‎HOW DAN AGBESE DETAINED ME INSIDE TOILET; A TRIBUTE TO THE COLOSSUS.
‎
‎A heap of yam had just gone up to ten Naira and water yam’s five Naira. This was necessitated by the snowballing inflation rate in the country. The youth leader, Orinya Okokilojo made the announcement as he gathered Apa-Agila youths at the village play ground. This announcement was to the pleasure of the jubilant youths, but to the exasperation of the farmers who would pay double per heap in what was  called “Counting”, a wage system in which the employee is paid per number of heaps made. The reaction of the inhabitants of Apa was not different from reaction of anions and cations when an electric current is plugged into the the Arrhenius solution. Boys started running to farmers’ houses in search of who will invite them for counting.
‎
‎I just got to my home from that gathering when one of my farming mates Otokpa Olie came to inform me that a particular man who so much like my characteristic pattern of making heaps of yam had just come to invite the two of us to come and farm for him the following day. I  was extremely happy that I was going to make double of whatever I used to make from that soft Igbede soil. I had counted my eggs even before they were hatched. We planned to get to the farm when the sun is still snoring or before the palm print become visible to the diurnal beings.
‎
‎The sun was still sleeping, the insects were chirping and the birds just beginning their dawn chorus when I woke up to prepare for the farm. My first mission was to empty my congested rectum before ingesting the heavy carbohydrate moiety of Fufu. My hands groped in the dark thatch clinical room, foraging the direction of where I kept my touch light the previous night. I  switched it on, quickly used it to look for any available lone paper in the room. I got one and made my way to the pit latrine sitting some meters away from our sleeping room. It was made of thatch roof, wooden wall and about five times the size of a giant tortoise.
‎
‎I had started evacuating my rectum, my touch light fastened to my occipito-frontal circumference like the bright light of the night hunter, when I opened the paper I took to the toilet to maintain the hygiene of my perianal orifice. The first thing that captured my attention was at the top of the paper. It was a cartoon captioned “LEAVING MY SHADOW”, and that was the title of the article written by Dan Agbese in the early 90s, in one of the leading news papers or magazines in the country and continent, Newswatch. The cartoon is a long shadow of a Laron dwarf, holding a very long matchet and chasing  its owner. Whosoever conjured that cartoon must have done so when the sun was  farthest from the equator. That is when an object forms the longest shadow, according to the Euclidean law of optical geometry.  “The past is not supposed to hurt the present. But it does “, Dan Agbese began the story that detained me in the toilet for almost half a day. I eventually did not go to the farm that day.
‎
‎The name, Dan Agbese was not new to me. The name was before I was born. From when I could say cogito ego sum, or ego cogito cogitatum, the name was. I grew up to meet the ubiquitous name. He was not a street man, but his name littered the street. You hardly walk a distance of a hundred meters without hearing the name. We were told the story of Dan Agbese. We were also told the story of his stories. We were told he tells stories in papers and books for a living. We were told how he tells this stories in good Queen’s language and how he also sometimes subtly insert some Agila words inside the English with a perfect blend of subtle Linguistic mutation. His wisdom in writing knew no bound. We were told that he had even inserted the masqueradish exclamation, “Olabobobo”, and Otolobachi into some of his writings and speeches. He could also Englishnize some Agila words before inserting them into the stream of English words. For example, we were told that there was a certain time in his Journalism career when a certain malignant military government set a cyclonic killing wind after him and he went into hibernation. When the storm was over and he came out, some journalists were said to come to interview the Journalist to find out where he had been. He was said to have told them that he has been to “Ehaflacity” enjoying pounded yam with the soup of “abasinity”. They were said to be opening their dictionary to check the meaning of ‘abasinity’ but he told them not to bother as they were not with Agila dictionary. All these, we were told from second, third, fourth, fifth mouth etc. I had never seen him physically or read his writings for myself. But there I was in the toilet with one of his articles for the first time.
‎
‎”History is like a dustbin into which we cast what we long to forget. No matter how dirty it is, it can still be foraged for something good”, Otsókanabō continued the story, as he weave words into phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs. Each words was neatly dressed and taking its proper seat in the Linguistic and grammatical high tables.
‎One could clearly see a very meaningful sentence of one word obsequiously squatting beside his big brother serpentine sentence in the characteristic Agbeseque.
‎
‎Another thing that kept me glued to the article was the characteristic correlation of the cartoon, the caption/title of the article, Leaving My Shadow. In the Article, Dan Agbese provocatively described how the past of many individuals, companies, communities, countries and continents have casted a long shadow, chasing their presence. I asked myself why won’t the man drop the machete so that the shadow can drop his. But as I grew up, it dawn on me that the past is irrevocable. One can only find a way to accept an live with its consequences and complications.
‎
‎I have been to America severally. But these have all been through books. My first visit to America was courtesy of Dan Agbese through the example of one Napoleon (not Hill), an American whose past greatly hurt his presence. He did not let America as a country be. He also explained with limpidity how the past of America hurts her present despite being world power. Dan Agbese had a way of taking you directly to the scene of his story. That was how he took me to the United States Of America right from the toilet.
‎
‎My second time of traveling to America was through another book “America at 50”. In 2010, Nigeria was 50yrs  post independence, I was in my sophomore year in the Medical School. One of our GST Courses NATIONALISM had taken greater part of me and had sent me on a mission to calculate the probability and possibility of Nigeria becoming great like America in the future.  This I did through the entire pages of the book, ‘America at 50’ to compare her level of corruption and development with that of Nigeria at 50. The book too tells the story of America’s long shadow chasing her present. The journey through the book was a great voyage. America, the world power too had a very long dark past before the benevolence spirit of greatness descended on her.
‎
‎Another remarkable experience I had inside the toilet was the fact that I gradually lost my sense of smell. At the early hours of the day, the usual heat exuding from the pit was enough to roast a pachyderm and my contacts with it was ephemeral. But that day I was completely marinated that I transited from hyposmia to complete anosmia, courtesy of Agbese’s insightful writing
‎
‎That day too was a day of harvest of words. Shortly before then, my academic lord, John Orinya, now Doctor John Otse Orinya had prepared for me what was called vocabulary development. I still remember that Olympics exercise book on which the picture of JJ Okocha posted in his usual position of taking a critical banana shot, the kind he used to humiliate Oliver Khan. John wrote some words with their meaning inside the book with his calligraphy and taught me how to be adding mine from there anytime I come against a strange English word while reading. I almost reproduce the Oxford dictionary. My encounter with Dan Agbese’s writings forms the lion share of words inside my handwritten vocabulary book. He is truly a prost stylist and wordsmith.
‎
‎It was November 25th, 2024. I wrote the story summarized here and presented it to him right inside his private library in his house. The original Title was “How Pa Dan Agbese Detained me inside Toilet”, but when he read through it, laughing all through he turned to me and remarked “Osonyeta (the name he fondly called me), if you had traveled through the path of professional writing, you would have been a perfect combination of Achebe and Wole Soyinka. You have the word and you have the literature. The only correction I want to make is that we should remove the ‘Pa’, let us reframe it as ‘HOW DAN AGBESE DETAINED ME INSIDE TOILET’ to make it more formal, I am going to refine and publish it”. He gifted me money and a copy of all the books he authored and co-authored, for this story.
‎
‎Dan Agbese in all objective sense of assessment and score was a great man from birth to death. He was born into the royal dynasty of the great people of Agila Kingdom. The womb that carried was was Queen’s, and the loin and groin that sired him was king’s. He was born with the silver spoon in his mouth. One would expect that he should continue to eat with the silver spoon for the rest of his life, but NO, he said. He dropped the silver spoon of pride, arrogance, ego and picked up a wooden spoon that he later morphed  into a golden spoon with which he ate with the high and the mighty in the society. 
‎
‎Agbese started carving the virgin path into greatness as a class room teacher, the profession we look at with disdain today, and tell them your reward is in heaven. He later worked as a librarian before he refracted into journalism where he has carved a niche for himself in the annal of time. His footprint in the sand of time and his profession is so golden that it will be difficult to erase. He
‎was a free farm of wisdom, a cornucopia from which endless wisdom flows. He was an institution of Learning
‎
‎Dan Agbese was a philanthropist to a core. My first encounter with him was through this. I am a beneficiary of his benevolence. Countless testifyers have attested to his humanity and philanthropy.  When my wife was pregnant, the number of sauced roasted fowls she consumed was enough to start a poultry farm. This was courtesy of Dan Agbese. At a point I fondly told my wife that she was walking like a fowl and she fondly replied that it is because she has eaten countless fowl legs. The very expensive and well cherished Rolex wrist watch was bought for my wife as a birthday gift by Dan Agbese. Any time my wife put the wrist watch on her wrist, she would hold her hand so high like ‘enkpe’ masquerade to show the whole wide world how much she cherish it. She dearly misses Pa Dan Agbese.
‎
‎When my profession and duty called on me to be his Personal Doctor, an opportunity to study him closely also presented itself. The relationship was tripartite: Doctor and his patient, father and son, patient and patient relative.
‎He was a pachyderm with a sophisticated intellect. With him, you have no dull or boring moment. Very contagious humor and benign smile always. There was a day we were to perform a minor surgical procedure on him. While on the table, my senior colleague who did not know him before asked me if Baba understands English. He held all of us spellbound through out the procedure as he was not under general anesthesia. My senior colleague almost sustain a broken rib. After the procedure he asked me who is this man? When I told him he is the Dan Agbese of Newawatch magazine, he quickly ran out of the changing room to see him and have a privileged hand shake with god of the pen, but unfortunately, his driver had zoomed him out of the facility. He came back and started narrating to us how his father was an ardent addict of Agbese’s writings and has once remarked to his hearing “If Dan Agbese is a god of writing, I am one of those who worship him without regrets”.
‎
‎Our consolation in Agbese’s death is the gain of his legacies which one of the quartet founders of the Newawatch magazine, Ray Ekpu has described as “A Great Gain”. He has crossed the border tide to the great beyond but his thoughts are still with us through many volumes of his insightful books that live with us. He has poured himself into many bodies that are still here with us to perpetuate his legacies. Countless people got admission into various levels of school through his name and writings. Some got gainfully employed, while many have rode to fame in politics on the wheel his goodwill.
‎
‎I extend my condolences to the immediate family, the amiable wife, Chief Mrs Rose Edeanya Agbese, the children, the entire Agbese family, the Newswatch family, friends and well wishers. Pa Dan Agbese will be greatly missed. Goodbye, the first and the only Awanotun.
‎
‎‎HOW DAN AGBESE DETAINED ME INSIDE TOILET; A TRIBUTE TO THE  COLOSSU.
‎
‎A heap of yam had just gone up to ten Naira and water yam’s five Naira. This was necessitated by the snowballing inflation rate in the country. The youth leader, Orinya Okokilojo made the announcement as he gathered Apa-Agila youths at the village play ground. This announcement was to the pleasure of the jubilant youths, but to the exasperation of the farmers who would pay double per heap in what was  called “Counting”, a wage system in which the employee is paid per number of heaps made. The reaction of the inhabitants of Apa was not different from reaction of anions and cations when an electric current is plugged into the the Arrhenius solution. Boys started running to farmers’ houses in search of who will invite them for counting.
‎
‎I just got to my home from that gathering when one of my farming mates Otokpa Olie came to inform me that a particular man who so much like my characteristic pattern of making heaps of yam had just come to invite the two of us to come and farm for him the following day. I  was extremely happy that I was going to make double of whatever I used to make from that soft Igbede soil. I had counted my eggs even before they were hatched. We planned to get to the farm when the sun is still snoring or before the palm print become visible to the diurnal beings.
‎
‎The sun was still sleeping, the insects were chirping and the birds just beginning their dawn chorus when I woke up to prepare for the farm. My first mission was to empty my congested rectum before ingesting the heavy carbohydrate moiety of Fufu. My hands groped in the dark thatch clinical room, foraging the direction of where I kept my touch light the previous night. I  switched it on, quickly used it to look for any available lone paper in the room. I got one and made my way to the pit latrine sitting some meters away from our sleeping room. It was made of thatch roof, wooden wall and about five times the size of a giant tortoise.
‎
‎I had started evacuating my rectum, my touch light fastened to my occipitofrontal circumference like the bright light of the night hunter, when I opened the paper I took to the toilet to maintain the hygiene of my perianal orifice. The first thing that captured my attention was at the top of the paper. It was a cartoon captioned “LEAVING MY SHADOW”, and that was the title of the article written by Dan Agbese in the early 90s, in one of the leading news papers or magazines in the country and continent, Newswatch. The cartoon is a long shadow of a Laron dwarf, holding a very long matchet and chasing  its owner. Whosoever conjured that cartoon must have done so when the sun was  farthest from the equator. That is when an object forms the longest shadow, according to the Euclidean law of optical geometry.  “The past is not supposed to hurt the present. But it does “, Dan Agbese began the story that detained me in the toilet for almost half a day. I eventually did not go to the farm that day.
‎
‎The name, Dan Agbese was not new to me. The name was before I was born. From when I could say cogito ego sum, or ego cogito cogitatum, the name was. I grew up to meet the ubiquitous name. He was not a street man, but his name littered the street. You hardly walk a distance of a hundred meters without hearing the name. We were told the story of Dan Agbese. We were also told the story of his stories. We were told he tells stories in papers and books for a living. We were told how he tells this stories in good Queen’s language and how he also sometimes subtly insert some Agila words inside the English with a perfect blend of subtle Linguistic mutation. His wisdom in writing knew no bound. We were told that he had even inserted the masqueradish exclamation, “Olabobobo”, and Otolobachi into some of his writings and speeches. He could also Englishnize some Agila words before inserting them into the stream of English words. For example, we were told that there was a certain time in his Journalism career when a certain malignant military government set a cyclonic killing wind after him and he went into hibernation. When the storm was over and he came out, some journalists were said to come to interview the Journalist to find out where he had been. He was said to have told them that he has been to “Ehaflacity” enjoying pounded yam with the soup of “abasinity”. They were said to be opening their dictionary to check the meaning of ‘abasinity’ but he told them not to bother as they were not with Agila dictionary. All these, we were told from second, third, fourth, fifth mouth etc. I had never seen him physically or read his writings for myself. But there I was in the toilet with one of his articles for the first time.
‎
‎”History is like a dustbin into which we cast what we long to forget. No matter how dirty it is, it can still be foraged for something good”, Otsókanabō continued the story, as he weave words into phrases, clauses, sentences, and paragraphs. Each words was neatly dressed and taking its proper seat in the Linguistic and grammatical high tables.
‎One could clearly see a very meaningful sentence of one word obsequiously squatting beside his big brother serpentine sentence in the characteristic Agbeseque.
‎
‎Another thing that kept me glued to the article was the characteristic correlation of the cartoon, the caption/title of the article, Leaving My Shadow. In the Article, Dan Agbese provocatively described how the past of many individuals, companies, communities, countries and continents have casted a long shadow, chasing their presence. I asked myself why won’t the man drop the machete so that the shadow can drop his. But as I grew up, it dawn on me that the past is irrevocable. One can only find a way to accept an live with its consequences and complications.
‎
‎I have been to America severally. But these have all been through books. My first visit to America was courtesy of Dan Agbese through the example of one Napoleon (not Hill), an American whose past greatly hurt his presence. He did not let America as a country be. He also explained with limpidity how the past of America hurts her present despite being world power. Dan Agbese had a way of taking you directly to the scene of his story. That was how he took me to the United States Of America right from the toilet.
‎
‎My second time of traveling to America was through another book “America at 50”. In 2010, Nigeria was 50yrs  post independence, I was in my sophomore year in the Medical School. One of our GST Courses NATIONALISM had taken greater part of me and had sent me on a mission to calculate the probability and possibility of Nigeria becoming great like America in the future.  This I did through the entire pages of the book, ‘America at 50’ to compare her level of corruption and development with that of Nigeria at 50. The book too tells the story of America’s long shadow chasing her present. The journey through the book was a great voyage. America, the world power too had a very long dark past before the benevolence spirit of greatness descended on her.
‎
‎Another remarkable experience I had inside the toilet was the fact that I gradually lost my sense of smell. At the early hours of the day, the usual heat exuding from the pit was enough to roast a pachyderm and my contacts with it was ephemeral. But that day I was completely marinated that I transited from hyposmia to complete anosmia, courtesy of Agbese’s insightful writing
‎
‎That day too was a day of harvest of words. Shortly before then, my academic lord, John Orinya, now Doctor John Otse Orinya had prepared for me what was called vocabulary development. I still remember that Olympics exercise book on which the picture of JJ Okocha posted in his usual position of taking a critical banana shot, the kind he used to humiliate Oliver Khan. John wrote some words with their meaning inside the book with his calligraphy and taught me how to be adding mine from there anytime I come against a strange English word while reading. I almost reproduce the Oxford dictionary. My encounter with Dan Agbese’s writings forms the lion share of words inside my handwritten vocabulary book. He is truly a prost stylist and wordsmith.
‎
‎It was November 25th, 2024. I wrote the story summarized here and presented it to him right inside his private library in his house. The original Title was “How Pa Dan Agbese Detained me inside Toilet”, but when he read through it, laughing all through he turned to me and remarked “Osonyeta (the name he fondly called me), if you had traveled through the path of professional writing, you would have been a perfect combination of Achebe and Wole Soyinka. You have the word and you have the literature. The only correction I want to make is that we should remove the ‘Pa’, let us reframe it as ‘HOW DAN AGBESE DETAINED ME INSIDE TOILET’ to make it more formal, I am going to refine and publish it”. He gifted me money and a copy of all the books he authored and co-authored, for this story.
‎
‎Dan Agbese in all objective sense of assessment and score was a great man from birth to death. He was born into the royal dynasty of the great people of Agila Kingdom. The womb that carried was was Queen’s, and the loin and groin that sired him was king’s. He was born with the silver spoon in his mouth. One would expect that he should continue to eat with the silver spoon for the rest of his life, but NO, he said. He dropped the silver spoon of pride, arrogance, ego and picked up a wooden spoon that he later morphed  into a golden spoon with which he ate with the high and the mighty in the society. 
‎
‎Agbese started carving the virgin path into greatness as a class room teacher, the profession we look at with disdain today, and tell them your reward is in heaven. He later worked as a librarian before he refracted into journalism where he has carved a niche for himself in the annal of time. His footprint in the sand of time and his profession is so golden that it will be difficult to erase. He
‎was a free farm of wisdom, a cornucopia from which endless wisdom flows. He was an institution of Learning
‎
‎Dan Agbese was a philanthropist to a core. My first encounter with him was through this. I am a beneficiary of his benevolence. Countless testifyers have attested to his humanity and philanthropy.  When my wife was pregnant, the number of sauced roasted fowls she consumed was enough to start a poultry farm. This was courtesy of Dan Agbese. At a point I fondly told my wife that she was walking like a fowl and she fondly replied that it is because she has eaten countless fowl legs. The very expensive and well cherished Rolex wrist watch was bought for my wife as a birthday gift by Dan Agbese. Any time my wife put the wrist watch on her wrist, she would hold her hand so high like ‘enkpe’ masquerade to show the whole wide world how much she cherish it. She dearly misses Pa Dan Agbese.
‎
‎When my profession and duty called on me to be his Personal Doctor, an opportunity to study him closely also presented itself. The relationship was tripartite: Doctor and his patient, father and son, patient and patient relative.
‎He was a pachyderm with a sophisticated intellect. With him, you have no dull or boring moment. Very contagious humor and benign smile always. There was a day we were to perform a minor surgical procedure on him. While on the table, my senior colleague who did not know him before asked me if Baba understands English. He held all of us spellbound through out the procedure as he was not under general anesthesia. My senior colleague almost sustain a broken rib. After the procedure he asked me who is this man? When I told him he is the Dan Agbese of Newawatch magazine, he quickly ran out of the changing room to see him and have a privileged hand shake with god of the pen, but unfortunately, his driver had zoomed him out of the facility. He came back and started narrating to us how his father was an ardent addict of Agbese’s writings and has once remarked to his hearing “If Dan Agbese is a god of writing, I am one of those who worship him without regrets”.
‎
‎Our consolation in Agbese’s death is the gain of his legacies which one of the quartet founders of the Newawatch magazine, Ray Ekpu has described as “A Great Gain”. He has crossed the border tide to the great beyond but his thoughts are still with us through many volumes of his insightful books that live with us. He has poured himself into many bodies that are still here with us to perpetuate his legacies. Countless people got admission into various levels of school through his name and writings. Some got gainfully employed, while many have rode to fame in politics on the wheel his goodwill. 
‎
‎I extend my condolences to the immediate family, the amiable wife, Chief Mrs Rose Edeanya Agbese, the children, the entire Agbese family, the Newswatch family, friends and well wishers. Pa Dan Agbese will be greatly missed. Goodbye, the first and the only Awanotun.
‎
‎
‎
‎