By Anene Umennaka

I had been pestering him on phone for legal briefs buoyed and basking in the euphoria of my having satisfactorily handled an initial matter for him, involving the spouse of a then sitting Nigeria’s number one citizen. That was some years past. This time around I decided to visit his Ilupeju, Lagos, office. I met him. Sir Eddy Chukwudi Mmuoemenam regretfully told me there was nothing on ground. He then asked me about my children’s education. I told him that one had just gained admission into the university.

Feeling my pain, my having undergone a debilitating illness and overcome it, he there and then decided to sponsor that my child in higher education. Pronto, he released funds towards her registration and was never for one day reminded to meet his obligation, as and when due, till she passed out in 2025: It was the Russian writer, Leo Tolstoy, one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time who wrote “If you feel pain, you are alive, if you feel other people’s pain, you are a human being”.

Eddy was a real human being. A man with uncommon empathy. A man who wisely accepted and lived by Stephen Grellet dictum that: “I shall pass this world but once. Any good thing that I can do, or any kindness that I can show any human being, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again”

His death on Saturday, October 18, 2025, after a routine morning exercise was very shocking, very sudden and incomprehensible. Nothing prepared all who knew him for the news. He was not ill and he was just 64 years. Everyone who knew him received the news with dazed shock, disbelief, rejection, flowing tears and wailing. How true was Theo Sommerin when he said: “We cling to tawdy[sic] belief in the calculability of events, yet deep down we know that the incalculable and the unforeseeable rule the course of history”.

Born on June 12, 1961, Sir Edwin was popularly known in his community as ‘Eddie Santana’. His Life was carved by hard work, resilience, humility, and uncommon grace. He distinguished himself through diligence, loyalty, honesty, unflinching sense of duty, rare foresight and was extremely intelligent. He was into pharmaceutical importation, manufacturing, distribution of chemicals and allied products.

Sir Eddy was blessed with significant wealth and social reckoning. Perennially smiling and a jolly good fellow, he was a man without guile. You could never see him angry or fazed by anyone or any situation. He moved through life with quite confidence, in consonance with the biblical injunction in Isaiah 30:15 which says: “In quietness and confidence shall be your strength”. Eddy had the “can do” spirit in his business and the things of God.

He was a Director of Guardian Bank Plc which later metamorphosed as Spring Bank Plc following the 2005 banking consolidation. Eddy was also a substantial shareholder in the defunct First African Trust Bank and served with distinction at Spring Mortgage Limited and Spring Insurance Limited. Sir Eddy was founding Chairman of Danic Foods Limited, a Director at Swift Networks Limited and was also into real estate and other concerns.

A true contributor to the Nigerian economy and of course a committed employer of labour. An alumnus of the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), Lagos, he also attended executive programs at Harvard Business School, Massachusetts, USA and was a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Direct Marketing of Nigeria.

Like many visionary Igbo men of his generation, he ran a robust apprenticeship system rooted in mentorship, discipline, and opportunity. He deliberately, through this programme, nurtured young men and even women into confident business owners and industry leaders by equipping them with practical skills and financial grounding, providing free seed funding and start-up capital. Today, many of these beneficiaries are thriving entrepreneurs, successful company owners and employers of labour in their own right equally, contributing significantly to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Students, widows, widowers, struggling business people, young men and women, families and strangers, will all testify to his silent and compulsive generosity. He believed that “to serve and help the needy is to worship God” as the Asian poet J.P. Vaswani is credited to have said. He was giving of his time, his resources, his knowledge, his experience and more.

“The glad hand is all right in sunshine”, Peter Gianni said, “but it is the helping hand on a dark day that folks remember to the end of time”.

He incorporated the Edwin Mmuoemenam Care Foundation (EMCE), a non-governmental organisation in 2019 with its registered office as No.1, Edwin Mmuoemenam Street, Obiuno, Igbo-Ukwu, Anambra State. The foundation was conceived as a vehicle for educational empowerment of Igbo-Ukwu youths, as a tool for eradication of poverty in our society being a key component of human capital development.

His untimely death has left a gaping hole in the lives of hundreds of people on his payroll and hundreds more that regularly benefit from his silent charity and giving. For he believed like Thomas Paine that “the world is my country, all mankind are my brethren…to do good is my religion”. Eddy lives through his children, the lives he touched, friends he made and the relationships he built because as Shakespeare wrote “to live in the hearts of those you love is not to die”.

Sir Eddy was a known Lay Reader at our Saviour’s Church, Tafawa Balewa Square, Lagos and a devoted supporter of the work of God at St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church Aguda, Surulere, Lagos where he was a senior member of the Guild of Stewards. He single-handedly built in his Igbo-Ukwu community, the ultra-modern St. Peter’s Anglican Church, Igbo-Ukwu and many other silent sacrificial givings to God. He equally served as Chairman, Board of Trustees of Christ the King Secondary School, Igbo-Ukwu and was a proud Knight of St. Christopher (KSC) of the Anglican Communion.

In their tribute, St. Bartholomew Anglican Church, Aguda wrote (excerpt): “Sir Eddy was beloved of many, admired by most, and respected by all who knew him. He was suave, gritty, intelligent, a man of depth, a builder of men and of things, a motivator, a go-getter, and a very successful serial entrepreneur- yet he was easily the simplest and humblest man you will meet. Indeed never had success and wealth looked and lived so humbly as they did in Sir Eddy”.

He single-handedly constructed a standard, high quality 2-kilometre road in Igbo-Ukwu and was preparing to commence the second – from Ahiagu Obiuno to Etiti village Igbo-Ukwu, in 2026 before his sudden demise. He executed several other philanthropic projects in Igbo-Ukwu and beyond hence he was also known in his community as “Onwa” and “Ebekuadike” which literally means light of the people. It is said that his Igbo-Ukwu community had resolved to confer on him merit chieftaincy title on January 11, 2026, but true to his nature he declined it, being averse to publicity.

Eddy’s last public appearance was at the N200 million launch of the Igbo-Ukwu Development Union (IDU), Lagos branch held at the IDU hall, Orile, Lagos on Sunday, September 28, 2025 where in his characteristic selflessness he stepped in for the chief launcher who was unavailable.

Sir Edwin was married to Lady Juliet Chizoba Obialananma Muoemenam (nee Iwegbuna) and the union was blessed with five lovely children: Onyinye, Ifeanyi, Etom, Chiagozie and Chukwudi.

It was ancient philosopher Socrates, who said: “if a man is proud of his wealth, he should not be praised until it is known how he employs it”. Eddy was humble and used his fortune for societal good through philanthropy and community initiatives.

Umennaka, a lawyer, is the President, Friends of the Sick International. He can be reached via: [email protected]