TUESDAY at Our Saviour's Church, Tafawa Balewa Square in Lagos, family and friends will hold a memorial service for the late founder of this newspaper, Alexander Uruemu Ibru, who died on November 20 last year.
Amid Bible readings, sermons, songs and sobs, the impotence of death in the matter of Alex Ibru will be advertised. He will show up. In triumph.
His beloved wife, Maiden, now Chairman, Publisher and Chief Executive of Guardian Press Limited, will reflect on the loneliness of life without her hero, her own Alexander The Great. She will, as she always has done, reflect on their partnership in trials and triumphs.
The children will drop some tears on the thought of life without their father.
Friends and associates will remember the man who always sparkled in simple white, a white that a patch of black on his right arm, a birth mark, seemed to accentuate! A man whose good looks matched the beauty of his mind.
They will talk of the loyalty of a man to whom his friends were brothers or sisters. To whom his employees were colleagues.
People in the church will have the chance to testify to Ibru's uncommon life and a nation will reflect again on his life of service to it.
The memories of his illustrious life are so sweet that they have not only been the balm on the sore of his passing, they have kept him alive since last November. Those memories will bring him alive to the congregation tomorrow and will keep him alive forever.
Ibru's death attracted a torrent of tributes from Presidents and peasants alike because he served from both extremes.
President Goodluck Jonathan said Ibru's life had a pattern of good works. He was not only among the best of his generation, "Nigeria has lost an astute, principled businessman and a committed nationalist who willingly accepted to serve the nation when the odds may have dictated otherwise."
As the motorcade made its way to the church in Ughelli for the commendation service last November, an old woman who had obviously discharged herself, intravenous infusion still in place, stood a few metres from the road, in front of the hospital Alex Ibru built for the villagers and sobbed: "Our saviour is no more! Who will save us now?" Her wailing was interrupted by a nurse who gently pulled her back to the hospital building.
His integrity, discipline and generosity brought out the eloquence in all who attended his funeral.
Bishop Alex Okoh, Primate of the Anglican Church, preached a sermon on Ibru's giving, his impeccable character and style.
The Primate wondered if many, even in the clergy, could live like Alex Ibru, not only saying that his wealth belonged to Almighty God but actually giving so generously of that wealth to the church of God and to the people.
He was born Alexander Uruemu Ibru on March 1, 1946 to Janet Omotogor and Peter Ekpete Ibru of Agbarha-Otor. He was the last of the Ibru brothers who grew up to become perhaps the most successful band of brothers in business in Nigeria under the leadership of the eldest, Michael. Even among the brothers, Alex was specially gifted as a businessman, a trait that caught the eye of the patriarch who allowed him to set out on his own early.
He founded The Guardian in 1983 with the aim of making it the best newspaper in Nigeria and one of the five best in the world. He hired the best and the brightest for this venture and it was not long before the newspaper became the flagship of the Nigerian press. Though it grew in strength both editorially and commercially, Ibru was interested in the newspaper business not for the money. He called it an institution for the betterment of Nigeria and a voice for the people. A vessel of truth.
Hence the complete freedom he gave his journalists.
As was reported a year ago upon his death, Alex Ibru was so humble it embarrassed.
He was not a press baron in the mould of William Maxwell Aitken later known as Lord Beaverbrook, the Canadian-born businessman who once owned a fleet of powerful newspapers including Daily Express and the London Evening Standard. Not for him the Beaverbrookian thirst for power, a lot of which ownership of a newspaper confers. Not for him the interest in joining the caravan of the ruling elite, with the attendant patronages! He could not even be likened to Harold Robinson Luce, founder of TIME magazine, himself a journalist who allowed good journalism practice but, expectedly, was involved as a publisher in his publications often affectionately known as the Lucepapers.
Though Luce famously conceded to his employees, the journalists, or, to use his words, his college of cardinals, that he was no infallible Pope, Alex Ibru actually ran The Guardian as though he was the Alter Server while the journalists were the Pope! "You are the experts. Please do it your way."
He founded the Trinity Foundation through which he did massive philanthropy but, in line with his style, far from the klieg lights.
When the Sani Abacha junta tapped him for membership of its ruling committee and Minister of Internal Affairs, Ibru accepted to join hands with others to save a nation staring down the abyss from the free fall. Once he realised the evil intentions of the ruler: a desire not only to subvert democracy but also to enthrone injustice, he quit.
Then, the picture became clearer. He was the light, alongside a few others like Olu Onagoruwa and General Chris Alli in the heart of darkness that the Abacha regime was. And once he left, it was darkness fully visible!
So, the light had to be extinguished. In the most violent way possible.
An attempt on Ibru's life was carried out with devastating gusto. He survived it but with very deep scars. In a typical grace, he sought no revenge but instead forgave his assailants.
For about 15 years more, time enough for him to see God's Grace on his life, he devoted his life fully to the service of God and to humanity.
There is a democracy about death. It comes equally to us all and makes us all equal when it comes, wrote the poet, John Donne, a line the famous evangelist, Billy Graham, loved to quote at the funeral of American Presidents.
Alex Ibru's only sin was his commitment to democracy and justice and the powers that be sought to take his life as recompense. He was a quintessential democrat.
For him, there was a democracy, even to wealth. Hence the man of means gave meaning to life with his wealth, making a statement that wealth was meaningless if it served only the wealthy.
He was the man of steel who never melted under the bullet.
And his triumph over death is assured in the legacies he has left behind.
