Some deaths arrive as news. Others enter the body.
They sit heavily in the chest, lodge somewhere in the throat, and make even familiar names look strange on a screen.
Dimbo Atiya.
Gone.
It still feels like a sentence that should not have been written.
Those who knew him called him Chokali, or simply Choks. Chokali is Hausa for spoon. I am not privileged to know the exact story behind that nickname, but I know enough to understand that there was affection in it. It was one of those names that belonged not merely to a person, but to a circle of friendship, familiarity and shared history.
And perhaps, now, the name carries a meaning none of us intended.
The Spoon.
A spoon serves. It carries. It gives. It delivers something of value to another.
In many ways, that was Dimbo, he gave of himself.
He gave his time, his energy, his presence, his creativity, his laughter and, often quietly, his heart. Sadly, as is often the fate of people who spend themselves for others, not enough people stop to ask what the giver needs.
Dimbo was a big man physically, but his heart appeared determined to outgrow even his frame.
My earliest recollection of meeting him goes back to my days as a youth leader. He came with some COCIN youth leaders to the Baptist Church. The exact details have grown blurry with time, but somehow a friendship was born from that encounter.
We would travel different roads, work in different spaces, pursue different interests, yet our paths kept crossing. Creatives have a peculiar way of gatecrashing one another’s worlds. Somewhere around people, ideas, conversations, faith, society, culture and creativity, Choks would appear again.
And then there was film.
Dimbo became part of Nigeria’s vast creative storytelling community, working as a Nollywood producer, participating in that restless industry that has carried Nigerian stories from neighbourhood screens to audiences far beyond our borders.
Producing is one of those jobs that often leaves the producer invisible while everyone else appears on the screen. The producer worries about the things the audience never sees. People. Logistics. Money. Locations. Timing. Temperaments. Deadlines. Endless improvisation.
Perhaps that too suited Dimbo. He was involved in making things happen.
Behind stories were people, and behind people were relationships. Film was not merely entertainment. It was collaboration, imagination and the difficult business of transforming an idea into something others could see.
A producer, in many respects, is also a spoon. He carries many ingredients and tries somehow to get them to the same table. Dimbo did that in film, and in life.
His death cuts hard. It has taken me time to write these words because sometimes writing is not about finding the right sentences. Sometimes it is simply about gathering enough courage to admit that someone will no longer walk into the room.
But beyond mourning Dimbo, his death forces me to confront something uncomfortable about us.
And I will begin by pleading guilty; We are too good at celebrating people after they die. I have read many of the eulogies written about Dimbo. Beautiful tributes. Loving memories. Testimonies about his kindness, generosity, warmth and humanity.
And one question keeps bothering me: Did we tell him?
Did we randomly pick up the phone and say, Choks, guy, you are a good man? Did we tell him that he mattered? Did we tell him we appreciated his friendship? Did we say thank you without needing something first? Did we ever pause to ask the man who gave so much whether he needed anything himself? Did anyone ask whether the Spoon was empty?
That question is bigger than Dimbo.
It is about how strangely eloquent we become in the presence of death. Someone dies and suddenly we discover paragraphs. Photographs appear. Old stories return. Our timelines overflow with adjectives. Kind. Wonderful. Exceptional. Generous. A rare soul. A great man.
And I ask myself: where were those words when the person could hear them? We have become experts at sending flowers to graves while starving living people of affirmation.
That is why Patoranking’s “Celebrate Me” resonates so deeply at a time like this. Beneath the rhythm is a simple, almost uncomfortable plea: celebrate me while I am alive.
Do not wait for the obituary. Do not save your best words for the condolence register. Do not wait until I become a photograph enlarged beside a coffin before telling the world what I meant to you.
This year has been particularly brutal; Gold. Tersoo. Philo. Dimbo. And lately, Carl. I knew each of them in one capacity or another.
Carl James especially leaves another kind of ache. Young, energetic and deeply loved, he represented the sort of life we instinctively imagine still has years ahead of it. There was youthfulness in his presence, an energy that made death feel even more intrusive, even more unreasonable. To see so much life suddenly reduced to memory is to be reminded again that age does not negotiate with mortality. Carl was loved, and that love now carries the unbearable responsibility of remembering him in a world that expected to have him much longer.
One name after another. One reminder after another that tomorrow is not a contract. Death confiscates not only people, but possibilities. The call you were going to make. The visit you kept postponing. The apology you intended to offer. The lunch you kept saying you would have. That famous sentence: We need to catch up soon.
Then suddenly there is no “soon.” Perhaps that is one of grief’s most painful revelations: how much affection we leave sitting in drafts.
And there is another uncomfortable dimension to this.
In our society, we seem to celebrate power far more eagerly than goodness. Let a politician obtain an appointment and congratulatory posters appear everywhere. Let a public figure distribute a fraction of what belongs to the public and praise singers proclaim unprecedented generosity.
We decorate those with access to power while ordinary decent people quietly walk through life uncelebrated.
The man who helps a friend without publicity. The woman who pays a child’s school fees anonymously. The creative who opens doors for younger people. The neighbour who keeps showing up. The colleague who quietly makes everyone’s burden lighter. The friend who takes your calls at unreasonable hours.
They may never receive a billboard. Then they die. And suddenly we discover they were national treasures.
What a strange economy of affection.
Why must death authenticate goodness before we acknowledge it?
How many Dimbos are still around us? How many good people do we interact with every day whose value we assume they already know? How many are constantly giving while nobody notices that they too are tired? How many people must die before we learn to celebrate ordinary goodness with the same enthusiasm with which we celebrate political power?
Dimbo’s death should do more than make us sad. It should disturb us. It should force us into a different way of living.
Call somebody today without needing anything. Tell your friend, I value you. Tell your colleague, you make this place better. Tell your sibling, I am proud of you. Tell the person who once helped you, I have not forgotten. Make peace with someone while both of you still have breath to enjoy the reconciliation. Buy the flowers before the funeral. Write the tribute before the obituary. Take the photograph while everyone in it can still laugh.
Because somewhere around us are men and women carrying everybody else while silently wondering whether anyone sees them.
And now the Spoon has been laid down.
Dimbo Atiya lived. He created, laughed, produced stories, connected people, entered rooms and left memories behind. And if death teaches us anything, it is that human beings do not remain merely in photographs. They remain in the lives they touched.
So perhaps my final words to Choks are also an apology.
Forgive us for the flowers that came late. Forgive the calls we postponed. Forgive the praise we assumed you already knew. Forgive us for believing there would always be another opportunity to say the obvious.
And to the rest of us still here, may Dimbo’s passing teach us one stubborn lesson: Celebrate people while they can still hear the applause. Do not wait until their names become obituary headlines.
Somewhere close to you is another Dimbo. Another giver, creative, dependable friend, and spoon serving everybody at life’s table. See them. Thank them, and love them loudly enough for them to hear it. Because eventually every spoon is laid down.
And when that day comes, may we not once again stand beside a grave carrying beautiful words that should have been delivered to a living heart.
Farewell, Dimbo Atiya.
Farewell, Chokali.
Farewell, Choks.
Farewell, the Spoon.
You served your portion.
May your rest be gentle.
And may those of us who remain finally learn to celebrate the living. May Nigeria be celebrated.
