By Ishaya Ibrahim
An Optometrist by training, you might not likely get the sense that Dr Chukwuemeka Anene was a medical practitioner at first encounter. If you were a sport enthusiast, he would engage you on the trending sporting events, the top players and turning moments. His last tweet on November 21, at about 7pm was on the Man City vs Tottenham clash. He tweeted: “Congratulations @SpursOfficial,nice play today. Mou (Mourinho) is the special one. #TOTMCI.”
If you are a journalist, be ready to be mesmerised because you might soon find that he had the up-to-date information on your beat, leaving you to play catch-up in your own turf. He was a man with such vast knowledge of his environment.
He was also devout Catholic. I had followed him severally to Sunday Masses during our National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) days in Akwanga, Nasarawa State, and when he worked briefly at Ijebu Ode in Ogun State. He would not miss Mass for anything. He would also follow me to the Baptist Church in Akwanga, and Foursquare Church in Lagos whenever he came visiting.
Any time he sensed somebody was being negligent with his health, the doctor in him would come out full blast. He would take the whole time to explain how to keep safe, and won’t stop until he was sure that the message had sunk in.
He was never tired nor felt wearied by people who solicited his professional assistance. Many of my friends who knew him through me, would barge his line for health advisory. He would graciously attend to each of them in the best way he could, a fact I didn’t know until his death on November 22 following a brief illness. Like the women of Joppa who testified about the good works of Dorcas in the book of Acts, they all came out to recount the kind of medical assistance he had rendered to them at one time or another.
In fact, on the day Emeka died, I had planned to call him on behalf of a neighbour who wasn’t feeling well and who asked me to speak with him on what he could do. I told the neighbour I would make the call by 10:AM, when I was sure that Emeka would have returned home from Morning Mass. This was some few minutes to 8:00AM.
While I was waiting to make the call, a call I ordinarily would not get on a Sunday morning came in. The caller was Dr Amaka Madu, one of the finest doctors I knew through Emeka. She broke the news to me, but refused to believe the news herself even though her source was impeccable. Emeka was too nice to leave, she screamed. The story couldn’t be true, she would insist. I also refused to accept it until I spoke to Nelly, Emeka’s wife who confirmed the news to me at about 3:00PM. We wished the story wasn’t true because losing Emeka was a big blow we were unwilling to take because we would all be broken by it. More so, he was only 41, so young, so caring, not now.
He was so dear to everyone who knew him. His family would miss him sorely for the love he has for them. His friends would miss a dependable ally. His colleagues would miss a sincere person. His patients would miss a good doctor. But all should be consoled in the knowledge that Emeka has transited to eternal rest, a place where death has no power, where sickness does not exist and where pain is barred. He is in that place waiting for us to come home someday.