Since we met in Class one at Government College Umuahia, our bond of friendship grew to a level of true brotherhood. Your passing is quite painful. I remember all the wonderful experiences we shared and all our visits and travels. Hard to believe that after more than 50 yrs, not even once did we quarrel-yet we talked several times a week!

Even though your life was short,you accomplished so much.You have left all of your friends and family with delightful memories.I also know this is a loss that is so substantial. You were a wonderful father, brother, uncle and a true gentleman! You were a rock for your two daughters, who will forever remember you and you had such an amazing influence on them.
We will miss your amazing laughter that always put everyone at ease.

Our hearts are broken and our collective pain is so deep and raw.Life seems incredibly cruel and arbitrary right now and it is difficult to find any meaningful explanation or justification for all this. Yet we take solace in your exemplary life of kindness, compassion and many achievements. Death is just another path,one that we all must take.

I urge your family and loved ones to accept the cruel reality of this transition. To realize that one cannot saw sawdust because it is already sawed. As a writer once adumbrated- the moving finger writes and once written moves on. Nor all your tears can erase a single line. In the end death is a brutal reality. So brutal that it prompted John Donne to write his immortal words-death be not proud though some have called you dreadful and mighty for thou art not so. And those thou thinkst thou dost overcome die not. Poor death. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings and desperate men. And in poison, sickness and war dwell thou. Yet poppy and charms can make us sleep as well or better still than thine stroke. Why swellst thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally and death shall be no more. Death thou shall die!

Indeed you are not dead. You have risen to join the angels in heaven. And Arizonna I know that you hear me when I say- may flights of angels sing you to your well-deserved rest.

Goodbye my dearest buddy!