By Onochie Anibeze

He moved around to find me a seat at the VIP stand of Nnamdi Azikwe Stadium October 2, last year when Enugu Rangers beat El-kanemi to win the league 32 years after their last victory. The stadium took more than it’s capacity and everywhere was jam-packed. The crowd was unprecedented.

Edwin Eze would not have me standing. He always took interest in my affairs and pulled strings for me to enjoy family life. The name of his wife is Nneka and that probably influenced the special interest he developed in my family although our relationship started long before family life. Edwin Eze was a dear friend and brother. And when Nneka, his wife called me from Enugu in the morning of Saturday, May 20, that my friend had passed on May 12, the shock was devastating.

I froze. I mumbled a few things before I regained composure to ask her what happened to him. I knew he had health issues some years back but he had recovered and was bouncing again before this tragedy.

Late Edwin Eze

Death. Why do you visit good people? Why do you lurk like a thief and strike so unexpectedly? You are evil. You’ve inflicted severe pain to us. Who will now take me to Richards Street for Isi-Ewu when I visit Enugu? Any time Edwin stretched my nick name, Dagama, in a seeming tenor it meant something. I understood it. But it holds no meaning to me anymore.

Death is wicked. It makes you empty and denies you a lot. My prayers go to the wife and family. May God grant them the fortitude to bear this. We are all part of you. We share in this pain. May God not allow us sing this song of sorrow again. Edwin Eze is gone. What can I say?

Professionally, Edwin was a First Class sports journalist. He left Satellite Newspaper as sports editor. He groomed some of the big names we have today in journalism. When I was appointed editor, Saturday Vanguard he called not only to congratulate me but also to promise that he would contribute to my stable from Enugu. He did. Death, why are you very wicked?

When Edwin was the spokesman and image maker of Enugu Rangers he was a delight to us in the media. He wrote stories and never hoarded news. He managed information well for the Flying Antelopes and we looked forward to meeting him at match venues. One thing remarkable about him was his sincerity. He was quick to admit any time Rangers performed below par and was bold to express blue murder any time the referee conjured magic in the field. Edwin Eze was a name in Rangers and should be a name in death.

I hope this sends a message to the current management of Enugu Rangers and also to Enugu State government for he served his state well. He retired only last year, having clocked 60. He left service as a Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, a post he held only for nine months before retiring. Before then he was a Director in the sports ministry. The special thing about Edwin Eze was not in the positions he held but in the service that he rendered.   He worked with candour. He was a good man.

As a family man, he was a great jolly good fellow. Nneka knows better. Edwin was a man of peace. And he sought that peace everywhere he went and in everything that he did. He was soft-spoken and a true man of peace who would do everything to make his family happy. And as he goes home next Friday in Ukehe in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area, I plead with Nneka to take consolation in the fact that death is a call everybody must answer and that Edwin is resting in the Lord. He will be interred in his home, Umufiagu after Requiem mass at St. Peters Catholic Church in Ukehe on Friday. Christian wake is on Thursday.

May the soul of my dear friend, Edwin Ezigbo, Eze, EEE, through the mercy of God REST IN PEACE.