What is this life if, hustling and bustling, we forget the lives that once made our hearts believe in human goodness and greatness? The Sanomi family of Delta State embodies the right attitude to life as they always call to remembrance the times and legacies of their progenitor, the late Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), Dickens Oghenereuemu Patrick Sanomi.
By March 11, 2024, it would be 23 years since Sanomi crossed to the other side. In his lifetime, he built a reputation for being uncompromising but compassionate, no less a solid and reliable individual than a warm and life-strengthening sun. Remembering him and all his good works, the entire family honours his memory.
Poets would sigh and say that the imperial head that once wore the crown of decisions and guidance has gracefully bowed itself. But the Sanomi family would say that the husband, father, brother, uncle, grandfather, and father-in-law has left enough seeds of motivation and direction to last one lifetime and a half.
Sanomi’s lifetime indeed holds significance for parenting, civil service, leadership, and legacy-building. These variables informed the establishment of the Dickens Sanomi Foundation (DSF), a philanthropic platform that has blessed thousands of people including women and children since it was set up in 2011. It is the perfect mirror of the late AIG, quiet but dependable.
Just a year after its establishment, DSF saved from a devastating flood the lives of more than 12,000 people living in Delta and Bayelsa. Without DSF’s timely intervention, most of them may have been swept away by the flood or succumbed to the destitution that followed. But DSF came through and has been doing so ever since, much as Sanomi did for relatives, friends, and strangers in his lifetime.
It will soon be 23 years since he left, but his family have not forgotten. Like recollections of him, Sanomi’s legacies remain.
