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From my teenage years in the 1970s, family and friends had fondly called me ‘a wo ogiri da’gba’ (one who goes through life watching the wall), an inference to my insatiable proclivity to movie watching at the various cinemas across Lagos.
Reading through Ben Egbuna’s autobiography, “A Destiny Fulfilled” is akin to having access to unlimited tickets to watch a kaleidoscope of movies, some thrillers, some drama, others action and still others documentaries. All, around one dramatis personae, one subject, one nation.
The book puts one in no doubt that Egbuna was a man who lived for his job. Broadcast journalism was his passion, his love and his main avenue of self-expression and self actualisation. This is clearly proven by his dedication of over two third of the narration to his Radio Nigeria (FRCN) experience.
And, what a life it was!
The book bears live witness to several coups and the personalities that planned and effected the putsches in nail biting, eyeball to eyeball encounters with the central participants. All in the name of getting the news out.
From the early years of innocence at Radio Nigeria, Ikoyi when life was a frenetic whizz of meeting deadlines, using the right words and sharing with comrades. From the orange-coloured Renault and the bell-bottomed trousers to the rise through the system and the daunting realities of clashing ambitions mixed with the ambiguity of ego driven managerial shenanigans.
At this stage, I must confess that all this was history that I had lived through as I cut my journalistic teeth in the same newsroom and reporters corp of the establishment from 1978-1981. Leafing through the pages and encountering the names and incidents from that time and after, confirmed why I called it quits so early in an otherwise promising career.
That Ben stayed the course and expended all of thirty-five years, is a testament to his fortitude, commitment and as we see several times, at difficult times the readiness to confront dodgy attitudes and personalities head on. Unfortunately, not everybody had the same tenacity as lives and careers were shifted, shunted and terminated on the whims and caprices of the very people who were supposed to nurture and offer direction and leadership.
We get birds’ eye views of a nation unveiling through the decades. The good times, the bad times and the seasons of turmoil from the military era through to the playbook of our present circumstances. We become privy to how political offices fall like a roll of dice to good, competent achievers and at the next roll the same seat is occupied by self centred, Machiavellian disrupters whose time only spell disaster and setback for all parties.
DESPITE THE AUTHOR’S DEDICATION OF A SIZEABLE chunk of the book to career and profession, the early pages of childhood and adolescence stay etched in one’s memory. Life in the police barracks in Sapele, Warri, Enugu, Mushin and Marine Road, Apapa. The zeal for football both in the barracks and at Lagos City College, Sabo and the regular trip up the Ugwu Nkwo hill with half sister Azuka as well as the Humpty Dumpty like roll down Coal Camp hill. For all who have been young and adventurous before the modern days of children cooped up in apartments with only guided outings, this is a slice of African life in the raw.
The growing up days with Uncle Gibson and his femme fatale wife, Madam Vicky still sends shivers down my spine, as what we now call child abuse was seen then as proper upbringing, the inculcation of experiences otherwise lost to the loving care and parental doting of primary parents. Gladly, some of the pain is relieved by the soft touch and adoring description of living quarters and the cooking of grandma Mmankwocha.
The lyricism and fondness reflected in the description of the roasted yam with bitter leaf sauce entangled with dried fish are enough to make the stomach rumble in expectation.
The same goes for the jarring, sudden growth into adulthood with the arrival of the civil war. Family life, school days, academic pursuits and all dreams shut down with the onslaught of Federal troops on the erstwhile idyllic Eastern existence. Father, mother, sisters and other sibling were flung apart as survival necessitated. Fine Christmas clothings were quickly replaced with military uniform. Life in the barracks was replaced with bush training and the command of troops. For those who were third parties to the years of war, the pages bring the daily experiences of the Biafran boy soldier to reality. Living by the skin of the teeth, exposure to sniper bullets and watching comrades in arms cut down hopelessly would either shatter the spirit or toughen one’s resolve. It was a period that reflected later in Ben’s perseverance and focus in life.
Although we are taken through the build up to and the fruition of the marriage to his love, Betty, scant pages are committed to family life. We are not privy to the growth and home life with the four lovely kids who thankfully and to the pride of their parents, grew up to achieve life accomplishments and independence.
However, through the whole book, there was the unshakeable essence of a son needing to prove himself to a much-loved father. Maybe it was the barracks life, it could be the authority of the police uniform or more likely the stiff upper lip of a man enduring life’s constant twists and turns with squared shoulders and head unbowed. With the death of the old man and his burial back home in the East, we seem to see the closing of one chapter and the opening of the book of a new Egbuna, no longer seeking approval and ready to take on the world.
Through all these, hung the words of the ‘Man of God’ who foretold of a bright future and an ‘obu’ that would be famous. The recurring dreams, the intuitions and foreboding of things about to happen…the destiny.
The book calls to question, is a man’s life determined by destiny? Or, is he driven and self-propelled by personal choices and the dint of enterprise to his final goal in life?
I am sure if Ben Egbuna was here and we put the question to him, he would not hesitate to enthuse that it is a little bit of both. You take the bull by the horn even as you believe that life can be ‘A Destiny Fulfilled’.
Aruofor, Managing Director of Pulsar Limited, is a branding professional with broad-spectrum perspectives in the diverse segments of marketing communication and corporate information management. (Bookartville)
