I am Huram King, a multi-media broadcast journalist, from Adamawa, North East Nigeria.
Between 2008 and 2010, I co-anchored a mid-night radio counselling show- Heart2Heart, on Radio Gotel Yola, 917 kHz AM.
It kept listeners around the North East, the Cameroons, and other parts of Nigeria wide awake, Mondays to Fridays, every week.
One night after the show, at a few minutes after 1am, I received that call! The call that was to be our gateway to the south, across the Niger.
The caller, Angela, said she picked our Radio signals and followed our program from far away Port Harcourt, Rivers State, in Nigeria’s Niger Delta Region.
And Dr Angela, an award winning OAP, philanthropist, administrator, educationist and a consummate Child Rights advocate, became our gateway to Southern Nigeria; a relationship we have sustained till date.
Angela, is no doubt a beauty and brains. A gentle spirited woman that reached out to our people in North Eastern Nigeria, the Cameroons and beyond via the radio, with her vast counselling experience.
She kept our radio audiences wide awake during the mid-night HEART2HEART programme, with a Mid Week version called ‘Pleasures And Pain.’
Within a short period, we built a very emotionally connected family on radio with listeners from different cultures, religion and socio-economic backgrounds. The bond was truly very strong.
12- 1am Mondays to Fridays, audiences waited to connect with each other, but more especially to hear that voice – Angela – reach out to them from far away Port Harcourt. Her voice was like a healing balm, soothing the broken-hearted, wounded and bruised listeners and those working on building quality relationships.
She was quintessential and approached every topic and listeners’ counselling needs with great respect and grace. Soon, Angela became that sought after counsellor on Radio Gotel Yola.
Suffice it to say and boldly too, that throughout her engagements with mostly Northern audiences, Angela was topnotch professional in her approach to conversations and never hurting the sensibilities of the people despite coming from entirely different cultural background. This indeed is what it means to be a true Nigerian, knowing that “though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand”. She simply became everyone’s sweetheart.
In January 2010 when we got approval of the Gotel Management to put faces to all the voices – physical meeting of Heart2Heart family members, tickets for the event were sold out before we even crossed all the ‘T’s and dotted all the ‘I’s. We were to later understand that most people rushed the tickets because they wanted to meet that Port Harcourt Angela!
On the D day, the pull up was huge. That night was the most amazing night ever in the history of the show! Angela flew in from PH! and we had a massively successful show that drew listeners from across the country.
Since then, we have remained connected to this Rivers Angel. Amazing personal relationships were established and with no regrets. For Angela, humanity is everything. It is difficult to put figures to the number of lives she touched and in how many ways she did so.
Therefore when we heard she was elected Vice Chairman of Opobo/Nkoro LGA of Rivers State, we were not in doubt that she would leave great imprint in the sands of time.
We were also not scared that she was venturing into a volatile political field. We had confidence that wisdom, professionalism, respect for humanity, her gentle spirited nature and fear of God would lead this peaceful, soft-spoken woman to success.
3 years after, it is no wonder we see her constituents and other people from Rivers all over the social media platforms singing her praises for making great impact in many areas including education, healthcare and other sectors.
We are also not surprised at the calls for the Government to give her more responsibilities in Rivers State. She has the capacity to lead in very many areas of endeavour including administration, media management and other fields, with excellence.
I, on behalf of your very many friends and fans, say congratulations to Dr Angela, a worthy ambassador for a successful tenure as VC/ Opobo/Nkoro LGA, Rivers State.
