I find calling Jerry a noise maker not very nice.....sad...
For some of my colleagues who may have never heard of
Capt Jerry Eyituoyo Omakpo Agbeyegbe RIP an article I saved from Punch Newspaper that November 2004.
Your friend is gone”, said Mary, the widow of slain pilot and aviation safety campaigner, Jerry Agbeyegbe, over the phone. I had called that morning to confirm if it was true that Jerry had been murdered by some yet unknown assassins the previous morning. Mary confirmed my worst fears – that I had indeed lost my dear friend.
I met Jerry in 1983. I was a fresh reporter working for The Guardian at the Ikeja airport. Jerry was a pilot and operations director with Okada Airline. Months later, he walked away from the job on account of the airline management’s ill-treatment of some junior pilots. Jerry was not directly affected but he quit because he could not stand injustice. Many people were surprised that he could leave such a plum job. Jerry was undaunted. The fact that those three pilots refused to resign with him did not make him look back either. That is Jerry for you – restless, principled, stubborn, risk-taker, and dogged fighter.
Jerry thereafter picked up his pen and began freelancing as Aviation Correspondent. For some time, he did not care about the payment until his savings from Okada Airline ran out. He was barely surviving on his meagre earnings from journalism. He also wrote for international aviation magazines.
As “troublesome” and “rebellious” as he was generally perceived to be, most people would not believe that Jerry did not abuse drugs or alcohol. He was a man much misunderstood, a firebrand who bowed and smiled and hugged when one encountered him, a fighter who often looked so humble and so soft and harmless. He spent his adult years fighting to create an enabling environment for this one love. All other things into which he dabbled were mere distractions. Unionism, safety activism and journalism were means to creating the right and safe environment for Jerry and the rest of us to fly.
At the Lagos flying club where he was an instructor, Jerry trained a good number of pilots now in command today. His students, colleagues and seniors have confirmed that Jerry was a damn good pilot. Having been exposed to American aviation practices, he hoped to see a similar system in place at home. His vision was an industry where services were delivered efficiently; where there was a strong commitment to safety; where lives were not endangered on the altar of corruption, nepotism and mediocrity.
He fearlessly challenged some of the dinosaurs in the industry who wanted the rot to continue. He challenged bureaucrats who saw their jobs as means to self-enrichment and he challenged half-baked “technocrats” who took wrong decisions in matters of life and death. Challenging the established order is dangerous business in any society. Jerry understood this. In an industry such as aviation which operated like a cult, Jerry was a marked man. He was branded a troublemaker and refused job. It came as a surprise to some of us when he was hired by the Aviation Ministry as its head of its flight calibration unit in the 1990s. The very people he fought to change became his colleagues. I doubt if he was ever fully accepted in their midst. He enjoyed his job and he quickly earned his promotion to Chief Pilot of the ministry. He changed what he could from within.
Inevitably, unionism landed Jerry in trouble. He was suspended and later sacked. He challenged it in court where the matter has remained unresolved till today. In our beloved country, justice is not only delayed, it is very often denied. Jerry never got justice until his death.
About two years ago, he visited me with Mary in Lagos. During the visit, Mary urged me to talk to him to endeavour to live a more regular life. But Jerry was not a regular guy. He laughed off our concern. It is impossible to run away from oneself. We knew. Jerry knew too. Mary loved him, absolutely. She sacrificed her own personal dreams to make him happy.
Jerry would later pick up a job to ward off pressure from family and friends. But he refused to abandon his crusade for air safety. If his stand on the policies of the government in which I served sometimes put me at odds with him, I did not show it. He sent me a text message months ago wondering why I had forgotten an old friend. I called to apologise and we exchanged stories about jobs, families and mutual friends. I never brought up his criticisms of government aviation policies. Our friendship transcended transient government appointments.
Capitalising on the one weakness Jerry had which the rest of us often pretend not to share, “Juliet Okonkwo” was used as a bait to lure him out of his house in Victoria Island to enable his enemies to do their worst at Alapere. The cowards who killed him probably did not realise it would stir up so much feeling of anger and sorrow. Jerry himself would not have imagined so much genuine outpouring of emotion. It is not much consolation, but Mary, the Agbeyegbe children and the rest of the family should hold their heads high that Jerry did not die in vain. Our lives have been greatly enriched by his brief but eventful life. Good bye, dear friend. You have gone where fierce indignation can no longer lacerate your heart, as Jonathan Swift wrote on his tombstone many years ago.