“Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,/
Compels me to disturb your season due:/
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,/
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer."
-"Lycidas" by John Milton.
How much sorrow and anguish it affords me to compose a eulogy for my dearest friend whose death has brutally forced me to confront one of life’s confoundingly horrific tragedies and sheer outrage. How terribly cruel and scarcely believable! Positively, an abominable “tale told by an idiot” in Shakespeare’s profound phraseology. The larger-than-life Chuks! Gone! What an unspeakable and most horrific tragedy. The sheer incongruity of it all! I feel the most terrible grief! And yet I must discharge this painful duty in honor of a great friend, big brother, and counselor, and altogether, a wonderful man.
And so, it begins, in the briefest possible compass, as a narrative with small vignettes.
~~~
Part 1: In the Beginning
"I have lost my right arm. I'm bleeding at the heart.”
-Gen Robert E. Lee on the loss of Stonewall Jackson, May 10, 1863.
I have lost my big brother and school father who taught me how to bathe myself (Behind the ears and knees and in between the crotch and the backside last” he said. 1,2,3... Commensurate with the sort of formulaic simplicity with which he approached life in general. Chuks was wont to reduce things into bite size chunks. And who would argue that it did not make them easily referenceable.
Chuks Okeke Esq. was a man with whom I shared a long and close friendship bounded by an abiding trust and the strictest fidelity that grew with leaps and bounds. And it all started when I was a young boy.
I was Chuks’ boy in secondary school boarding house. As his boy, it was a part of my duty to fetch his food from the refectory. Many times I would eat it if I was hungry, and he would never raise an eyebrow. The truth was that I wasn’t any good at that kind of arrangement, for one I was too small and rascally. And thinking back now I suppose he reasoned that I needed all the nourishment I could get if I were to grow a little bit more. That said, he never for once lacked his bath water. In point of fact, I am pleased to say that I was quite diligent at discharging that part of my responsibility (yes, he got his water whether my best friend Peter Okoye (Pero Pigers) and I sucked it out from water gallons held down with strong locks under their owner’s bed while they were in class (Pigers was very good at picking locks) or we fetched it from Emu or other places, Chuks and Kiri Atogwu (Peter’s master) got their water).
Chuks and his close friend and bunk mate, the “English gentleman” Henry Manafa (who used to bring us nice shirts from England), and their classmates - Mike Udah, Kiri Atogwu, Corne Ikem, Mike Obiefune and Patrick Manafa, etc (and I have every reason to believe that Mike and Patrick were geniuses) were confident big boys and a studious lot who taught us the value of education. And even mired as we were in our rascally indulgence then, we knew that they were special, and that education was terribly important. To these friends of Chuks, excellent types that I have always held in great esteem, I say thank you! I have carried the memories of your studious disposition and subject debates and fights about who was better academically speaking, with me through the years. And it has had a very profound impact on my life. (I would be very remiss of me however not to mention that they were also terrible smokers and always in the habit of sending Pero Pigers and I out most afternoons in the blazing sun to the nearby Otuocha police station to fetch some cigarettes – after Patrick had given you a knock on the head for no reason - but we didn’t mind at all. They funded our fried groundnuts :) ).
After secondary school, he kept a big brotherly eye on me through my youth and even when I became, in the American colloquial expression, “a grown ass man” he was always there riding shotgun (I daresay this was an excellent inclination he shared with Don Elioku who ultimately gave up his apartment for me when I first arrived America and became a Professor at TSU. Also, many years later, and well into my second marriage he would bring me a pot of local soup from time to time. I suspect that in both Chuks and Don’s estimation I remained the impish little boy who tagged along with them and took their little notes to girls. In this cold world it’s very rare to have people care deeply about you in this way and I think I’m very fortunate). He ran my personal and business affairs with commitment and dedication. In business he was, in every meaning of the word, my “consigliere.” The organizer of the clean up crew.
All the above is by way of saying that Chuks was a man whose counsel was required in all the milestone events of my life- even marriage (like Dr Seuss’ “Cat in the Hat”, Dr Ogugua Oraedu and I know a lot about that) and divorce (to add more meat to the flavorful broth, I recently learned that he had joined Don in Court in Houston, TX to attend my divorce proceedings). Indeed, I relied upon his counsel and guidance for the most difficult journeys of my life. For example when I was kicked out of UNN to JAMB office in Lagos to effect a change to my 2nd choice Unical (being first on the admissions roll but lacking a credit in Math a subject I would later come to confront at the London School of Economics and later in Computer coding) my first stop was to pay him visit at Enugu where he was living as a law student with Barrister Chibuko Ogboh at the latter’s swanky apartment (and I recall that his favorite tune for Sunday worship was “Jesus is love” by The Commodores. Millie Jackson was for the rest of the week). At other times I visited him at Enugu campus where he shared a room with Hipo Onwuegbuke (Hip de Harp. Machie goment) and others.
When I left Nigeria for the UK, and thereafter for the US, and through my corporate career there and later entrepreneurial endeavors in Nigeria and Africa he continued to play an outsize role in my life and was always on hand to offer wise counsel. This influence was not merely confined to working out the best possible path in the everyday struggle that is life. It seeped into matters of profound interiority like a very welcome rain on parched soil in the planting season. Chuks was a man after whom I modeled myself in many respects. His character and habits have shaped my life to a great extent – his discipline, for example. (You could also say that his neatness and meticulousness influenced my borderline OCD personality – well, maybe I copied Chuks too much this time).
Part 2: An Apotheosis of Form
But truly, what manner of man was Chuks that he wielded such an influence? What was his real nature?
In the 1800s, the maritime doldrums were a “belt of calms and light winds North of the Equator in which sailing ships were often becalmed.” The relationship between Chuks and many people afforded an extraordinary personal analogue to this physical phenomenon. He provided a safe harbor from Nigeria’s treacherous winds for many of us living abroad (this relationship was epitomized by our Texas brethren). This was possible because Chuks was a man who understood duty, and I daresay he was the very definition of a dutiful person. To every task and assignment - every jot and tittle of it - he gave himself completely i.e., committed himself with devotion and care. From small bore domestic dramas to complicated financial transactions Chuks was always there to lend a helping hand. He was the kind of man in whom one took great delight in saying, “in case of an accident or my death, call Chuks.” He was “our man in Lagos.” “Get Carter”. “Get Chuks.”
Regarding his personal disposition, Chuks was a phlegmatic character and a primary avatar of stolid masculinity. A man amongst men. And that is by way of saying a real man in contradistinction to the weak willed and forever whining spawn of our day who live a life of oblivion. He was a man of profound integrity and probity who possessed a most dignified mind. A gentleman in the proper conveyance of the term beyond the effete and capricious bourgeois affectations of our times. An apotheosis of good form.
“CC nwoke m! Odogwu! Oke osisi! Ogbuevi eze ama ama! “Iji ive oo”
If a “successful life” under our modernity is expressed in material quantities, i.e. in the ability to materialize acquisitive instincts, Chuks manifested it in all its stock elements and did so in a standout manner - a graduate of UNN law and the Nigerian Law School (LLB, BL), a thriving legal practice, a country home and a Lagos home, changing cars at will, frequent attendance at international professional conferences and yearly foreign holidays (the Houston crowd will miss his charming presence dearly), a brilliant wife and a thriving family. (You could say he lived the American dream of a perfect life - white picket fence, a beautiful wife, two cars and 2.5 kids in suburbia – without living there). Chuks was an honest and straightforward man of good character (a “stand-up guy” in American colloquialism) who faced down the peanut gallery and lived his life to the fullest. Obscurity was not his lot. Never!
Chuks was my hero. My role-model. And a man I idolized and greatly respected. It was well understood that I could never say no to Chuks. Ultimately, he became the man people asked to intercede for them if they considered their requests to be a little more difficult than usual or feared rejection if they came to me directly. (“Ogu Aloy”, as my people would say). This was not just because of the implicit trust between us, my faith and trust in his judgement and understanding were impermeable.
Even though I lived in the abroad and didn’t see him as often as I would have preferred, I made it a point to see him at every visit and, if I am to borrow the young people’s phraseology, we generally “hung out” or “chilled” at Yellow Chili (no pun intended). The last time I saw him alive (March 2020) I took him out to lunch at Posh Café in Lekki and over cold drinks (his beer, my Guinness) and a sumptuous lunch, he filled me in on all the happenings I should know, and we covered every subject under the sun. This was our ritual. In the early days of my brief return to Nigeria between 2002 and 2005, we would spend weekends at a certain wealthy friend’s villa in Cotonou where we both tried our hands separately at the pleasures of dissipation. My oga who didn't like draw soup was always excellent company. And I take great comfort in the fact that he lived his life to the fullest - in a florid brilliant style that broke down the seemingly thick prison walls of adult responsibility to breathe the salubrious air of freedom.
Aptronym. This is the English word for names particularly suited to their bearers. His name “Chukwuemeka” was strikingly opposite. May God be abundantly praised for giving us the gift of his life. (His baptismal name was Claudius (hence the “CC”) but he promptly hid it away in the deepest recesses of memory - like an exotic ceremonial garment moth-balled in “ike akpati”).
Part 3: Contemplation
The death of Chuks is a tragedy worthy of both the Greek tragedian Sophocles and Shakespeare’s telling. More crucially, it represents a dark metaphor for the death of our society.
First, the loss of innocence. It signifies the end of the world that once appeared so wondrous and magical to us when we were young. A simpler time seen through the innocent eyes of a young boy where Christian mothers sang, “Onye lisie ofe di mma osi na uwa agwugo..” at weddings and Christian fathers conducted funerals that were funereal i.e, somber and dignified. A time long gone when the late Nnam Dick Ugbagu subscribed to Time Magazine and gave us a window to the world, and our Uncle Victor Okeke brought us Ladybird books that taught us about Marie Curie etc, and played exotic music like Rare Earth, Bay City Rollers and Showaddywaddy amongst others that made us village boys feel like we belonged with the best of them, and my late uncle Ezeji played “Soley Soley” by the Middle of Road and the 14 Super Hits, etc. A lost time conjuring Elysian visions when it all seemed to be going somewhere. A vision of marvelous complexity now replaced by the obdurate reality of a world that is a grim and fallen place. The real world that abundantly reveals itself in a surfeit of betrayals and bad faith. A sunken place.
Second, the disappearance of a universal nature named Truth epitomized by the loss of values and the dearth of outrage (one refers to the negation of bedrock of values and belief systems in our society). In our time, it has become possible, if you have money and power to steal things that do not belong to you - land, position, money, chieftaincy title, etc- and contrive to hold the people Minotaur-like captive in the dungeon of misery of their own ignorance. And fed on a steady diet of treachery, perfidy, fraudulence, and duplicity overlaid on religion, the society manifests symptoms akin to mass psychogenic disorder. This condition, the product of an unremitting psychological torment fueled by many a pastor-huckster’s monomania and the politician’s self-aggrandizing and disturbingly misguided policies, coerce the captive society into further wretchedness. And acting towards the norms set for this disorder, abominations, and anomalies like the cutting of heads, and disinterment of corpses, the dismemberment of living bodies and the harvesting of organs become quotidian matters. In the premise, crimes, however vile, depraved, and shocking to morality and public conscience, i.e., crimes of moral turpitude have transmuted from high crimes or felonies to mere misdemeanors, like going over the speed limit. At the present time in Nigeria, money buys everything. Even human life. As this malevolent energy proliferates and normal behavior is pathologized, the individual who endeavors to maintain true fidelity to virtue and rectitude becomes an alien thrust into a “terrarium crowded with the most abominable creatures.” These creatures - coarse and malicious beings - impelled by savagery (the destruction of their futures) towards more savagery of their own surround and assault decency on all sides daily.
The beleaguered society now habituated to “anyhowness” or happenstance arrangements is forced to live by the fraught creed of the assassin: “Everything is allowed, nothing is prohibited.” And conjuring the apparitions of our unmitigated bad faith and betrayals, we confront a dystopian world where rich men are gods and political office holders occupy even a higher empyrean realm. Truth, like a great garden goes to seed and is replaced by invasive vines with thorns. It is without a doubt a great testament to the durability of human behavior that this going to seed, or degeneration has taken place within the brief time lapse of one generation.
Perhaps the world as we know it has long ceased to exist, and we now live in a parallel universe. This leads me to believe that the ever-dutiful Chuks whom we could always count upon to do things in a timely manner knew precisely when to take his leave and did it when the ovation was loudest.
I do not presume any authority or judgement in all of these. I am only a philosopher, and the philosopher is a Cassandra, by his calling.
Part 4: Adieu!
When Mrs Ngozi Agbata my friend and Chuks’s younger sister wrote:
“Aloy, pls pray for me. My system has not found any headway, going forward. There is hardly any aspect of my life that doesn't have Chuks in it! We talked at least every other day, so there is so much pile-up! For the first time, the scriptures seem to have lost their steam. In my subconscious, he just couldn't have passed away like that; even though I was fully involved in the whole drama. I haven't been this confused in my entire life!”
she spoke for all of us. We have lost the magnetic North of our compass.
Adieu Chuks!
You have reminded us that we’re finite beings and invited us to ponder our finitude and in doing so, if necessary, to re-examine and re-imagine our lives. In response to your reminder, I have retired to Cambridgeshire to teach Tech innovation and entrepreneurship to the younger generation. Here, I hope to live an intermediated and less fractured existence while wishing for a protracted period of happiness before my number comes up. My time. Our time. Time. Clock. In the end we’re all raucous habitues at the bar of life compelled to take our leave at closing time. And notwithstanding our efforts to counter the nullity and impermanence of life, we are but a topiary horse, predisposed to toppling over at the slightest wind provocation. Death is but a metamorphosis, a necessary condition in the order of mankind’s flux of passing and the fleetingness of all mortal beings. Our decomposition and absorption into the universe provide a fertile loom for a higher species to take root and flourish (the acorn must die for the mighty oak to rise). How hopeless! How absurd! This constant rolling of rocks! This dialectic of Sisyphus!
The last time I spoke to Chuks was on December 28th, 2020 and observing that he sounded a bit off I inquired to know if he was okay, or to use the apt French phrase, en pleine forme? He responded that he was okay, just nursing a slight head cold. That “cold”, my dear friends, is the reason we are all gathered here today.
I will bring this note to a close with a Dirge:
Hector Villa-Lobos, “Bachianas brasileiras No 1”
Sergei Rachmaninov, “Vocalise.”
C.C. nwoke m, I mourn your loss as one bewails the loss of a vital organ. Since the day you left this world, I have been overburdened by an intense anger at the injustice of it all. My pain is undulating. I am addled with grief and only the Prophet Jeremiah knows my lamentations. Nevertheless, it has pleased God to take you out of this transitory life. And God is a transcendental truth beyond our mere mortal understanding.
I pray for the repose of your soul every day. May God forgive your sins and grant you eternal life. You were more than a friend. You were my big brother and guide and counselor, and you meant the world to me.
I will hail you now for the last time:
“CC nwoke m iji ive oo”
Salvator Mundi, Salva Nos.
~~~~~~~~
“Do not act as if thou were going to live ten thousand years.
Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good.”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations.
“The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.”
Shakespeare — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)
Aloy Chife, Ph.D.
Cambridgeshire, England.
August 25, 2021.