CELEBRATING MO ABUDU AT 50

Today Thursday September 11, 2014 celebrated talkshow hostess and founder of Ebony Life TV, Mosunmola Abudu, reach the 50 milestone. And for this beautiful success story, there would be no inhibitions about the celebrations that would follow. Friends of Mo’, as she is widely known, wont allow it to go uncelebrated as they are plotting a surprise gig for her. In less than a decade of her foray into the media, Mo has really done well for herself, rising from a tentative, scarcely trained talk-show hostess to a prima donna TV gal interviewing national and global leaders on her widely syndicated Moments With Mo. Also a successful businesswoman with different thriving companies under her belt, Mo’s magnum opus remains her daring foray into satellite television ownership with Ebony Life TV, which went live in 2013 on Digital Satellite Television, DSTV.

With a mission to create ‘Original, Premium and Inspiring content with an African Soul that showcases the best of Africa for a
Global Black audience, Africa’s first Global Black Multi-Broadcast Entertainment Network’, Ebony Life TV is a multi-platform broadcaster set to reach Africa’s most important target demographic, the custodians of the present and the future, producing and broadcasting over non-stop, original programming with world-class production values through a variety of engaging platforms that include TV, Mobile, Online, Apps and Live. Mo’s smile-wide grin and sharp intellect has seen her conquer the otherwise difficult Nigerian media terrain in less than a decade of her entry. In many ways, Mo Abudu epitomizes the nature of positive revolt: always at odds with the present, forever evolving. With her quiet will and calm stare, the woman to whom success subsists in doing things the way they have never been done before. She is always ready to revolutionize the Nigerian media.

Mo Abudu is a single mother having divorced from her husband years back

MIKE AWOYINFAs MOVING TRIBUTES TO LATE FRIEND DIMGBA

Mike Awoyinfa (R) with late friend Dimgba 

This is it!  The most unimaginable nightmare!  This is it!  The most painful column I have ever written or will ever write.  The column I wished I never wrote.  The agonizing column.  The column written amidst sorrow, tears and blood.  Please, pray for me."
More than any time in my life, I need prayers.  Prayer is the only healing balm for me now.  Prayer is the only thing that can save me from these troubled waters, from this ocean of sorrow threatening to consume me. I write with a heart brimful with sadness.  By the Orwell River in Ipswich, England, where I am sitting, I am scribbling these painful words.  By the time you are reading this, I should be home to face the shocking reality.   
You know why I am writing, you Father of the fatherless, you Creator of all things good and bad, you giver of life and taker.  You gave him to me, now you have taken him.  You gave me a friend and a brother.  Now, you have taken both. Who will be my friend?  Who will be my brother? 
Sadness is now my name.  Sadness like those missing girls stolen from us in the middle of the night and taken into captivity.  Sadness is the tattoo mark emblazing my face like Mike Tyson’s facial tattoo.  I have been reading Mike Tyson’s bizarre memoir: MIKE TYSON, UNDISPUTED TRUTH, MY AUTOBIOGRAPHY and I was planning to write on it.  But I am compelled to jettison that to write this sad column. 
Oh, my God!  You know why I am sad.  My best friend is gone.  My twin brother is gone.  A good man is gone.  A generous man is gone.  A man who gave all his life serving God and journalism is gone.  A man who is the other part of me is gone.  Dimgba Igwe is gone.  What will I do now?  Who will I turn to now? Who?
Why must all my friends and heroes in journalism die so cruelly, landing on the front page?  My editor Dele Giwa died the same way: killed dastardly through a letter bomb on October 19, 1986.  And up till today, the riddle of his death remains unsolved.  It has become “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma,” to use a phrase by Winston Churchill.  Like Giwa, Dimgba Igwe in the throes of death was crying: “I don’t want to die.”  For four hours, he was bleeding on the road to Golgotha.  No ambulance.  No oxygen mask.  No Samaritan hospital.  From St. Raphael Hospital to the General Hospital Isolo where there was no surgeon to attend to him, it was the story of Nigeria’s systemic failure as a country.  He finally gave up at Lagos State University Hospital, Ikeja.  
If I am angry at all, it is not with the bloody coward who killed him and fled in panic.  I will forgive the hit-and-run killer.  And the Dimgba Igwe I know, will forgive the man who killed him.  What I cannot forgive is a nation with health institutions that can do nothing, once your life is in danger.  It’s the same story all over Nigeria.  Of course, you know that once you are taken to LUTH on emergency, you are as good as dead.  And this is a country without a functional 911 which you dial in emergency and get help.  Only in Nigeria will you commit this heinous crime and vanish.  In a civilized country, the killer would have been caught on camera.  The security agents would have tracked the car down.  Not so in Nigeria. 
I remember the sad death of my other Sunday Concord friend May Ellen Ezekiel whose death in a Lagos hospital shook the nation.  Dimgba Igwe and I were at the helm in Weekend Concord where he was my deputy.  The best decision I ever took in life was to choose Dimgba Igwe as my deputy.  He complemented me in every way.  Now, he is gone.
Like everyone else, I am confused.  I am lost.  Please, pray for me.  More than any time in my life, I need prayers. Lots of them.  Because I don’t know how I can cope without my friend, my business partner, my co-author, my soul mate, my chief critic. He was the voice of restraint—always fearing for my life, because of my constant prone to accidents.  I remember an accident in Paris, when I stumbled, crashed on the street and seriously injured my arm in the bid to protect my camera and photos. Dimgba Igwe was there for me when I was down and out in Paris.  And at the Golden Tulip, where we had lodged to write Governor Fashola’s biography, I had another accident in the night after my writing, resulting in a deep cut on my lower and upper lips.  Again, Dimgba and the hotel medical staff quickly rushed me to hospital where I was told I could have bled to death, if the broken glass had cut my throat.  You read it all in this column!
Against this backdrop, I was the one more prone to death.  In his last interview, Dimgba Igwe told YES INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE how he nicknamed me “Iniquity Man” because I won’t sit in one place.  As his twin brother four years older, I used to imagine a future where two of us would be old and I would die first and Dimgba would be there, paying me tributes, looking back at the lives we lived.  But alas, the imagined future is dead and Dimgba is gone in his prime. 
The Dimgba I know was a kind man who didn’t deserve this cruel death.  If anything, he would have hated this big embarrassment of being on front page, killed doing what he loved best: jogging.  He believed the best way to prolong life is by exercising, by running and pumping oxygen into the heart.  He was the one who introduced me to jogging.  And for more than 10 years, I have been jogging with him.  Our houses are next to each other on that God-forsaken Dele Orisabiyi Street in Okota which has not for once seen any government repairing it in years.  Recently after returning from a first-time trip to Banana Island where he had gone to visit our friend, Elder Ekeoma whose daughter was marrying, Dimgba Igwe had an epiphany.  He was so sad that he would be leaving the well-tarred streets of Banana Island and be returning home to that hell of a street in Okota.  “Ogbeni, we must work harder and have a place in Banana Island,” he told me.  Dimgba was a hard-working man, a visionary who should have lived long to reap the fruits of his toil.  The greatest honour that the Lagos State government can do in memory of my departed friend is to tar his street.  I am sure even the inhabitants wouldn’t mind if the street is renamed Dimgba Igwe Street after this great son of Nigeria—if the road is tarred for his sake.  That would make him happy in his grave.  That was what he yearned for and even begged our friend, the governor who gave us his word that he would assist.   
Every morning, we run on that bad road.  I couldn’t join him last Saturday because I was in the UK with my family for my son’s graduation—a day I was looking forward to with the pride and joy of a father.  Dimgba opted to stay and take care of the home front while I was away.  Somehow, I feel guilty.  If I had known it will end this way, I would have taken my beloved brother along. 
Pastor Igwe must have prayed that morning.  His first act at the break of every new day is to go on his knees.  He sings in praise of God, blesses the name of the Lord, speaks in tongue and prays for the Lord to deliver him from all evils.  But on that Black Saturday, the devil struck.  On the eve of his death, I had called him from Ipswich and told him the books I had bought for him.  Books like JFK’s Last Hundred Days, by Thurston Clarke, The Virgin Way, by Richard Branson, God is not a Christian, by Desmond Tutu and an epic book on the history of Jerusalem from the days of David up to the current day.  He was so excited.  He was waiting for the books.  He loved books.  Now, the evil forces have brought him to book. 
Adieu, my friend, my brother.  Like King David mourned his friend Jonathan, I cry: “How have the mighty fallen!  Tell it not in Gath.  Publish it not in Ashkelon.”  For a great man of journalism has passed away. Our latest book is a book called 50 World Editors, featuring conversations with editors around the world whom we met in the course of our travels.  We were planning to launch it, but see me now! 
This morning, I came across the New Men’s Devotional Bible you gave me on my 60th birthday.  Oh, you really tried on my 60th birthday and I was looking forward to celebrating in grand style your own 60thbirthday.  But, see me now! 
In the Bible you gave me, you wrote: “Ogbeni, be strong in the Lord and the power of His might.” (Ephesians 6: 10) 
My friend, I will be strong in the Lord.  I will fly the flag and search for heaven that you so much cared about.  Ogbeni, thank you.  Good night and enjoy your freedom.

LAGOS SOCIALITE SHADE ALESH IMPORTS N300,000 ASO EBI FOR SONs WEDDING

Lagos Socialite Sade Alesh has picked a N300,000 Aso Ebi for close friends attending her son’s wedding next month. The bride’s mom is also one of the most sought after textile merchants on the Island, and the lace is said to be a never seen before one, because it was specially ordered from Switzerland with a special design. There is also a general Aso Ebi which will be going for N65,000.

The wedding which will be in two parts is slated for 21st and 25th of next month. However it was also reported that the mother of the bride also is one of the most sought-after textile merchants on the Island, there is a general Aso Ebi which will be going for N65,000, many have been said to have paid for the N300, 000 Aso Ebi.

The mother of the groom is said to be a gold merchant, hence her high taste for good things. Few months ago, reports have it that Sade led her family and a powerful team of notable personalities to partake in the introduction ceremony of her first son, Abdul-Azeez

TEN YEARS AFTER WIFEs DEATH LANRE FOLAWIYO REMARRIES

Lanre and late wife
 

Lanre Folawiyo, one of the sons of the late multibillionaire industrialist and Baba Adinni of Nigeria, Chief Wahab Iyanda Folawiyo, has finally given in to the pressure mounted by his family and friends over the past few years to give marriage a shot again. Lanre has remained single after his wife, Fadeke (née TOS Benson) died ten years ago.He has settled for a half Ghanaian, half Belgian beauty who has been a constant fixture in his life for some time now. An introduction ceremony was recently held in Accra, Ghana, to seal the union. 
Lanre's elder brother, Tunde Tijani Folawiyo, who heads the behemoth Folawiyo business empire, led the entire family to Ghana, and the event turned out to be very colourful. Notable among those who featured on the entourage list was Lanre's mother Alhaja Bolatito Folawiyo, his eldest sister, Toyosi Folawiyo-Johnson, his step-mother, Sisi Abah Folawiyo, his mother-in-law, Ester Benson, his brothers-Bayo and Bolaji and sisters. His sister-in-law, Lisa Folawiyo (née Idowu), the international fashion designer, was also on the entourage. 

It is imperative to note that Lanre is still hugely loved within the T.O.S Benson's family for his resolve not to remarry after the death of his beloved wife in 2004. Lanre and Fadeke were childhood lovers who grew to become a couple in 2000, until death rewrote their trajectory. Since then, Lanre held on to the memories of his beloved Fadeke, doting on their only son, Amil and refusing to let another woman into his life. Ten years after, Lanre has agreed to soften his stance and is on the verge of being officially married before the end of the year. The marriage ceremony is billed to take place in Belgium, and it is going to be a strictly family affair event.

ITA GIWA SHELLS OUT N100M FOR DAUGHTERs WEDDING

THE high society is buzzling, participants are warming up. The cause of frenzy around town is described as the impending wedding of Senator Florence Ita-Giwa’s daughter, Kokoeka Florence Mayen to beau Chimaobi Shawcross. The development has set the party scene astir as preparations is said to have reached high pitch. Boxed invitation package wrapped in fuchsia and purple silk along with the lace aso ebi, headgear and aso oke cap are being dropped on the doorsteps of Nigeria’s high and mighty. A pack of the aso ebi is pegged at N100,000

The nuptials will begin with the  engagement in Cross River, and the Lagos jamboree is scheduled for September 20, 2014. The ceremony will take place at The Methodist Church of the Trinity, Tinubu, Lagos (at 3 p.m), with a lavish reception slated for Eko Hotel & Suites on Victoria Island Lagos. Those close to the politician and socialite who has been a fixture of high society for about four decades claimed that the wedding will be as grand as it will be elegant. It is going to be pay back time for the colourful politician fondly called Mma Bakassi, she has participated in some of Lagos high profile parties in the past.

The wedding proper has been contracted to Enthyst Events owned and operated by Ndidi Obioha, she is taking charge of the Lagos version. Another event manager have been told to take charge of the engagement which will hold in Sen Ita Giwa's mansion in Calabar Cross River. About N100 million is said to have been budgetted for the wedding for just 1,000 guests.

Koko is a graduate of the University of Essex, United Kingdom, and she recently completed her second Masters. She spent her childhood years, spending quality times with her mother and her best friend, Sisi Abah Folawiyo.