By Adekunle Adekoya

IF not for the enabler called information and communication technology (ICT), the tears would long have dried before I even know anything had happened. Wednesday 29 August, as I was boarding a flight to South Africa, little did I know that the ranks of the editorial staff in the Vanguard environment was already depleted one, albeit a big one.

Anyway, the flight took off, and landed at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg the following morning. Per the itinerary, after clearing passport control and picking up luggage from the carousel, next stop was the hotel to freshen up and have breakfast. It was at breakfast that someone, from home here, called a colleague also on the trip to inform him of the tragic demise of Ogbonnaya Amadi, Vanguard’s Entertainment Editor.

Late Mr. Ogbonnaya Amadi , pioneer ICT journalist

The colleague screamed: “It’s a lie! Are you serious?” By that time, every member of the delegation dropped their cutlery and waited, ostensibly for a clarification. He was sitting next to me, and turning to face me, he announced: “Ogbonnaya Amadi of Vanguard is dead.”

The announcement had the impact of the iron fist of a heavyweight boxer in the guts of an out-of-exercise, beer drinking middle aged man on all of us, including Tope Ogbeni Awe, dean of the travel press.

I had activated a Vodacom line purchased an hour earlier at the airport, and quickly dialled some colleagues. After two failed attempts, I rang Azu Akanwa, who confirmed to me the sad news.

“Azu, wetin do Ogbonna?” “Chief (as people call me here), the thing tire us o……..”and went on to narrate in graphic detail over ether, more than five thousand kilometres apart, the last moments of Ogbonna Amadi at work.

The rest, you know already. On my return, somehow, the reality of my dear colleague’s passing had a dissonating effect; a reluctance to come to terms with the reality of his demise was at play, what Leon Festinger called the avoidance-avoidance-conflict syndrome. But at the reception to the main newsroom, seeing the condolence register and his framed photograph, actuality replaced fantasy; it was no more a case of “they say, they say.”

I first saw Ogbonna Amadi at the office of NITEL’s Public Relations Officer, a man called Osagie Anyaru. Then, Amadi was reporting telecommunications. I could not help but notice the witty young man, about my age, give or take two or three, who had this flashy, ever-ready smile for all and sundry. He still had the smile, even as we both aged over the more than two decades we knew each other and worked here at Vanguard.

Along the line I became Chief Sub-editor, and he Entertainment Editor. He called me “Chief-o!” and because he got to Vanguard earlier, I called him “Broda Ogbonna”.

From an analog, mechanical foundation, Amadi, like the rest of us here transited successfully into what I may call hands-on journalism, and with the ubiquity of internet became digitally-equipped journalists who used mechanistic experience to facilitate new culture reporting and make the work easier.

Only GOD knows why, but as mortals, it is inexplicable why one has to lose such a colleague at such notice, and at this time. Again, only GOD knows, since die we must, all, someday.

Farewell, Broda Ogbonna, and may the Almighty God give his loved ones the fortitude to bear the loss.