Chris Nwachukwu, an ex labour reporter (one of the most detailed and analytical in the bourgeois press of the late '90s into the earlier part of this decade, with ThisDay newspapers -fridays, then -), ex-trade unionist (with the textile union, which he initially left ThisDay for, to return later), ex-media relations officer of TrustFund, a sympathiser of the Abuja Socialist Collective and at the time of his death, Chief Press Secretary to Adams Oshiohmole died in an auto-crash on Saturday December 13, along with Greg Aruna, a comrade of whom -unfortunately - I do not have much facts on presently, I believe.
The poem below is my tribute to them as I pay my last respects for these fallen patriots, from afar:
There will be a tomorrow
(for Chris and Greg)
In the abyss, it seems
Our dreams perish
...labyrinths of our mortality
Never again, to see
Those we loved and that loved us
The end comes oft unforetold
Ashes on burnt logs though, are
Not full stops...where embers still
Glow, of the fire's hope
The end hardly ever be the end
A beginning is never the beginning
Of being
Companeros, you have fallen, we
Salute you in death. A thousand will stand
Longer tomorrow, for you stood today
Our cry shall be: "fatherland or death!"
The Nigeria you believed in, lived for and
Died in its cause....
Shall one day arise
From the ashes of your graves
And patriots you'll meet with the
spirits
