It was love at first sight.
The dashing young man commanded all attention when he came into our Uzoatu family compound in Umugama village, Umuchu, Aguata LGA in present-day Anambra State.
He was handsome in an arresting manner, and there was talk that he was so intelligent and had read all the books.
We were merely children, and nobody could stop us from admiring a personage so highly recommended.
My feisty cousin, Lucy-Anna, spurred me on to go and touch the man.
I’ve never been known to dodge a challenge, even in my toddling years.
I touched the man, and my age-mate Lucy followed my lead to touch the star too.
We thus instantly became friends with the ever personable Elias Chimezie Umeh such that when he was going home from our compound he asked Lucy and me to lead him home – and we did not waste any second to oblige him.
We followed him as he cracked jokes that made us laugh.
We did not even take cognizance of when he led us into the bushy pathway to the left of the major road to our house.
We walked a considerable distance, talking and laughing and generally not having a care in the wilderness of the village.
Then he disappeared!
We looked for him everywhere but could not see him.
We became frightened after our search for him yielded no results whatsoever for minutes on end.
Then Lucy started to cry.
I was torn between crying with my cousin and consoling her when we heard a loud holler in Igbo from atop a tall palm tree, thusly: “Bia, Elias, biakwaa kpolaa umuazi ikpobatara n’ime ohia!” which translates to: “Come, Elias, come and take home the children you brought into the bush!”
The smiling Elias instantly re-appeared much to our relief.
It was much later that we learnt that the man who called Elias from the palm tree was his father.
Ever since that baptism of fire, the grandmaster, Sir Elias Chimezie Umeh (KSM, Ogbutopu, Ochiliozuo), has been an outstanding mentor to me.
When I took an all-too-brief teaching appointment at the secondary school in Adazi-Enu, I led the school’s relay team to St. Michael’s Secondary School, Nimo only to behold Sir Elias Umeh as the school’s Principal.
He took pride in introducing me to his teachers and some of his friends he had invited for the school’s annual inter-house sports competition.
When it was time for the invitational inter-schools 100-metre relay race to take place, the contingent of one of the invited schools did not show up.
I told Principal Umeh that my team can present two relay teams to make up for the shortfall, and he told me to go ahead.
The two relay teams took the first and second positions in the keenly contested race, thus winning the coveted prizes.
It was such a downer for me that when the students brought back the prizes to the Adazi-Enu school the Principal took pride in berating me instead of offering congratulations.
I refused to be bothered, save that in the comprehension passage I wrote up for the students in their English Language examination there was a comparison of a fictional “Principal Amauche” and the forbearing Principal at Nimo.
When the students read the passage in the examination hall they all burst out laughing.
The exam had to be promptly cancelled, and I was slated for a punitive transfer.
That was how I fled, and eventually found work at The Guardian newspapers in Lagos.
While working in Lagos, I was appointed as a consultant to the UNICEF-sponsored “Boys’ Dropout of Schools in Southeastern Nigeria” documentary being done by ace filmmaker Mahmood Ali-Balogun, the director of the award-winning movie Tango With Me that starred Genevieve Nnaji.
When we got to Christ the King College (CKC), Onitsha to shoot the documentary, it was Sir EC Umeh that we met as the Principal of the esteemed college.
Principal Umeh treated the crew from Lagos with consummate grace because of me.
Sir Elias Chimezie Umeh’s unblemished life of distinguished service is the stuff of which legends are made.
God indeed blessed him with a doting life companion in the inimitable Lady Janefrances Odinchezo Umeh of blessed memory, and prodigious children.
His autobiography, Honed By Service, for which this piece serves as a preface, is a treasure in which he traces his roots to the origins as a true son of the soil.
As he was not born in a health institution, it was incumbent on him to choose his date of birth when he started pre-primary schooling.
In his search for the Golden Fleece of education, he had to ride bicycles via the “monkey method” to far-out towns to take entrance examinations.
He survived the Biafra war, and served as the chairman of the Umuchu Playhouse that staged plays as a part of the war effort.
It was after the war that he got married to his heartthrob Janefrances, and furthered his education at the University of Lagos.
His attempt to construct a house in the village was thwarted controversially when the land was grabbed by a troublesome man of means.
Sir Umeh excelled in his service in the education cadre, and I take special grace that he was once the Principal of my alma mater, St Peter’s, Achina.
The marvels of Sir Umeh’s accomplishments in his many stations of life are forever memorialized in his iconic book Honed By Service.