The University of Ife of the 70’s was a melting pot of cultures, tendencies, fads, ideologies and proclivities. Despite the fact that Nigeria had only come out of the civil war in 1970, the general mood in various university campuses, especially in the University of Ife, was one of unity in diversity.
In the Ife that I met, it was the relationship of ideas that established kinship, not blood. And I dare say, with hindsight, that the country was much more united in those early post civil war years than today. So, when you heard shouts of “Okoro!” or “Ngbati!”, those labels were not tribal dog whistles but ‘joking relationships’ which allowed persons from one part of the country latitude to poke harmless fun at a person from another part. You could be an “Okoro” and be more favoured than an “Ngbati”, depending on the dynamics of relationships.
That was the milieu in which I contested for the position of Student Union Public Relations Officer. My opponent was Jika Attoh. We were friends. Close friends. We shared many mutual friends. We frequented the same joints, especially Iya Gbenga’s place, Yeye Kelvin’s Bar, Better Market Sells Itself, Sariyu’s restaurant and Iyawo’s place. The only place where I can’t remember seeing Jika was at Iya Ijesha’s shack where we fetched “Ribena” (the favourite brew of the Niger-Delta). But Jika’s friend, Emma, was game in any Ribena contest.
Although I was older, he had entered the university before me and built up a network of friends. But I leveraged on the fact that I was his ‘senior’ in journalism. Our mutual friends held a meeting and suggested that one of us step down for the other because we were giving them unnecessary stress. We refused. The Electoral Commission Chairman, Tola Badejo, was our mutual friend. He left us to our own devices as the elections came close. After the Manifesto Night, the verdict on campus was that the PRO contest was a draw. The cheek of it — Jika and I could be seen sharing beer at the SUB after the Speech Night. Many students wondered, what kind of contest is this in which the contestants are sharing beers? We were both upbeat on election day. It was all computerised, so there was no room for wuruwuru or magomago. Jika beat me by a lone vote!
The contest did not affect our relationship. It was not unusual for Jika to stop by and stop over at my room to— as he would playfully say, pay his respects. My room mates loved him; indeed, one of them confessed that he actually voted for Jika. I screamed, “There goes the deciding vote!”
Jika was one of the first enrolees in the WOLE FOR PRESIDENT campaign. He was the PRO of the Students Union but he was not shamed to identify openly with the popular clamour that I contest the next presidential election. The amorphous campaign team was not formed by anybody. It just happened. Ask those who should know about such things: Kunle Mabayoje, Rahman Mimiko, Emma Ekuwem, Leke Mamora, Mike Ozekhome, Yinka Ogunsakin, Joseph Effiong, Gbemi Onakoya, Yomi Gbolagunte, et al.
When I became president via a landslide victory, Jika always stayed near enough. With every achievement we recorded, he would say, bravo: The many demonstrations in Lagos; the Irikefe Tribunal on the missing $2.8 billion oil money; the first Students Self-Help Hostel built by any students union in Nigeria; the creation of Iva Valley; the intervention in medical students’ exam dilemma; the revival of Opa Dam; the introduction of students’ transportation service from the university gate to SUB; the introduction of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti into the lecture and Students Union Week circuit (students paid only two Naira to watch Fela live, from 11pm to 6am); etc. In his characteristic coy way, Jika would say, “Proud of you, my brother!”
After Ife, I went back to DRUM. As an Editor, I had so much free time on my hands and the University of Lagos was less than three kilometres away from our office at Onike. So, I enrolled for the MSc degree in Mass Comm. And who did I run into as I was signing in? Jika Attoh! We reinvented our Ife days in Akoka and even managed to instigate a litigation against the university authorities for trying to shut down the postgraduate hall during the long holidays against the rule which stated that PG courses were designed for a specified number of months, not semesters. I sought help from the ever reliable Chief Gani Fawehinmi and he argued our case brilliantly. We won.
After Unilag, Jika went back to his broadcasting beat. I visited him several times in AIT and he came over to my place a few times too. When he left AIT, he did not sustain the contact we had until I managed to dredge him out through a mutual friend. He called one day and feigned anger that I didn’t tell him that I had come to his native Onitsha to snatch his sister. “Jika, is that how you address an in-law?”, I asked. “Ah, Baba Wole, you caught me on this one!”, he replied.
After that period, a lot of water passed under the bridge on personal and professional fronts for both of us and I refuse to judge people if they react to their circumstances with cageyness. At a stage, I had to reach out to our mutual friend, BN, to ask where our brother was. Jika was such a good human being in the ordinary run of play that you would want him around you for all time.
I didn’t see his demise coming at all. I spoke to him two months ago when Tony Eluemunor and Austin Izagbo were visiting. Tony called Jika and we spoke as if bridging the years of silence. He said he wasn’t fit to participate in the next Olympics, which was his way of hinting at an illness. I told him to shake it off and not dodge his responsibilities. He laughed— that conspiratorial kind of laughter with a wink. I could almost see him over the phone. We shared a coded lingo together, mostly based on Richie Pryor’s irreverent pieces which we both memorised and deployed whenever necessary.
Despite being an extrovert of sorts and a ‘people’s man’, Jika was coy, discreet and paradoxically reticent, but he was such a darling because he laced it all with that great sense of humour with which he disarmed all who knew him. Anyone who truly knew Jika would be gutted at his demise. None of us knew him better that his wife who wrote the following testament on his birthday several years ago: “?????, ?????????? , ?????? ?? ??? ??????????, ??????? ???? ?? ??? ????? ?? ?? ????, ???????? ?????? ?? ??? ?? ????? ???????? ???????! ??, ?? ????? ??? ?? ??? ????????? ?????, ?? ????????? ?? ???? , ?? ??????, ?? ? ??? ?????? ? ??????’? ?????, ‘???????? ?? ??? ????????, ??? ?? ??? ???, ??????? ?? ??? ????????’… ? ??? ?? ???????? ?????????, ??????????, ??????????, ??? ???? ?? ??? ? ?????? ??????? ???????, ?? ??????, ?????????, ???????, ??? ??????.”
Fare thee well, Jix! Friends don’t say goodbye.
My condolences to the Attoh family, especially to his wife, Violet Chizoba Agbakoba-Attoh, and their children. May the soul of Jika and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.