And Ifeanyi Ubah Died! (1)

AZUH ARINZE 

A totally different event had taken some of my colleagues and I to Abuja. Done with our business, we were all ensconced at the departure lounge of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, ‘gisting’ and waiting for our flight to be announced when he sauntered in with a few aides. Some of us rose to exchange pleasantries with him and afterwards he enquired where we were headed. I informed him and he insisted that we join him in his private jet for a trip to Nnewi, Anambra State, enroute to Asaba Airport.

When I protested that my wife was already on her way to the Murtala Mohammed Airport, in Ikeja, Lagos to take me home, he asked me to get her on the phone for him. He spoke to her briefly, assuring her that there was no cause for alarm. Senator Patrick Ifeanyi Ubah, the billionaire businessman behind Capital Oil and my wife both hail from Nnewi. So, besides being so good to me, Ubah is also my in-law.

Our relationship, by the way, dates back to 2010 when he had a minor ‘challenge’. An unpleasant story had been written about a good friend of his. He got in touch with a friend in the medium, who involved me in the PR management.

Ubah was deeply impressed with my ideas as we brainstormed during our first meeting that he invited me back days later, which I totally forgot till he called to find out where I was. To cut a long story short, I couldn’t make the first meeting and we had to reschedule. On the next agreed date, I went clutching the manuscript of my first book, Tested and Trusted Success Secrets of the Rich and Famous, having just left my printer’s place.

He asked if he could flip through and I responded in the affirmative. I handed the manuscript over to him and he kept nodding as he checked it out. Done, he said to me, ‘This is nice, but my interview is not here’. I told him that that won’t be a problem; that once he was ready to grant me an interview, we would add it. And instantly he said we should.

Weeks later, he sent for me. When I got to his office, and after we exchanged pleasantries, he asked when the book would be out, I told him and he said a week to the book launch I should send him a reminder.

About two days to the D-day, I called to remind him and he assured me that he would be there. He arrived the venue, on the day of public presentation, unannounced, hid himself in a corner at the back of the hall until the Elegant Stallion, Lady Onyeka Onwenu and one of my godfathers, Prince Bisi Olatilo, spotted him and dragged him to the high table, where he reluctantly joined them. Time for action, he was handed the mic and he announced five million naira! – a pledge he redeemed almost immediately.

He also made other beautiful interventions in my life and hosted me severally in Lagos, Abuja and Nnewi.

Yesterday’s news of his sudden and shocking death has been difficult for me to process…

– Azuh Arinze is Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine and author of bestsellers like The CEO’s Bible 1&2, Success Is Not Served A La Carte, A Taste Of Success, Anything And Everything Journalism, etc