HERBERT WIGWE: WHEN YOU CRY MORE THAN THE BEREAVED
When I saw the pictures of all the dignitaries who paid their condolences to Papa Wigwe, I noticed that Daddy was calm and even seemed to be the one consoling the people sef. My big brother Aigboje appeared totally downcast with no colour on his face. Do you blame him, he is the ground zero of all of our glooms. I do not think Nigerians have collectively mourned anybody like they have mourned Herbert since the assassination of General Murtala Muhammed. Maybe the mourning of Chief Awolowo and Fela could also be compared. Herbert’s passing like JFK’s slashed very deeply into the hearts of many Nigerians, throwing a collective national gloom on us to the point that, like Americans with JFK, we started asking ourselves the very pointless question - where were you when it happened? As if that was not enough, people started sharing their last encounters with him, - oh, he told me he would see me when he came back; oh, I had an appointment with him on the Monday he was to come back. And then some others started showing people their last chats with him or the last pictures they took with him or the last letter he wrote to them. Herbert didn’t have to live long. Such people do not need a long life to make a meteoric impact and that explained his urgency to deliver on his projects. Herbert lived a very different life and that is why Nigeria seemed to be mourning him even more than his biological relations who move around like they know something we don’t know. How do we explain their seeming ability to take this impact with the kind of dignity that they have, without as much as betraying painful emotions at the passing of this icon? They seemed to be the ones telling us it would be okay. Their carriage has gone a long way to console us and just maybe, give us strength. Abi how do you keep wailing when you see Pa Wigwe stoic in his belief in the afterlife and Ma Wigwe firm in her belief in the sanctity of immortality for the chosen few? You can’t help but garner strength and provide a shoulder for the weak who still reel from the shock that was the drop from the sky that fateful Saturday in far away only God knows where. As preparations for his journey to the afterlife begin, I consider myself extremely lucky to be given an invite to what will be the greatest gathering of Nigerians since the Union Jack was lowered and Nigeria gained its independence The 4,500-capacity hall will be filled to the brim with people from all colourations and all united in the need to pay one last respect to this silent Iroko. When an Iroko tree falls, it falls with a resounding thud reverberating very far and wide to distant climes while making all creatures big and small pause for a moment in deep honour of the passing curiosity. Herbert was our sage and he didn’t die, he only just transcended, and those of us he has left behind must from the moment his remains are lowered, resolve to uphold the tenets that guided him and made him what he was in life. Hmmm!!! We murmur in full obeisance to the All-Knowing, the Almighty who allowed this.