“Vox audita perit, littera scripta manet” – (The heard word is lost, the written letter abides). This Latino phrase ceaselessly reverberates in the minds of many. For a daring eighteen scores and half a decade days, we have learnt to stick to your unusual absence, wishing we could still find the right words to describe exactly what it is like.
“Hearsay, untold speculations, Ghanaians measured opinion of ‘killing’ one before his time, ‘if it is not true then it was cleverly invented’”, were the major reactions to the dreadful announcement of your untimely demise. Waiting hours on end that your cold lifeless body would resurrect with some earnest breath, hoping beyond hope that you would make it sooner than later.
But no, the agonizing words, ‘I’m not going to be here anymore than I have to’, became rather nagging and we couldn’t muster the sheer courage to patronize it. But after that fateful 18th January 2014, your protest became well noted. The entire world was pricked by a thorn and what flowed was what was inside – Blood, yes, thick warm blood in the form of unexplainable tears.
Like a beast wounds its prey, so our hearts were torn apart… The death of the man who worked himself to the bone and managed to etch the name of Ghana and Africa in the world of the British Broadcasting Corporation was nobody’s idea of an eternal plague.
In the feeblest of mind, we supposed two scores and a year was too early an age to have died, considering the plethora of things to oversee. Ghana went dead!!!…heads stood still as shoulders did not even denote the movement of breathing, at the sudden nail-biting news of your death which did not quite square with our understanding, and which has taught us nothing more than defiant endurance.
General Dumor, you were a thousand lives in one; a resolute mentor, a world-class media icon, a stalwart of admirable discourse, and an au naturel ace journalist. By far, the sole African, privileged to have held interviews with extremely high profile figures across continents. The onslaught of insurmountable pain from bloodshot teary eyes of all, was a culmination of a whisper of prayer to God, pleading to bring you back.
The world hasn’t been the same without you. But we believe you still exist, yes, in the bosom of the Father who alone has the answers to all of our questions. You also exist, General, in your three beautiful kids, you can’t imagine how much they have missed you, for the very first time doing their birthdays without daddy…
When Kwansema said, ‘Till death do us part’, it never appeared you would be dissevered way earlier than she had anticipated. She presumably pretends to be okay because she hasn’t got another option as the silent screams of ‘Find Komla, find my beloved and bring him back to my arms, for a coveted prize of pounds sterling’, is as evident as anything as she mourns you each day of her life. The world is still in the process of recovering its balance, finding it hard to even afford a half-wrinkled smile.
As we celebrate your first anniversary, we would like for you to know, General Afeke Dumor, that you were once in a lifetime God-sent, in one word, IRREPLACEABLE. The good news however is that we shall meet again and then our joy would go up ten notches in that beautiful city of the New Jerusalem, as Revelations rightly calls it, walking on streets of gold, where death, sickness, tears, pain and turmoil are no more and where life is everlasting. Yours was a legendary life, one well lived!!!
With fond memories, adios amigo (Spanish) – ‘good bye my friend’.
