Elegy For Gary “Madison” Omo-Odi

Your name may not ring a familiar bell in the public domain but like your father, you lived a life that was ahead of your time in a community that existed in a different historical time. While your father, Samuel Anamakiri, saw a future that would be driven by education and therefore established Booker T. Washington College in 1950 but the dream was killed by those who suffered from acute myopia, the DNA of foresight in you nudged you towards a life of entertainment but again, the society killed the dream.
Barely into teenage, you and your friends adopted “The Tankers” as the name of your musical act in the immediate post-independence years. You made melodious music with invisible instruments which sounds stemmed from the inner recesses of your pre-puberty hearts and harmoniously emerged from your unbroken voices. This was about the same time the Beatles, Rolling Stones and other Mersey Side upstarts commenced their music career in the United Kingdom. The Beach Boys and others did likewise on the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean.
Sadly, while your contemporaries in Europe and America were appreciated and encouraged by their society, you and your friends were hassled and hustled to a juvenile court in 1965 for singing a love song to the numero uno princess of Ogbaland at Ahia Orie market square in Omoku.
At the historic juvenile court, which attracted a huge crowd due to its negative essence, you stood firm in friendship with your friends (Dike Ake, lkechuku Adiela obm, Michael Amadike obm and I) and spoke in one voice. And when you were discharged and acquitted but bound not to be seen with each other for six months, you carefully remained faithful to the friendship.
Even when at sixteen, one of your friends was de-robed as a chorister and called “okoronwangbogbo” (prodigal son) for buying a guitar, you stayed firm in friendship; then there was an outrage in the community when you and one of your friends jettisoned your given names and chose Gary and Jason.
This was about the same time Harry Webb became Cliff Richard, Thomas Woodward became Tom Jones, Reginald Dwight opted for Elton John, Richard Starkey chose Ringo Starr (Beatles), Davie Jones became David Bowie; and on the western shores of the Atlantic Ocean, Marion Morrison became John Wayne, Yuly Borisovich Briner became Yul Bryner, Norma Jean Mortenson became Marilyn Monroe, Robert Zimmerman became Bob Dylan, Stevland Morris became Stevie Wonder, Vincent Furnier became Alice Cooper, Anna Bullock became Tina Turner and the list goes on ad infinitum in the entertainment industry.
These ladies and gentlemen of the industry of stars were appreciated and applauded on both sides of the Atlantic and they made fame and fortune with the same talent regarding which you and your friends were disparaged.
And if I may get personal here, in the immediate post-war years, Modison consistently attended the shows of “The Blackstones”, my rock band, in Ludo Nite Club, Hilsom Inn, Copa Cabana, Executive Club 67, Land of Canaan Hotel, Chesterfield Motel, Port Harcourt, not just to catch the birds but to remind me of my birth status as an “only son” and the need for me to pursue a career outside music, emphasizing that we were born in the wrong time and place.
I listened to him and returned to school; he was overjoyed and, eventually, he named his first son after me. Can there be a greater honor and show of friendship than this?
As the pioneer chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni Local Government Area, you played a fundamental role in chaperoning the party to victory in 1999, which ushered in the historic Odili Administration.
Modison, for more than fifty years, you and I had a friction-free friendship and we were like brothers. Your exit has left a vacuum that no one else can fill. Listen, grab a golden saxophone, which was your chosen instrument while in this mad house called earth, and blow; play on, until I join you with my guitar where nothing can separate us again.
Adieu, faithful friend; adieu, Gary Modison. Rest in the blessed and blissful bosom of the Divine.
Osai writes from Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt.

Jason Osai