Dear Kabir,
Since your passage in the night of March 6, 2025, several of your friends, old colleagues and mentees have written many tributes about the kind of man you were and how you impacted their lives while you were on this our tough side of the great divide. I can just guess what you will say when you hear me say ‘words failed me’ to refer to you in the past, so much so I have been unable to write anything in over 10 days. I also can really hear you say: ‘Ah, Eboigbe – you are always writing about anything and everything – how can words fail you?’
Well, my friend, they have.
I am not sure why I did not call you on your birthday this year – February 21 – just nine days after mine on February 12. Last year when I called you, you laughed as usual and repeated how it is calls from me and others that make you remember your birthday, as it always escapes your memory. After all the greetings that day, on some of our mutual platforms, especially ACAMB, I thought I would call you later in the day. But something held me back. Now I know why; and you know why too!
I still cannot believe you are gone. It feels like only yesterday we were ‘gisting’ over the phone, traveling across Nigeria and the globe (almost), attending courses, conferences, trade fairs, workshops and seminars and chasing dreams in the world of Public Relations. You had a way of leaving people inspired and excited about the possibilities that abound in the profession. You were a collaborative and partnership person, shunning any competitive spirit that threatened to divide our banks in the heady 90s, when de-marketing was the order of the day, which resulted in the birth of ACAMB, the Association of Corporate Affairs Managers of Banks – of which you were the pioneer President. Our colleagues decided then, that the heads of corporate affairs of the Big 4 Banks and CBN must be on the pioneer EXCO and hold trusteeship. With you gone, I am now The Last of The Mohicans, with Tunde Thomas of Afribank, Toyin Abayomi-Banjo of First Bank and Tony Ede of CBN having gone before you. How do you think I am feeling?
I always felt that the trajectory of the work life you and I both shared was a bit uncanny – we both had previous electronic media background, with you in NTA and I with Radio Nigeria; you did public affairs work with the US Embassy/USIS while I was with the Canadian High Commission in the same line; and then you joined Union Bank and I joined UBA on same grade – Principal Manager Corporate Affairs, the same 1995 and we left as Assistant General Manager same year, 2005. And then on a private level, our birthdays are also in February. We even bought the same checkered brown blazer at different times, unknowingly! Haba!! How uncanny can you get?
I will never forget some adventures we shared. I got lost the first time I was trying to locate your residence in Ikoyi that night – and there was no Google map those days! Remember that time we were arguing about the quality of hotel I got to stay in during the PR World Congress in Istanbul 2005, and you said I better go and grab it otherwise I may have no place to sleep because I arrived late? In Istanbul we went on the boat cruise that evening on The Bosporus which connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara and forms one of the continental boundaries between Asia and Europe – a truly unique experience. Or when we went for the World Financial PR Course at the University of London in 2000 and the IPRA people used the opportunity to tie us down? Or the international trade fairs in Enugu and Kaduna where we always related, not as competitors, but as friends helping each other and teaching our pavilion staff to respect our brands? You know what? I have been searching everywhere for some of the photographs we took together but I cannot see any; not one. Except the group ones from my 50th birthday in 2004, where you did not get up to dance, as I remember! I am sure after all this, other photos will surface one by one; that’s what usually happens.
After retirement, our businesses brought us even closer, with the training sessions we always brainstormed about before presenting proposals to prospective clients. And the shuttle we embarked upon round the country – Lagos, Kaduna, Abuja, Calabar, Enugu – training staff of different banks in branding and PR techniques.
We learned so much together – about our profession and about life, sharing about our families and discussing how to ensure the young ones got good scores and postings.
In the last few years, I have not asked you about your pet project, the Timex School of Communication in Kaduna – located precisely on Cibi Road, Kurmin Mashi Industrial Layout, by National Eye Centre – on which you spent over five years post-retirement before it was ready for operations in 2010. Trust you, you did not spare anything to make sure virtually all facilities needed to pursue its mandate efficiently were ready: two sets of classroom blocks; two radio and TV programme production studios; a conference centre and restaurant; teaching staff offices; guest houses for trainers invited for periodical and specialised teaching; a storey building as the headquarters of Timex Communications, your company; and eight shopping apartments to provide auxiliary services to students. You were always the hard worker, teacher, trailblazer, and mentor to many; but your dream was to make the school a place for teaching and researching communication trends; financial communication skills acquisition; corporate reputation management strategies; strategic Public Relations management; social media and online communication; crisis management and employee communications; government information management techniques; developing and managing corporate brands; radio and TV production techniques, among others. You took me round then, during one of my trips to Kaduna and it was indeed a dream project. Your illness no doubt will have affected the dream, but I am sure there are many people to keep your legacy on and your light burning.
Dear Kabir, thank you for the memories, the lessons, and for being part of my own journey too. Though you are no longer here in person, many of us still feel your presence in the values and passion you lived by, and I know many will carry that with them always.
I am sure you are at peace now, Kabir. I pray that your lovely family whom I met in both your Ikoyi and Kaduna residences, will keep the beautiful memories you all shared.
As I have now seen, writing this letter to you in remembrance of our bond and shared experiences was not too difficult after all, as much as I thought it would be. Be sure there are still many friends who will celebrate your life in a beautiful way, writing much more than I have just done. But I know though, that you will appreciate my effort; after all, it is from The Last of the Great ACAMB Mohicans. And it is from my heart!
Rest well, Kabir.
Your dear friend, Eboigbe (That’s all you ever called me……..)
