Prof. Kalu Uka: A Final Word

Victor Ndoma-Egba

When I relocated to Calabar from Ogoja in September 1981 as a young lawyer entertainment was Patsol Cinema owned by the Solomons, a Lebanese family that had long settled in Calabar, Luna Nite Club, Maryland Nite Club where the legendary Geraldo Pino held forte, African Club, the Calabar Sports Club, and house parties.

For those of us who did not fit into any of those by disposition there were more sober alternatives. There was the Reading Club promoted by Professors Ernest Emeyonu, Kalu Uka and the top civil servant Wilfred Oden Inah.

Our rendezvous was the home of the young economic journalist Clement Ebri who was to become Governor of Cross River State. We had other clusters, the home of Dr. Josephat Itafu Okey, who had recently returned from Germany with his German wife was for African Music and Dr. Lawrence Udoh the ebullient veterinary doctor was for Chess and Scrabble.

That was before cable television, internet or smart phones. However, the biggest platform then was the Department of Theatre Arts, a haven of talent and creativity where my type spent many an evening watching performances, and rehearsals.

The Department of Theatre Arts in the relatively new University of Calabar had already established itself in the public psyche courtesy of its collection of star teachers like Prof. Kalu Uka, the West Indian, Dexter Lyndersay, Afro American Gloria Hart who sometimes performed with the Geraldo Pino at the Maryland Night Club in Mbukpa, Calabar, Chris Nwamuo, Adah Ugah, amongst many others.

Prof. Ukah was Head of the Department and very visible in the productions, performances and rehearsals. He was already a titan in African Theatre. It was in the course of my visits to the Department of Theatre Arts and my participation in the Reading Club and the Calabar Chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors that this already great man struck a friendship with the young struggling lawyer. It was a humbling experience.

It turned out that both of us shared a number of interests, the most obvious being books and the others being the games of lawn tennis and scrabble. In the few games of scrabble we shared he was clearly a master.

Prof. Uka was very proud of his Ohafia heritage and identity and lived it. You could tell this from as far away as his dressing complete with the “okpu agu ‘(Leopard cap). I had gone with my late wife Amaka, to see Prof.  once. He said he was amazed at her fluency in Ibo. Thenceforth they met more often to have long conversations in Ibo.

He was the ultimate conversationalist with a hearty laugh who saw life as theatre. This was evident when in 1999, at the onset of the current democratic dispensation, Ben Arikpo a serial entrepreneur and Kanmonke Abam, an archivist and writer co-founded the Mandate newspaper as their contribution to the emergent democracy The newspaper was to inform, educate and entertain but more importantly set an agenda for discourse of critical issues in Cross River State in particular, and Nigeria at large. Prof Kalu Uka was chairman of the editorial board with the celebrated historian, Prof Okon Uya, distinguished woman leader, Minika Etim James, quintessential civil servant Eni Okoi, and I, as members. Meetings and debates were lively and more of a surgical theatre, with Prof Uka cutting through critical and complex issues like a sharp knife on cheese. He understood human nature and the human condition.

In his later years he was more involved with church work. He often invited me to his church unfortunately I was never able to make it.

Prof Uka lived until the full age of 88 years. It was a rich and full, a life of love, service and sacrifice to family, community, country and humanity and he has earned eternal rest with his Maker whom he faithfully served while on this mortal plane. 

I am privileged that he counted me among his friends. May he rest in perfect peace.

 Ndoma-Egba, SAN was a Senator and Leader of the 7th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chairman, NDDC and is currently Chairman and Pro Chancellor Federal University, Oye Ekiti