May 21, 2026
When I stepped out of the main auditorium of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) to welcome Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha, to TheNiche lecture on April 23, 2026, I knew the sacrifice he made to be there.
Yet, my “thank you Agbogidi for coming” greeting was gently rebuffed with a riposte: “I wasn’t going to miss out on this, not with you and Alex involved.” He owes me nothing and may well have stayed away. But being eternally loyal to friendship – he calls me a friend – he was obliged to come. Talk of everlasting kinship! Dr. Alex Otti, the guest speaker, was already delivering his lecture and Khalifa Muhammad Sanusi II, Emir of Kano, seated as the chairman, when Igwe Achebe arrived.
But I had no doubt that he would join us at some point because he gave me his word and his word is his bond. To be there at the time he did, he excused himself from a board meeting he was chairing, an enormous sacrifice he was making for the second time.
This tribute on his 85th birthday is my modest attempt at thanking Agbogidi, a man of uncommon qualities, publicly for his enduring friendship.
