By Tony Eluemunor
When I think about my big brother, Mazi Chuks Iloegbunam, what readily comes to mind is the timeless Abba song, “Move On”. Its opening lyrics truly capture the essential Chuks Iloegbunam.
Here we go: “They say a
restless body can hide a peaceful soul. A voyager and a settler, they both have
a distant goal. If I explore the heavens, or if I search inside. Well, it
really doesn’t matter as long as I can tell myself I’ve always tried”.
The Iloegbunam many know could be that one that never, never, repeat never, suffers fools gladly. As we all know, if you do not suffer fools gladly, you are not patient with people who you think are stupid.
Discuss this saying with Chuks and he might tell you how and
when the term emerged. I checked and saw this: it was first coined by Saint
Paul in his second letter to the Church at Corinth. The full verse of the
original source of the idiom, 2 Corinthians 11:19, reads: “For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise.”
Chuks will take on any who is foolish enough to jostle with him
in an argument, and he will teach that person unforgettable lessons in literacy
and penmanship. His writing could be caustic, even as he uses the most apt of
words but still strange to someone who is widely read, yet you would find most
fitting when you consult a dictionary. There is a word for such; accuracy,
precision, exactitude.
How would I know, you may ask. My answer is simply this: he
taught me … he was my first teacher in the newsroom. But my story jumps.
Perhaps I should begin at the beginning.
One evening, Mr. Jika Attoh, who was my classmate at the
University of Lagos, Akoka, Yaba, Mass Communication Post-Graduate class, took
me to the Guardian to see Chuks. And we ended up spending the night in Chuk’s
house at Shomolu, Lagos. He treated me not just as a friend of a friend, but
like a brother. I can still remember him, with all seriousness, and fire
blazing from his eyes, and with impatience in his voice, asking me: “What is wrong with you, Tony, or whatever
is your name? Don’t you talk? Why can’t you feel at home? Why can’t you relax?
Nobody owns this world; yes, you are my guest today, but tomorrow, I could be
your guest. Feel free, my brother. Nobody needs any tension here”. Yes, it
is difficult to understand Chuks; he could erupt like a volcano and the next
moment he is ice water.
The next time I saw him, he had left The Guardian newspapers
and had pitched his tent with the Newswatch magazine. He was anchoring
a Newswatch
cover. He was discussing one aspect of that story with Jika, who like him,
graduated from the University of Ife, Ile- Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo
University). The Newswatch story was on the 25th anniversary of Chinua Achebe’s Things
Fall Apart. And Chuks, always one to do an all-things-considered story,
was attempting to shed light on the Chinua Achebe – Wole Soyinka relationship
or rivalry.
Well, so as not to attract his anger again by not feeling free
in his presence, I mouthed a few things about Achebe’s being an Africanist who
saw the world through the African eyes, and Soyinka being a humanist and preppy
activist ready to fight evil wherever it was found. I added that they were not
really rivals as Achebe was a renowned novelist but Soyinka was a remarkable
playwright and poet.
If there was any rivalry, I blamed it on their students and
admirers who failed to fully understand that they complemented each other to
Nigeria’s glory and pride, after all the sky is wide enough for the Eagle and
the kite. So, their lines never really crossed as both stayed away from the
field where the other had gained global renown. We spoke some more and later I
saw my name in the Newswatch magazine, and half of a page of that magazine was
devoted to my Achebe-Soyinka explanation.
One stiflingly disappointing day, I had spent hours at an Ikoyi,
Lagos, office. I vowed that I would never come to that office again to seek for
job. To cheer up my plummeting spirit I decided to visit Chuks at Newswatch,
at least I would get to read the newspapers and magazines I couldn’t afford to
buy. The Newswatch Big Four (the late Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese
and Yakubu Mohammed) were there throwing banters in the open newsroom. And
Chuks, ever confident because he knows no fear, stopped the jaunty discussion
to point at my inconsequential self, and introduce this student as his “good
and trusty” friend, who “decorated your magazine when he explained the
Achebe-Soyinka rivalry in”… and Dele Giwa, raised his right hand and used the
index finger to strike his brain thrice and say animatedly, “Yes, I remember
that discourse. Oh, are you Tony Eluemunor?”
Giwa continued: “Oh, I read you days ago in The Guardian on
Sunday, and you featured in the Monthly Life which appeared today. I think you
can write. See me on your way out.” I did and Mr. Giwa pushed a letter towards
me and asked me to sign: it was an appointment letter. I had become a
journalist!
Some four years later, I was now at ThisDay magazine, and
Chuks came to see me. He thrust a form into my hand and urged me to apply for a
journalism fellowship. I asked him why he wasn’t applying. He said he had
applied. So, I replied that it would be foolish of me to be competing with him.
He laughed and said he had given copies of it to 20 others, adding if “God say na you go go, nothing can change it.
You must stop being afraid. This life is not for any special person. Each
person has his own break”. I applied, and Harvard University issued a call
to me, on Ford Foundation scholarship for the Fellowship of the Nieman
Foundation for Journalism. Yet, before I left for Cambridge, Boston,
Massachusetts, Chuks was already in the UK!
The same Mr. Chuks Iloegbunam has remained my Big Brother for
decades. He gave me an insight into the profundity of Bob Marley’s music; I had
loved and adored Jimmy Cliff and almost hated Marley for dethroning my
champion. He opened to me more vistas of appreciating the art of writing. He
actually rewrote the intro (introduction) of my very first story at Newswatch,
and Dele Olojede took it and celebrated it all around the newsroom, and
everyone thought I was a star.
Over the years, I have studied Chuks Iloegbunam and learnt a lot
from this man who turned 70 years old on Tuesday, May 18, 2021. But he has left
one thing unexplained to me: how a person could adopt a total stranger as a
brother and become his guardian angel. Did God send him on such a mission; just
for me? I still don’t know how he explained our relationship to his angelic
wife, Obiageli (Madam to me); she calls me (always with a smile that could
split the deepest darkness) “tounny
tounny”.
Thank you, Chuks Iloegbunam. Happy birthday, Big Brother. As
Abba sang, “Like a roller in the ocean, life is motion. Move on. Like a wind
that’s always blowing, life is flowing. Move on. Like the sunrise in the
morning, life is dawning. Move on. How I treasure every minute, being part of,
being in it. With the urge to move on.
*Eluemunor is a commentator on public issues
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