in Houston where I thanked him for his generosity. A few days before we all left Houston for home I visited Dr. Levi Ajuonuma in the company of Hector Igbikiowubo and Onochie Anibeze, Editor of Sweetcrude and Group Sports Editor of the Vanguard Newspapers.

Hector was on the wheels and he promptly released the car to a valet at Ajuonuma’s hotel. Ajuonuma came down to the bar where we had been enjoying cocktails at his behest and talked with us. He was as solicitous as ever, demanding repeatedly if we were okay. After our discussions he walked us to the foyer and stood there with us, pumping our hands affectionately as he bade us goodbye. That was the last drink I shared with the “Onwa” and the last OTC we would ever attend together.

Over the years that I knew him, I came to identify him with three passions: his obsessive desire to see his children through the highest levels of education, his wish for a functional Nigeria where all sectors performed optimally and his love for bow ties, in that order.

While he still practiced journalism he railed non-stop at government agencies that were negligent with public infrastructure, pointing out skewed electric poles, disused roads, unhealthy neighbourhoods and every other unsavoury situation in the public space. On the 3rdof June this human dynamo died in a plane that crashed over his beloved city of Lagos, leaving family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances in shock. May his soul rest peacefully.