TWO YEARS AFTER YOUR DEMISE, YOUR VOICE STILL ECHOES: REMEMBERING BARNABAS NDUBUISI EKPERECHI
Forever in Our Hearts
E-ISSN: 2354-4481
By John Mbonu Uchenwoke-Ekperechi
Two years after your departure from this world, the silence you left behind has not erased your voice. Instead, it has made us hear you more clearly—in our memories, in the values you taught us, in the principles by which you lived, and in the enduring legacy you left within the Uchenwoke family.
On Tuesday, September 3, 2024, the world said farewell to Barnabas Ndubuisi Ekperechi, fondly known as Filibo. You departed at 75, leaving behind a life marked by discipline, courage, dignity of labour, faith and an uncompromising commitment to the values you believed in.
Your death came like a sudden interruption in a story we were not ready to end. It felt like a movie whose final scene arrived before we had prepared ourselves for the credits. Yet, even in the pain of your departure, there was something profoundly consistent with the philosophy by which you lived.
You often believed that a person should not die anyhow, and that when an illness was beyond survival, children should not be left to exhaust their resources endlessly in hospitals.
In the end, your departure seemed to reflect that deeply held conviction. You lived according to your principles, and even in death, those principles remained part of the story you left behind.
At 75, you also became the eldest of the Uchenwoke family—the family head. It was not necessarily the age at which we wished to see you take that responsibility, but life, in its mysterious ways, placed that mantle upon you. We could only accept what Providence had written, even when our hearts wished for more years.
Today, we remember your strong voice of discipline.
We remember the words that sometimes sounded hard but were often born out of love. We remember your insistence on courage when circumstances demanded weakness, your belief in the dignity of honest labour, your respect for humanity and, above all, your unwavering faith in God.
You addressed God fondly as “Jehovah Nke Usu Nile Nke Ndi Agha”—Jehovah, the Man of War. That expression was more than a name; it reflected your understanding of God as the ultimate defender, judge and custodian of human destiny.
Death may have taken your physical presence, but it could not take your influence.
A man truly dies only when his memories disappear, his values become forgotten and his name ceases to inspire those who remain. By that measure, Filibo lives.
You live in the stories we tell.
You live in the lessons you taught.
You live in the courage you demanded.
You live in the discipline you embodied.
You live in the family whose history carries your footprints.
And you live in the memories that time cannot bury.
Two years may have passed, but grief has a strange relationship with time. The calendar moves forward, yet certain memories remain permanently stationed in yesterday. There are moments when your absence still feels recent—when we instinctively remember your voice, your mannerisms, your convictions and those unmistakable words that made you who you were.
Today, therefore, we do not remember you merely as someone who died. We remember you as a man who lived, believed, laboured, disciplined, loved and left something behind.
May your soul continue to rest in the bosom of God. May the Almighty grant you eternal peace, and may you rise with the saints according to the faith you professed while alive.
Death, be not proud.
Barnabas Ndubuisi Ekperechi—Filibo lives!
He lives in our hearts.
He lives in our memories.
He lives in the values he left behind.
And as long as those values endure, his story will never truly end.
Forever in Our Hearts.
John Mbonu Uchenwoke-Ekperechi
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
Inside Agwa News
