As Chief Francis Nduka Ajidua Goes Home in Grand Style: Tribute to a Man of Truth and Viscosity of Ibusa Community-orientation

 

As Chief Francis Nduka Ajidua Goes Home in Grand Style: Tribute to a Man of Truth and Viscosity of Ibusa Community-orientation

- Emeka Esogbue

In death, it was a great celebration, something he would exactly wish for, having led a fulfilled life. Africans celebrate deaths as much as births. Hence, the Isieke family, Ibusa friends, Anioma, and mourners all the way from Port Harcourt in Rivers State and other parts of the country, gathered on Saturday, March 23, 2024, to pay their last respects to my Uncle, Chief Francis Nduka Ajidua.

Born to Chief Ajidua and Senior Mother Christiana Ajidua of Umuafene in Isieke Clan, Umuekea, Ibusa, the late Chief Francis Nduka Ajidua, an Ibusa elite of high social position, was fatherly to all. He was always standing up for the family and was a rallying point and involver in all matters of concern to our family. A resolver of disputes, every matter brought to him always saw its pacific end amicably.

Chief Ajidua was a great contributor to the socio-cultural development of the Ibusa community via the Ibusa Community Development Union (ICDU), Port Harcourt Branch and he was practical about it, joining to execute meeting resolutions and attending the annual Easter Conferences of the Town Union in Ibusa. I recall with a nostalgic sense that his FN Ajidua in Isieke was a Mecca of some sort, a beehive of activities to Ibusa men and women seeking all support and he gave it in glut to them. At his peak, every moment of homecoming from Port Harcourt was a blessing to his kinsmen and women.

In my memory of him, he was always returning to Ibusa with loads of work, making notes of the Ibusa ICDU resolutions and discourses, and never rested from discharging the firm official decisions of the apex Ibusa body as far as he was personally tasked. It was from me that I first heard of Izu Igbuzo (ICDU)

Chief Ajidua was always optimistic about the Ibusa's betterment and he continued to give the community his best. The desire to witness a better Ibusa never departed from his mouth until his last breath of life. Like all concerned indigenes, he was committed to seeing the community, thrive on a more socio-economic wheel However, only the Almighty God has the last words just from the community's present situation.

An honest man in his absoluteness, committed to the course of truisms, Chief Francis Ajidua was one man I grew up to know with the characterization of genuine depictions, statements of realities, and integrity running in his blood. He never minced words and was never known to live in denialism of his own actions thus he often set out to undertake convincing efforts and exertions. From him, I leant to stand for my family and to genuinely commend those doing so.

Since there is no perfection in any man, some aspects of the life lived by him are worthy of absorption, being imbuements of lessons of life. He was a man for everyone without discrimination, malice, or ill will. He was just about emptying his mind and moving on. Offend him and he will fearlessly reel out your 'charges' before you, open-hearted, and whatever perceived wrongs were soon over with the relationship running on the course again. Within the family, he lived a life absent of discrimination as everyone was fairly treated. In this way, support was differentially accorded to everyone based on deserving parameters.

Ajidua was a fighter of injustice and oppression and even heaven will remember him for this and also accept him with open arms. Without fear and favour, the voice of Chief Francis Ajidua was never unvoiced just as he was never without a vote or input into a decision. If there was any man in a meeting, who would raise his hand, stand up, and pointedly point out the wrongs of the elders, that man was Chief Francis Nduka Ajidua, the man of equitable properties.

Maybe, too, it was a quality that gifted him the hallmark of standing before his offenders to tell them nothing but the truth. As he goes home, he will be remembered for his tenacity to pursue truthfulness, forgiveness of wrongs, viscosity in community orientation, and more importantly, defender of the family.

Like all other departed good men, Chief Francis Nduka Ajidua is gone but his impact will live on.

The world is a market place and after our transactions, we shall all leave the scene.

Travel well nwa Omogwu.

May the soul of Chief Francis Nduka Ajudua rest in peace!