By
Romanus Ikechukwu Azuka
In the annals of quiet heroism, few lives shine as steadily as that of my brother, my boss, my second father, my brother sui generis. The third of five siblings and the firstborn son of the first wife, Mrs. Lucy Nwamgbeke Azuka, he became the moon among all the stars of the family, illuminating every path without ever casting a shadow of favoritism or pride. He took care of everybody: family members, relatives and beyond, yet never abused that central privilege. No one can claim exemption from his benevolence; he was a true man of the people, amiable par excellence, with no enemies. He loathed flashlights and spotlights, preferring the gentle glow of quiet service. He never hurt a fly, lived without pretense, and set his house, and the extended family’s, in perfect order long before the world demanded it. Jordan Peterson’s rule resonates eternally here: ” Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.” He did precisely that, with magnanimity, generosity and resolute altruism—and left a legacy that outlasts tragedy. He was a man without cants.
Born on December 31, 1936 in humble circumstances in Ojoto, he carried forward a chain of resolve forged in pain and providence, becoming the architect of equity for his family and beyond.
The roots trace to our father, Chief Francis Okeke Nnaoma Azuka ( Kwaji-Kwaji), a man of unlettered depth whose rage at humiliation became the family’s unbreakable vow. With only one sibling, a strong-willed younger brother. Stubborn. Fearless. He lived far away, in Ahoda, Rivers state, with an older cousin. Their relationship was turbulent, often marked by quarrels. One day, a letter arrived. It was from that distant city. A letter our father could neither read nor reply to. Approaching a literate man from our village for aid, he met cruelty: the man demanded he cultivate cocoyam on massive land just to read it, and again for the reply. Twice he toiled in insult, fetching tools, laboring under mockery, all for words that should have been free. Rage consumed him; shame scarred him. He swore then: no child of his would suffer such degradation. Education would shield them forever.
Had our father been schooled, he would have been a historian or lawyer, his stories never rushed, always dressed in rich preambles, layered with context and flair. Instead, his illiteracy fueled determination: every child would read, write , and rise. He kept that oath.
This vow propelled my boss to the Merchants of Light Secondary School, Oba (1956 set), founded in 1946 by the renowned Dr. Enoch Ifediorah Oli–lde Oba, Oxford -educated. As the only one among his peers to attend secondary school, he arrived worst-dressed, sandals perforated, sleepy from 8-mile treks after dawn farming. Exhaustion often overtook him; he would nod off in class, head resting on folded arms amid the murmur of lessons. On a fateful day during one such “sleeping session”, the principal and owner of the school, Dr. Oli himself, approached quietly and touched him awake. The great man inquired gently: Who is your father? From which town? The neighboring one, came the reply. What does he do for a living? The truth poured out: a farmer who carried palm wine on his head over 10 miles to sell at Onitsha markets. Dr. Oli , marvelled at such humble sacrifice in an era when education was a rare luxury, extended a personal invitation to our father. Our father, deeply honored, went and shook hands with the great Oli of Oba, one of his lifelong boasts, recounted with pride again and again, as if the touch of that hand carried the weight of possibility itself. In those days, excelling in studies earned comparisons to Zik or Oli himself, such was the principal’s fame as a beacon of learning. He completed his studies in 1956, carrying away a creed of education as equalizer, opportunity without favoritism.
Upon finishing school, like many educated Nigerians, he sought the Post Office, the coveted civil service prize. The forms were exhausted. Dejected on the balcony, frustration settling heavy, he prepared to leave. Then a stranger beckoned from the side. The man, observant and ordinary, called him over and spoke with simple directness: ” Why don’t you try Customs and Excise? It’s a new department. Not every person should work at the Post Office.” My boss, ever quiet and agreeable, listened. He took the form, filled it out. That single act—prompted by a stranger’s gentle nudge, proved one of the best decisions of his lifetime. In 1959, he joined the Department of Customs and Excise; postings followed from Lagos to Port Harcourt ( his golden peak), Jos ( during my UniJos days), Aba , and then back to Lagos where he retired in 1994. In 1971, he married madam Veronica Nwogo Azuka, beginning a shared journey of dignity and care.
Por Harcourt proved providential. Had his influence not anchored me there, l might have missed becoming a Dengramite.
After passing Common Entrance in Primary 5, my boss refused premature advancement: “Finish primary six, earn your First School Leaving Certificate.” Then: “Attend a grammar school.” I searched; DMGS was my first choice. It was the last published in the state newspaper, if unseen, I’d have left Port Harcourt for Ojoto to repeat primary six. Returning from Ojoto that evening, he yelled my name in anger, assuming failure. Quietly, l approached. He declared that l should be returning to Ojoto to repeat primary six since I had failed. I said that l made it. “What school?” I revealed: “the exact grammar school you wanted. DMGS.” He stepped forward and shook my hands. “Congratulations!” -the first and last such gesture from a reserved man. I knew then I made him proud.
He was my second father, training me identically to his children—no discrimination despite my mother as second wife.
Two deeds he performed stand as monuments to his magnanimity and generosity, teaching me , until this day, to detest discrimination in family and to recognize the purest form of altruism.
My mother, Mrs.Florence Ego Azuka, was the second wife. Custom and tradition imposed no obligation on him to build a house for her. Yet he did—not merely a house, but one identical in every detail to the one he built for his own mother. The same design, the same structure, the same time of construction, the same dignity. That perfect sameness struck me deeply then and echoes in me still. It was no small gesture; it was a deliberate, silent declaration that no one in the nfamily would be treated as lesser, no matter the circumstances of birth or marriage. In that act of equity, he taught me the ugliness of favoritism and the beauty of impartial love.
Another deed, equally luminous, occurred in the middle 1970s, when electricity was still a luxury in our town. Not for us. He purchased a giant Lister generator and ensured that each of the five clustered family compounds ( out of the six grand branches) received reliable power. Wires were run, connections made, light brought to homes that had known only darkness. The sixth branch lived far away, but the five he could reach—he reached. Whenever l read Jordan Peterson’s words about putting one’s house in order before attempting to rule the world, these memories flood back. He ordered not just his own home, but the homes of his relatives, lending a brother’s hand when no one else could or would. That was generosity in its purest form—altruism without fanfare, a quiet lending of strength to those bound by blood.
Amid the Nigerian Civil War( 1967-1970) when Biafra conscripted aggressively—men stopped on roads, pulled from travels—divine providence intervened. Returning from a Nnobi meeting on a bicycle, he was forcibly enlisted. In camp queuing recruits, a bomb landed. The man ahead died instantly, stomach emptied in the blast. It could have been him. One step, one shift—and no further story: there might not be DMGS, no UniJos, and maybe not even Uninove, São Paulo, and by extension, Brazil. Six children across continents would not be. Providence spared him, allowing light to spread.
Yet in quiet flashes, the question arises: Was the dementia —-the slow extinguishing we witnessed in Lagos the price for that salvation? Why grant escape from the bomb, only to claim mind and dignity in age? The man who ordered chaos into comfort, who never harmed, reduced to frozen helplessness.
This enigma ignited fully last year during my mother’s burial. One of my cousins, Mr. Linus Ilonze, knowing how deeply l cherished him, warned me before I even left São Paulo: it would not be advisable to go upstairs to see him, given my emotional nature. I normally stayed in his Lagos home. When I arrived, his last son, Chibuzor, a lawyer, told me to go up and see him. I refused, relaying the cousin’s caution. He insisted that it didn’t matter. Almost immediately, my brother’s wife came downstairs and urged me again. I refused once more, explaining why. She gave almost the same reassurance. I thought the cousin had exaggerated. After a few minutes, l summoned courage and climbed the stairs.
Behold—the exact moment: the paid caregiver and my boss’s wife were carrying him from the shower to the living room. His body frozen, mouth wide open, no flicker of consciousness, no recognition—the unmistakable signs of advanced dementia had taken him completely. I froze. The peak sensation overwhelmed—no movement, only shock. When awareness returned, rage consumed me wholly. Why my beloved boss? Why that generous man who couldn’t hurt a fly? Just why him? I refused to accept it.
That moment in the living room became my own funeral oration—not spoken, but felt. Like Mark Antony standing over Caesar’s body, l could only say to myself what he declared to the plebeians: “My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar, and l must pause till it comes back to me.” I found myself undone by what l saw—not slain by daggers, but by something far more merciless: the slow erasure of a man l loved. In Lagos, l met silence, and my heart stayed upstairs in that room, entombed with the man who had once brought light to us all. It has never fully returned; it lingers there still, pausing the world whenever memory revives the sight.
Those memories of that Lagos encounter still haunt me. That image haunts as Duncan’s death haunts Macbeth. Macbeth slays innocent, sleeping Duncan—grace and order—unleashes curse: “Sleep no more! Macbeth does murder sleep.” Guilt invades relentlessly—blood no ocean washes, hallucinations, Paranoia. Though there is no blood shed here, the parallel is merciless: seeing my boss—embodiment of order, equity, harmless goodness—murdered in dignity by dementia, consciousness extinguished—shattered inner peace irrevocably. Sleep flees in memory; the sight replays, provoking unquenchable anger at injustice.
That was when the question began: Why do good people suffer?
Fyodor Dostoevsky, in The Brothers Karamazov’s “Rebellion,” voices this torment through Ivan. Confining anguish to innocents—the blameless untainted by sin—Ivan protests any harmony purchased with unavenged tears: “If even one child’s suffering is required to make the grand design of truth or justice complete, l reject it completely. That kind of truth isn’t worth the price of a single innocent tear. I give God back my ticket—l won’t accept a world built on such cruelty.” No mother has the right to forgive the person who tortured her child just so the universe can have its supposed harmony. My boss’s decline—harmless, upright—evokes that innocent affliction. Ivan’s rebellion mirrors my Lagos rage: the price too high; no explanation suffices when goodness fades without cause.
In the same Dostoevskian spirit, another profound moment from The Brothers Karamazov resonates here: in Ivan’s parable, “The Grande Inquisitor”, Christ returns to Earth during the Inquisition. The old Inquisitor arrests Him and delivers a long speech: “You offered people freedom, but they can’t bear it. They want bread, not choice; they want miracles and mystery, not responsibility. The Church has fixed Your mistake—we give them security and control instead of freedom, and that’s what they truly need for happiness.” Christ offers no words, no defence, no rebuttal. He remains silent. Then, in that silence, He steps forward and kisses the lnquisitor gently on his withered lips—an act of pure, forgiving love that burns in the old man’s heart, yet changes nothing of his resolve. Dostoevsky draws on the Gospel of John, where Christ is often silent before accusers ( as before Pilate), answering not with argument but with presence and compassion—the seed of love’s wordless power, as in the foot-washing humility.
So too, in the face of the unanswerable—why the harmless, benevolent man who illuminated so many lives should fade into Frozen silence—there may be no verbal resolution. The question “Why him?” echoes Ivan’s rebellion, yet the kiss whispers a different possibility: love persists beyond explanation, forgiveness meets injustice without justification, and quiet presence endures where words fail. My boss’s life was that kiss— wordless benevolence to all, never abusing privilege, loathing the flashlights and spotlights. In Lagos, l met silence; perhaps the enduring response is the same: to kiss the memory with reverence, to let love burn on in protest and gratitude.
The Book of Job confronts the enigma starkly: blameless Job loses all, yet “Why” remains a mystery. It tells of a truly good man who loses everything—children, wealth, health—for no apparent reason. His friends insist he must have sinned. Job refuses: “I did nothing to deserve this.” He demands answers from God. God does not give a reason. Instead, God speaks from whirlwind, showing the vastness of creation: ” Where were you when l laid the foundations of the earth?” Job is humbled, not explained to. He accepts the mystery and is eventually restored— not because the pain made sense, but because faithfulness endures.
Ecclesiastes echoes futility: time and chance befall all. Theologically, in a fallen world, tragedy touches the innocent and guilty alike. Philosophically, life’s tragic structure—entropy, fragility—claims even the great. Jordan Peterson framed it: tragedy inherent, response voluntary responsibility amid chaos. For him, tragedy isn’t something that happens to some people— it’s the basic condition of being alive. Everything breaks down, people hurt each other, death waits. The only real answer is to step up anyway: willingly carry your share of the suffering , take care of what you can control, and build meaning out of the mess.
My boss lived that response: equal homes for his mother and mine ( no obligation, yet identical structure—teaching detest of discrimination); giant Lister generator in mid -1970s powering five of six family branches when electricity rare. Great leadership, foresight, collective well-being.
An ancient Greek tale, too, casts its light on this tension. Democritus, the Laughing Philosopher, laughed at everything—the follies of men, the vanities of power, the absurdities of existence. His constant laughter so alarmed his fellow citizens that they summoned Hippocrates, the great physician, to examine him for madness. After spending time with him, Hippocrates declared: this is not madness; this is the wisest man on earth. Democritus saw clearly enough to laugh where others despaired.
Heraclitus, his near-contemporary, was the opposite —-the Weeping Philosopher. He wept at the injustices, the endless flux, the strife that defines the world. “War the father of all,” he said; everything changes and suffering woven into the fabric. His tears were not despair but honest recognition of life’s tragic current.
My brother lived between these two postures. In his daily deeds, he was Democritean—quietly amused at life’s pretensions, ordering chaos with steady hands, bringing light without seeking applause, laughing in the gentle way of one who knows the absurdity of discrimination and chooses equity anyway. Yet in Lagos, when l saw him carried, frozen, mouth agape, the victim of advanced dementia, l met the Heraclitean river full force. The tears—my tears, my rage—came unbidden, as they came to Heraclitus, before the injustice of a good man extinguished.
Neither laughter nor weeping alone suffices. Wisdom, perhaps, lies in bearing both: to order the house while the world burns, to laugh at folly while weeping for the innocent who suffer. My second father bore that tension without complaint. Hippocrates might have examined him and said the same: here is a wise man.
The question—Why do good people suffer?”—-persists, unconditional and raw. No tidy resolution erases pain; anger is love’s protest. Yet his legacy endures: light brought where darkness reigned, education extended without bias, family ordered with magnanimity. From cocoyam’s humiliation, Merchants of Light Secondary School,Oba, to the admission to the department of Customs and Excise, to the bomb’s near-miss to Lagos’s revelation, his life testifies: goodness multiplies beyond suffering. In any next world, bonds renew—l choose him again.
Our father called him Enuma.
His mother called him the same.
His devoted wife called him Solo.
His folks called him collector.
His friends called him okaa Customs.
His extended kin, in playful mischief, called him “Bunker”—for his quiet, recluse ways.
In school, he was Solomon.
His colleagues in the office called him chief Azuka.
His younger sibling called him Obieze
And l—l called him my boss.
Different names. The same man.
He passed on January 23, 2026.
He left behind six children— Chinwe, Obiageli, Ifeanyi, Benji, Nwike and Chibuzor. Three live in Nigeria, and the other three live in the United States.
His light shines on.
