How I escaped death by a whisker - Henry Njoku.

Chief Henry Njoku, the Chairman, Board of Trustees of the Association of Nigerian Licensed Customs Agents (ANLCA) cheated death by sheer providence.

He could have been part of the victims who lost their lives in the Sosoliso air crash that occurred in 2005.

But due to his humility, he yielded his place to another passanger who begged him to take up the last seat on the flight. He narrated this heart-stopping experience and other issues that shape his social life with our correspondents.

Educational qualifications
I have my MBA in Business Administration and PGD in Business Administration and HND. I did all these things while I was working. I ran these programmes while I was doing business.

I had both my primary and secondary school education in Imo state.

How do you relax?
At the level which we have done business, whether I am there or not, work is going on and if I check my phone, I can tell you what is going on there. So, once in a while, I create time to rest. Once I finish with you now, I am shutting this door because I want to rest.

How do you inter-marry your business with your family?
Well, I can tell you I am a very lucky man. I have five children, two boys and three girls. In fact, my last child is twenty years old and she has finished her Masters degree in Pharmacy.
She is in Aberdeen. My first daughter made distinction in Aberdeen, she works with KPMG here.

That is why I said God has a way of blessing people and I have done my own bit, i am just beginning now to relax.

So, I don’t worry myself any longer. Before I was worried because I was training children but now, I am training myself.

What is your favourite food?
Rice is my favourite food

Do you like sport?
Yes, I engage in exercise. I like football. I don’t like watching football because I was developing High Blood Pressure because if they beat Nigeria now, I will take sleeping tablet and I will not sleep.

Sometimes, if they are playing a game, I can tell a friend to be watching and if we are beating them, I will tune up but if they are beating us, I won’t tune in.

Your favourite colour
I like white because it brings out how neat you are. Most people who know me in Port Harcourt know me that I wear white including sandals.

How do you manage women who may want to hang around you?
I am a Deputy Grand Knight in the Order of Saint Molumba. I am the next in command in my order. I started early, at twenty six, I got married. So, people call my first son my younger brother but the day they were doing birthday for me in Presidential Hotel, the boy came to me and said he didn’t know where I derived my power and energy from, that when he was with me, i would come back 12 midnight and by 4:30 am, I am already in my gym doing exercise.

I took the microphone and said a young man is asking his fellow young man where he derived his energy from.

As far as I am concerned, if God blesses you with good children, who respect people, who have fear of God, you know too that whatever work you are doing, God will recognise you one way or the other.

What’s your perception about life?
The way I see life is that you come and play a role and you go. If God gives you wealth, He didn’t give you wealth to intimidate others but to help others and then you can be somebody’s mentor.

How I cheated death.
I bought the last ticket of the ill-fated Sosoliso aircraft. I was the last person, I was coming from PDP rally in Lagos that day.

The flight was 12:30 and the next one was Chachangi aircraft. One Customs Area Controller begged me to yield my seat for him as he was in a hurry.

Since the time for the next flight was not too far, I obliged him. So he died in the crash.

When I got home, I put off my phone and when I put the three phones off, so people could not get me. Naturally, they thought I was dead because they knew I was on that flight.

When I parked my car at the GRA, people started running away because they thought I was already dead in the plane crash. One of them later summoned enough courage to come near me and touch me to know if was human or a spirit.

All this while I was confused over what was happening before they later told me what happened. I then told them how I gave my seat to another passenger who eventually died instead of me