By
Patrick Naagbanton
 |
|
Leo
Igwe
|
Around noon on Sunday, 24th February,
2013, I was alone in my apartment in Port Harcourt, the oily capital of Rivers
State. My small, cheap Samsung phone which age is no longer on its side rang
severally. I couldn’t ignore its vibrations; I picked it, to hear what the
caller wanted. “Hello! Hello!! Patrick, can you hear me?
The voice pierced
through my phone more audibly. ‘This is Leo, your friend”. He said “Oh! It’s
the Humanist Leo Igwe, how is Germany?” I chanted happily. “And how are you?” I
added. “I am fine” he answered. “Have you heard? Leo questioned. “No! What is
it? I asked intently. “Eze Ebisike, our good friend is dead. He will be buried
coming Saturday.” He said as grief and compassion ran through his voice.”
Too
bad, was he sick? I asked again. Yes! He had a mild stroke”. He replied.
“Please, try and attend his funeral. He will be buried as a humanist” Leo
advised. “I will be there, to pay my last respect to our departed friend” I
assured him. Few seconds later the line went dead.
Leo Igwe, the 42-year-old Nigerian
intellectual, is an irrepressible voice of secular humanism in an African
continent ruined partly by religious chauvinism and superstition. He is,
currently, a doctoral student at the famous Bayreuth International Graduate
School for African Studies (BIGSAS), Germany.
He is the founder of the Nigerian
Humanist Movement (NHM) based in Ibadan, Oyo State, in the south-western part of
Nigeria, to promote the secular humanist philosophy based on science and reason,
and not belief either in the traditional or Christian or any religion.
Though I openly profess secular
humanism as my attitude to life in a religious ghetto like Nigeria, I have
never witnessed a humanist funeral before. I was keen to witness that of Eze
Sylvester Ebisike, an ex-Roman Catholic priest who dropped his training and
took to humanism, journalism and later business.
So around 4.30pm on Friday,
1st March 2013, though I was sick with a severe bout of malaria, I took a taxi to
Rumuokoro, a traffic circle on the north-west of the state where vehicles and
humans wrestle against one another in few jammed road paths. I boarded an 8-seater ash-coloured Nissan van from there bound for Owerri, the capital of Imo
State.
We had barely taken off, heading
north-west wards through the Rumuokoro – Airport Road along the Obio/Akpor
Council Secretariat when the weather changed its face; unleashing furious
thunderstorms and violent rain drops on the roads, on our car.
Its speed
dropped suddenly. One of the car’s wipers was not functioning. We battled to
pull through the stormy rain and diverted to a nearby filling station called
Superject where the driver purchased fuel for the vehicle and we sped off as
rain and storm reduced unexpectedly.
“Please, can we put on our seat belt? I
pleaded with passengers.” Wetin be that” the driver asked harshly in Pidgin
English. “Please, I am talking about us putting on our seat belts”. I
repeated. The driver kept sealed lips while tossing the steering and flinging
scornful looks at me.
“It is God who protect, don’t fear oga” a young, pretty
lady seating closer to the driver, stole a look at me and said alluringly.
“Before God protects us lets protect ourselves”, I responded in a somewhat
piqued tone. “Can you protect yourself?” a male passenger behind me shouted
loudly. Some put on their seat belts while others refused. Ominous silence
sneaked into the car except brash Christian music coming from the driver’s car
radio, one of the lines hymn. “Nobody can battle with the Lord”. I would doze
off at intervals due to the effects of the anti-malaria drugs I had taken.
We arrived Imo State through the
northern axis of Rivers State. What a disparity in weather pattern. We had
heavy rain and storm in Rivers, whereas, in the Imo country, dusts from
un-tarred road paths throw its blanket on the grasses, crops and trees and our
vehicle and made us look dreadful. “God bless Imo State – OCDA” was one of the
bold labels welcoming us to the state.
We drove past the Umuopu Secondary which
overlooks the deplorable Ohaji- Umuopu Road linking the Igwuwo-Ohaji community
where the Imo State Polytechnic is located. Ahead is the headquarters of the 34
Artillery Brigade of the Nigerian Army located at the Obinze community in the
north-west.
The car later stopped at ‘Control’, our terminus, a traffic circle
in the Owerri townships as chaotic as the Rivers’ Rumuokoro. Owerri is fondly
called the ‘Las Vegas of Nigeria’ and also called ‘Enjoyment Town’. On
weekends, people travel from their respective states in Nigeria and beyond to
Owerri to have fun there. The Owerri enjoyment seekers don’t want to postpone
their enjoyment times. They are in away expressing the humanist sentiments
unconsciously.
I took a tri-cycle popularly called ‘Keke-Napep’, in Nigeria, and headed eastwards on Douglas Road to
meet JimKelly Abegbe, the Edo State-born, treasure of the
Nigerian Humanist Movement(NHM) who stood in front of the Fire Service
Station with his bag stuck to his back like a highly trained marksman advancing
towards an enemy territory.
He insisted that we should travel that night to the
Mbaise town. I argued passionately against it with him. We later struck a
compromise and went in search of a moderate hotel where we spent the night
separately, but we didn’t participate in the usual Owerri night enjoyment
About 8.18am on Saturday morning, 2nd
March, 2013, with the weather exceptionally sunny and pleasant, we jumped out
of the hotel, and rented a Keke-Napep, moving south-west to the
Fire Service Station intersection again. On the Keke-Napep’s back, was an
inscription, “Guy Make Thing Happen. Avoid letting them happen – Determination
Matters”.
We went there and hired a blue-coloured Passat executive car to
take us to the funeral event. We spent 30 minutes travelling on the road to the
Ahiara Motor Park where Marcel Iweajunwa, another leading Nigeria’s humanist
who was waiting for us, joined us on the journey.
We drove through the popular
Ofor Oru Road. That Saturday was Afor market day, and traders and their goods
spilled to the Ofor Oru Road which has deep valleys where cars dance up and
down uneasily. The road also runs through the Ahiara town on the north. Ahiara
is celebrated for its strategic intellectual and military significance to the
Biafran State.
We spent another twenty minutes
travelling from Ahiara to Okponkwume- Mpam community in the Ekwerazu,
Ahiazu- Mbaise, the home of the late Eze Sylvester Ebisike (1937-2013), the
great philosopher, free thinker, secularist, atheist, feminist, journalist,
writer and first chairman of the Nigerian Humanist Movement (NHM).
Okponkwume
Mpam is tranquil rural scenery with tall raffia trees, oranges, palm trees and
seductive vegetation adorning the village. Houses are built apart from one
another. No major tarred road. The people are very friendly, receptive and
hospitable. Around midday, in spite of the buffer provided by the flora, the
tropical weather was hitting us hard. His corpse was brought to his family
house in a beautiful brown coffin with a transparent cover in an ambulance and
laid in state.
Villagers and others trooped out to watch the remains of the
great man. His casket was later moved to the Unity Hall in the community where
his virtues as an honest, fearless, courageous and hardworking man were well-
spoken of. Enyeribe Onuoha, a Ph.D. holder, the traditional ruler of Umuchieze-
Ihitteafoukwu, Mbaise and immediate past chairman of the NHM, and an
ex-catholic priest too, read his four pages of dirge and eulogy of his
humanist friend and colleague in his native Igbo language.
His treatise touches
on science, creation and evolution, and then the audience grumbled in low tones
as he read on, while others laughed in aloud.
The deceased family members actually
respected his will to be buried as a humanist. After there, we moved to his
farmland where his grave was dug. At the graveside, Dr. Onuoha led the session.
He called on his son, his sister, his in-laws, including me to give speeches
about Eze. Afterwards, he read an anonymous beautiful poem called
“Something Beautiful Remains” .And in it we heard “The Tide recedes/But
leave behind/bright shells on the seashore/the sun goes down/but gentle
warmth/still lingers on the land…”
Onuoha dropped earthy sand into the
grave and as the burial was concluded we departed to his family
house again, where we had lunch, drinks and departed. The funeral was short,
simple and emotive. There are many ways humanists want to be buried.
The way
our Ebisike was buried was one of those. Some want cremation (burning of the
corpse), some want their remains to be donated to science laboratories and
institutions for the advancement of the study of science. A humanist funeral of
this kind is a celebration of life. Goodbye, Eze Ebisike, death is the path we
shall all tread.
Naagbanton lives in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria.
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