Why DIMGBA IGWE Is Still My Best Friend Even In Death

• Veteran Journalist, MIKE AWOYINFA

Some of Nigeria’s greatest media icons gathered at the Collosus Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, on September 6, 2024, to remember and celebrate with a Lecture, one of their own, the late Dimgba Igwe, who died on September 6, 2024, exactly ten years ago last week. The late Dimgba Igwe had been fattally hit by a car whose driver’s identity remains unknown to this day. He had fled the scene the moment he knocked down Dimgba. At the time of his death, Dimgba Igwe was Associate Publisher of Entertainment Weekly Newspaper. He died at the age of 58. Mr. Dimgba, alongside his colleague and best friend, Mike Awoyinfa, pioneered the now rested Weekend Concord newspaper, The Sun Newspaper and co-authored several books including Osoba: The Newspaper Years, The Arts of Feature Writing and Mike Adenuga: The Business Guru. The veteran journalist, until his death, was the Assistant General Overseer of Evangel Pentecostal Churchý, Lagos.

At the 10th Anniversary Lecture of late Dimgba Igwe, many of the prominent journalists today, who at one point or the other worked with him, were in attendance. The title of the lecture was Tabloid Journalism: Yesterday, Today And The Future. Guest lecturer was Mr. Muyiwa Adetiba, the founder of the defunct but hugely successful Prime People Magazine and he spoke on the power of soft sell magazine in Nigeria. The journalists converged to pay tribute to a man who influenced their journalistic careers in several significant ways, and one of them was the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to former President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adeshina. He, along with award winning journalist, Mr. Shola Oshunkeye, and several others, were among the organisers of the event. But, apart from the widow of the late veteran journalist, Obioma Igwe, who was present at the event, the one man who was the cynosure of all eyes was Chief Mike Awoyinfa, the man regarded as the twin brother and best friend to late Dimgba Igwe. They were a formidable pair together. They broke boundaries together and achieved great feats together as journalists, mid-wifing newspaper projects that went on to become phenomenal successes unprecedented in the journalism profession. They had also written many best selling books as a pair, every single one of them a sell out. Indeed, there has never been another like the pair of Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe.

Chief Mike Awoyinfa was not in the country when the tragic incident that took the life of his friend occured. He was in far away England, Ipswich to be precise. When he stepped out to read his prepared tribute to his friend, his gaze barely left the big image of Dimgba pasted on a back drop behind him. Every minute, he would look up from the paper where he was reading his tribute from and glance at the smiling face of his dear best friend as though he could actually see him physically. And with a voice that he struggled to keep steady in the first few minutes into his tribute, Chief Mike Awoyinfa unburdened the pain, the grief, he had been carrying with him in his heart in the last ten years since he lost his best friend. Below is his tribute:

“Ten years have passed since I lost you my friend and twin brother from another mother.  Ten years of solitude.  Ten years of pain.  Ten years of grief.  Grief that never ends.

How do I start?  Where else do I go than to go to the Bible, the book that fully occupied you in your short but fruitful and achievement-filled lifetime?  Which chapter do I open but the Second Book of Samuel, Chapter 1, when David heard about the death of his bosom friend and twin brother Jonathan, killed along with his father Saul on the battlefield?  And the killer having the audacity to come and report himself to King David.  And David wept in this famous lamentation:

“The beauty of Israel is slain upon the high places: how are the mighty fallen!  Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon…How are the mighty fallen in the midst of the battle!  O Jonathan, thou was slain in thine high places.”

And like King David, I say: O Dimgba, my friend, my brother, like Jonathan you were slain at dawn on a Saturday early morning while jogging to keep fit.  You wanted to stay healthy and prolong your life through keep-fit exercises, but ironically, an unknown and yet unseen enemy crushed you on the streets of Lagos and vanished into the thin air, never to be seen, never to be held accountable for this atrocious deed.

Ten years without you, it has not been easy, but we give God the glory.  We take solace in the firm belief that you are somewhere in heaven, doing your reporting and praying for us, we the loved ones you left behind.  How are the mighty fallen!

In journalism, when an earth-shaking event happens, we ask: Where were you when it happened.  So, where was I when I heard the news of your death?  As you know, I was far away in the United Kingdom.  I had gone to watch my son, Taiwo, bag his MBA degree from the prestigious University College of London.

As if I had this premonition that you were going to die, I at first refused to go on that trip.  But my wife has a way of going through you to solve every conflict, knowing how much I respect you, knowing I couldn’t disobey you, knowing your word was law to me.  I had to obey your command when you said: “Mike, how can you pay so much money to train your son and you will not be there to rejoice with him?  Haba!  You must go!”

So I joined the family to go for that graduation ceremony which I converted into my vacation.  It was a thing of joy amidst the pomp and pageantry, hearing the name Taiwo Awoyinfa announced on the loudspeaker and watching my son Taiwo, walk up majestically to receive his certificate and a warm handshake.  But hardly had I spent a week, when the earth-shaking news hit us so hard that Saturday morning in a town called Ipswich. Like you, I went out to jog that Saturday morning only to be greeted with the worst news ever received in my life.  That you went out to jog and you were fatally knocked down in a road accident by a hit-and-run driver, leaving you to be carried from one hospital to another, till you got to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, dead on arrival!

What a terrible day!  What an unforgettable day!  Never has anyone’s death hit me and my family so hard. For us, it was the day the world came to an end. And there we were wailing, rolling on the floor in a whirlpool of grief and agony.

How we survived these ten years is just by the grace of God.  You died but you never left. Your presence is felt every day, every hour, every minute, every second.  In the depth of despair and agony, I decided to write a book that I knew you would be proud of.  A book titled: ‘50 NIGERIA’S BOARDROOM LEADERS—Lessons On Corporate Governance And Strategy.’  It’s a book that proudly bears your name as co-author.  And for the rest of my life, I have promised to make you my co-author for life.  Every book I write, will surely bear your name as co-author, except it is a personal book or autobiography. Whatever it takes to preserve your name in the minds of people, there you will find me.

To mark the tenth anniversary of your death, the young men we groomed and mentored at Weekend Concord, yesterday being September 6, organized an anniversary lecture in your memory.   It’s titled: TABLOID JOURNALISM YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND THE FUTURE. The Guest Lecturer was Mr. Muyiwa Adetiba, pioneer of soft-sell magazines in Nigeria, publisher of Prime People Magazine.  The Chairman of the occasion was Prince Nduka Obaigbena, Chairman/Publisher, Thisday Group of Newspapers, Chairman, ARISE NEWS.  The Special Guest of Honour was our friend and godfather Aremo Segun Osoba, whose biography SEGUN OSOBA, THE NEWSPAPER YEARS we wrote some years ago.  Another Special Guest is our friend Nosa Igiebor, President, Tell Communications Limited.

I know for sure that you watched it all with pride from heaven where you are, still practising your profession as a news reporter, reporting Good News all the way.  I hope one day to join you up there to continue in this noble profession steeped in truth, peace, goodness and the joy of the Lord.

As I wind up this anniversary column, I wish to thank God, for using us to create Weekend Concord, a paper we look back to with pride and joy.  Indeed, God used us as leaders of a new brand of populist, human angle journalism, strongly based on features and crowned with captivating headlines.  We thank God for using us to write a book titled THE ART OF FEATURES WRITING which has become a classic in journalism schools, teaching the secrets of how to write good features.  It was the book that inspired the making of Weekend Concord, an original Nigerian tabloid that featurised news and led with unusual stories which is the real definition of news.

From Weekend Concord, we went to start THE SUN newspaper and success like thunder, struck a second time.  Ever since, THE SUN has been shining brightly in the firmament of Nigerian journalism.  From now till eternity, there is no how the story of THE SUN will be told without mentioning Mike Awoyinfa and Dimgba Igwe.  A good name, they say, is better than riches.  We thank God for giving us a good name.  We thank God for inspiring us to write experiential business books like 50 NIGERIA’S CORPORATE STRATEGISTS, NIGERIA’S MARKETING MEMOIRS, 50 WORLD EDITORS, 50 NIGERIA’S BOARDROOM LEADERS and a new one I am almost completing titled: COURTROOM AND LAW FIRM STRATEGIES—Senior Advocates Share Their Experiences.

It hasn’t been easy working all these ten years without you, but your prayers and God’s faithfulness, have seen me through.  Rest on my brother.  Till we meet again to part no more.

– WALE LAWAL

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