I glorify God today as I enter my 60th year with all its significance.
Sixty is a Diamond. Today is my Diamond Jubilee.
Sixty celebrates longevity, given the life expectancy in our land.
I am grateful to have become a diamond. Diamonds are renowned for their brilliance and durability, symbolising the strength and value gained through life’s experiences.
The Chinese mark this milestone as Begin Again. Their zodiac cycle repeats every sixty years. Turning 60 signifies a return to the beginning, a chance for new beginnings and a fresh chapter in life. This year, I began a new path as an author with the Media Relations Playbook.
I celebrate my long life of positive and negative experiences. They include a bright start (graduation at 21 and name recognition as a budding journalist after two internships and an unpaid vacation job), missed steps and a loss of momentum, two close-to-the-heart deaths, and more. Still, I stand through His Grace.
Since age 13, death tried to knock on my door. On a Tuesday, a Caucasian lady driving a VW Beetle knocked me down as I ran after a bus at Ojuelegba. I was going to my United Christian Secondary Commercial College in Apapa. She and the Nigerian lady drove me down to Randle Health Centre, where the doctors and nurses stitched my head. The ladies soon disappeared. You can imagine the shock on the faces of my dad and mum when they returned home to meet their son in stitches!
Life threw more daunting accidents and incidents. In 1991, I faced up to two armed robbers who wanted to snatch the official Cadbury Nigeria vehicle, which I drove to CapDavid Designs, where I produced Cadbury News.
“Drop the key”, one of them hollered.
“Get out of my way,” I responded. I was 26 and fearless. I was going to the second floor.
The gun boomed, and I felt a pin prick on my left leg. I then grabbed the fellow and wrestled him down. His second had run. The fellow was more interested in holding on to the gun than fighting me. Soon, he ran away, too.
Mr Lawal, a resident on one of the streets at Fadeyi, rescued the situation as he drove the vehicle that took me to the Cadbury Clinic and then to the hospital. I spent one month trying to close the crater in my leg.
Testimony: the bullet missed my kneecap, avoided any bones, and only tore through flesh.
This was just foreplay. I have since had five close encounters of the death kind with felons in Lagos, Port Harcourt, and Entebbe, Uganda.
Uganda was outsourcing gone wrong. Sheraton Kampala engaged an external provider to drive me and a Kenyan guest to Entebbe Airport at night. I was going to take a Kenyan Airways flight to Lagos.
The driver had other plans. His mates were waiting. He stopped for them and locked himself in his compartment of the bus while they interrogated us. The idiots shot first before asking questions. A bullet hit the Kenyan accountant. I still remember his cries as he spoke to his wife, informing her that he was bleeding from the shot and asking her to take care of the children should he not make it.
Two of the hoodlums came up to me.
“Come down”, they commanded. I did. “Lie down”. I obeyed.
One hit me. “Why are you beating me?” I responded. “I have given you all my money. $1000!”
Initial silence. Even shock.
Robber: “You gave to the other man.”
Chido: “Are you not the same? Is he not part of you?” They scampered away.
At the airport, we immediately reported to the police. They took us to the airport clinic, which reminded me of a rural clinic in Nbawsi, Abia State, in my formative years.
It seemed like a minor scrape as I walked away with my life.
I have posed as an elder for many years. Today, I enter the inner sanctum where I can truthfully answer the appellation. Call me an Elder.
Celebrate with me, dear friends.
