Mr Antony Joseph — In Memoriam
This is one of those write-ups I am not ready to write but I have to. The spirit is upon me. What I do is more of a calling than a hobby. Today I feel like Ezekiel in the Bible. The beginning of Chapter 2 of that book records what I am experiencing.
He said to me, “Son of man,” stand up on your feet and I will speak to you.” As He spoke, the Spirit came into me and raised me to my feet and I heard him speaking to me.
Sometimes, writing is therapeutic — drown the paper with your sorrows. But I tell ya, the tabula rasa has learned to be devoid of grief. Today, I paint on this canvas my thoughts on an uncommon man — who lived a simple life. But he dedicated that life to honour, dignity and unusual commitment.
Come with me…
We lost a number of people in 2021.
On the global stage, the following left us.
Desmond Tutu, Julie Green, Colin Powell, , Larry King, Prince Philip, Cicely Tyson, Mary Wilson, Hank Aaron, Yonggi Cho, Michael Collins, Vicente ‘Chente’ Fernández, KC Price, Masayuki Uemura and those that COVID took from the face of the earth.
Back home in Nigeria, we lost the following…
Sound Sultan, Sir Victor Uwaifo, Chike Akunyili, Lateef Jakande, Ndubuisi Kanu (RANK), Sadiq Daba, Baba Suwe, Rachel Oniga, Ibrahim Attahiru etc
On a personal note, I lost colleagues at work and also just yesterday, my secondary school tutor and Vice Principal, Mr Anthony Joseph passed on. Mr Joseph will be fondly remembered as a devout husband, loving father and a community leader. I do not say these words lightly.
Like Truett Cathy, he was a builder of men. He built boys so that our society do not have to mend men. He transformed boys into men with the values he instilled in them. I am one of the beneficiaries of his tutelage. Some of the lessons were taught in intense moments, I kid thee not.
The general thing you would hear about, Mr Joseph that my contemporaries called, Ete Joe, is that he was a loyal man. He was loyal to the values of morality, hard work and discipline. If you were on the path of success, those were the things he had to offer. He offered it to us all without any reservation. He was of Asian heritage and we were of Africa heritage but he never saw that. Mr Joseph believed that we all come from a common stock. A human being is a human being, created by the Almighty God.
On the door of their house in SPC, were the words “MRS & MR Joseph”. I never asked why this was so. The norm was “MR & MRS”. But it showed that he was not afraid to take a position that might not be popular. Maybe it was to show honour to his wife or to make a statement of his beliefs, I never knew but it showed you the character of the man.
Mr Joseph was not unmistaken. You knew where he stood on any matter. He was not afraid to say his mind despite the cost to his career, societal standing, or reputation. With Mr Joseph, you were never in doubt. I did not say he was always right but at the least, you knew where he stood on a matter.
Three stories I would like to tell you. First is about his love for his wife. For me, I can see that keeping love alive can be a challenge, but Mr Joseph kept it alive for more than 50 years. Let me tell you the story I have told before. I titled it “My Girl”.
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My Girl
You’ve read about Mr Joseph. His wife was my chemistry teacher. I have written about her here. Both have had big influences on my life. Both were and are still very close to each other. If you are around them, you will want to get married. You will see love, care and mutual respect. It is laid out there in its barest form. It is not teenage love. Nothing mushy but respect and regard for one another with humourous moments here and there.
The distance between their house and the Chemistry lab was about a kilometre. Easily walkable but Mr Joseph would always come to pick her from the lab with their famous Peugeot 504 car, “The Pegasus”. They will drive home together. Lovely isn’t it? Now that I am an adult, I see how big a sacrifice that was. It was not about the distance. It was about the commitment to keep doing one act of love over and over again.
One day, Mr Joseph came to pick her and she had gone somewhere within the school. While there he just said spontaneously “Where has this girl gone to?” I and the other students that were there froze. Literally. Not figuratively. I mean we literally froze.
Yes we froze. It was like being at the scene of a crime. Who dares call Mrs Joseph a girl? Mrs Joseph was a demi-god to us. See we ranked her in the class of Einstein, Avogadro, Marie Curie, etc.
If the thought of calling her a girl came to you as a student, you will sneeze and startle at the same time. See, Mrs Joseph was like our mother, mentor, and authority figure rolled into one. I am repeating all these for emphasis. Being called a girl was like someone addressing your mother as a girl. It was like calling Mother Theresa a girl. You get the point.
But then we realized, he was her husband. But as kids, we felt strongly he too should not call her a girl. Small pikin mind 🤦♂️🤣😎. When I meet my secondary school classmates and we talk about it, the laughter is always epic. We laughed at how we froze. Evergreen memories.
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Apart from his devotion to his wife of more than 50 years. He was someone that wanted more for others and he did not hold back in those moments. This is the second point that I want to make.
In our SS1, our physics teacher had an accident that was near fatal. It was a miracle that she survived and came back more that 18 months later. Mr Joseph stepped in to teach the class. However, his schedule as the Vice Principal of Academics did not permit, but try he tried. You could see the effort and determination to enable kids not to be deprived of meaningful education. We had the same challenge with our Further Maths and he did same. He did his best. He was a man that was deeply committed.
He gave us his time in organizing activities for the Junior Engineers, Technicians and Scientists (JETS) Club. During one of the meeting we had after school, he came around to see how we were doing. When we were done, he took out time to teach us the anthem of the club. He sang it with us. He told us why it was important.
Another and third attribute of Mr Joseph, that is rarely talked about is his ability not to take credit. I am happy that I told him about it the last time we saw in 2018. Mr Joseph does not have an issue with taking the backstage even in events that he did all the planning and actual mobilization. If you were not in the know, you will never know about his contributions.
He was comfortable in the trenches. He was comfortable in the backstage. He was comfortable in others taking the shine. He was comfortable to make people like me look like a million stars but him, the very mud of the earth. He was ready to be the kidney so that you might have a healthy body. He was the spine and was not interested in being the face. He preferred to be the clay that is used to make fine pottery. That was Mr Joseph.
That is the man I chose to celebrate.
That is the man I remember.
Adieu, Mr Joseph of Saint Patrick's College, Ikot Ansa, Calabar.
