Tribute to the One I Owe: Alex Imoukhuede
By Jonathan Elendu
A few months before I turned 15, my oldest sister, Betty, came to Aba to visit. I had not seen her for a few years. I was so excited and I hung all over her. And then I noticed the man behind her. Who is the man, my young mind wondered. This was 1980.
As if reading my thoughts, with a smile, he said, “hello, Alie,” as he stretched out his hand, which I shook reluctantly. My mother hugged this strange man like a long lost son. She called him, Alex.
Mother turned to me and said, “he is going to marry your sister.” Oh, no! I looked at his face. He had a proud smile. And I hated him.
What kind of man takes a young boy’s sister, especially my Sisi, I thought. The more I thought of it the more I hated him.
He turned to me and started asking me questions about school, football and girls. Can you imagine this man? He wanted me to reveal my secrets before my mother and Sisi. And I did. I had not yet learnt to lie. That would come a few years later.
I became less suspicious of him as I thought, mmmmmm…this is a “guy” like me. Afterall, they said he used to live in America.
By the time my sister and Bro. Alex departed for Lagos he had become my friend. And through the forty-three years I knew him he impacted my life like no other man.
Bro. Alex thought me so much. He took me to Fela’s Shrine as a teenager. He shaped my taste in music. Till date when I sing songs from the 60’s my friends wonder how I know those songs. I tell them my brother-in-law taught me.
He influenced my sense of fashion and taught me to dress ‘well.’ He told me the sky could be my footstool if I dreamt big and worked. Still getting there, Bro. Alex.
We played football every Saturday with his friends in Kano. Through him I met his contemporaries and they became my friends too. Many mistook me for his younger brother.
Bro. Alex was not a religious man in the years we lived together or I visited regularly. He was a man who loved God and had the heart of a godly man.
He loved my sister, Betty, his wife of 43 years, who today is his widow. Though the marriage, like every marriage, was sometimes stormy, they stuck together through ‘ups and downs’ of life. So many times we would say to me: “Damn! I love my wife”
Bro. Alex was so proud of his son, Omo, my nephew. He loved the young man. And I hear his granddaughter, my grand niece, was his best friend.
How do you love people so much and you leave them? Death is a mystery only God can explain, for our existence on earth is the shortest of our walk with God.
Alex Ohiomoba Imoukhuede, 75, was a good man. He worked very hard and played well. I was hoping he would be around much longer so I could properly express my gratitude to him for helping shape my life. If I have achieved anything in my life, he set me on the path. I am forever grateful.
Bro. Alex, thank you so much. I wish my tears could bring you back.
