Family and friends are invited to Amawbia as we lay Dede to rest. Everyone who knew and loved him is welcome at every event.
Louis Chukwukadibia Akah was born on 18 October 1947 in Amawbia, Anambra State, the second of six children of Mazi Akah Nwankwo, a palm-produce trader, and Madam Nwakaego Akah.
He began school at St. Joseph's Primary School, Amawbia, walking four miles each morning with a slate under his arm. In 1960 he won a scholarship to Christ the King College, Onitsha, where he found two loves that never left him: mathematics and the school choir.
The civil war closed the universities in 1967, and he spent those years teaching younger children in a refugee camp school.
When the war ended he went to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and graduated in Mathematics in 1975. He always said the camp school taught him more than the university did.
In 1976 he married Ngozi Eze of Nimo. Together they raised five children in a house always full of visitors, Highlife records and arguments about football.
He taught for over thirty years, and from 1990 to 2007 he was Principal of Community Secondary School, Amawbia. He knew every student by name and stood at the gate each morning in a white shirt. His favourite line is the one every former student still repeats: “Show your working.”
A church warden at St. Joseph's, he was invested a Knight of St. Mulumba in 2003.
In 2008 his people conferred on him the title Obunakueze I of Umueze Village, Amawbia.
He passed on peacefully at home on 10 August 2026, surrounded by family, aged 78.
and a host of relations, in-laws, friends and former students.
When we married in 1976 you promised me a house of laughter. You kept that promise through lean years and full ones. You woke before the cock every morning, you prayed, and then you put the kettle on for me.
You taught our children to read the newspaper aloud and to look a person in the eye. The compound is too quiet without your radio. Rest, my dear. I will see you again.
You were the first person we called with good news and the last to hear the bad, because you always knew already. You checked our homework at the dining table with a red pen and a straight face, and you made every one of us show our working.
When Emeka failed his first JAMB, you did not shout. You sat with him on the veranda until midnight, writing out a timetable on the back of a calendar, and the next year you woke him at five every morning with tea. When Ifeoma wanted to study medicine, you sold the Peugeot 504 without telling anyone and simply said the fees were paid.
You were strict about the small things, because you said the big things are only small things added together. Shoes were polished on Saturday night. Letters were answered within the week. Visitors were never sent away without at least a cup of water and a seat in the shade.
In your last months you still asked after every grandchild by name, and you still corrected our grammar from your bed. On your final evening you asked Chiamaka to read Psalm 23 and you said the last line with her, word for word.
Thank you for the Sunday drives, for Osadebe on the gramophone, and for loving Mummy loudly in front of us. Jee nke ọma, Daddy.
You always had groundnuts in your pocket and a riddle waiting. You let us win at draughts until we were old enough to know you were letting us. Under the ube tree you told us the stories of Amawbia, and we will keep telling them.
You ran Community Secondary School with a bell, a ledger and an open door. Many of us are engineers, nurses, teachers and traders today because you refused to let us give up on mathematics, or on ourselves.
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Dear Lolo Akah,
CONDOLENCE ON THE DEATH OF NZE DR. LOUIS CHUKWUKADIBIA AKAH
On behalf of the parish family of St. Joseph's, Amawbia, I write to share in your grief at the passing of your dear husband, our brother and friend, Nze Dr. Louis Chukwukadibia Akah.
For more than fifty years he was a steady presence in this parish. He sang in our choir, served on the Parish Pastoral Council, and led the building committee that roofed our church in 1998. Many of our young people learned their catechism from him, and many more learned from his example what a faithful Catholic husband and father looks like.
We commend his soul to the merciful love of God, and we assure you of our prayers at every Mass this month. May the Lord grant him eternal rest, and may He comfort you and your children in this time of sorrow.
Yours in Christ,
Rev. Fr. Anselm Okeke, Parish Priest
Dear Madam,
LETTER OF CONDOLENCE
The President General, executive and entire membership of the Amawbia Progressive Union, Lagos Branch, received with deep sorrow the news of the death of our illustrious son, Nze Dr. Louis Chukwukadibia Akah, Obunakueze I of Umueze Village, Amawbia.
Dr. Akah was a founding patron of this branch. When the union was only a handful of young men meeting in a rented classroom in Yaba, he travelled from home to encourage us, and he never once returned to Amawbia without asking after every member by name. His counsel steadied the union through many difficult seasons, and his patience settled more disputes than any constitution could.
At our emergency meeting of Sunday, 14th September 2026, members observed a minute's silence in his honour and resolved as follows:
1. That the Lagos Branch will attend the funeral in full, in our union attire.
2. That a delegation led by the President General will visit the family before the funeral.
3. That the branch will present a wreath and a donation towards the funeral rites.
4. That the Akah Scholarship, which he founded, will continue in his name.
We pray that God, who gave him to us for seventy-eight fruitful years, will grant his soul eternal rest and give the family the strength to bear this great loss.
Adieu, Obunakueze. Ije oma.
Yours faithfully,
Barr. Okechukwu Ibe, President General · Mrs. Chioma Anene, General Secretary
Dear Lolo Akah,
CONDOLENCE: OUR FORMER PRINCIPAL
The staff, students and Board of Governors of Community Secondary School, Amawbia, are saddened by the death of Nze Dr. Louis Chukwukadibia Akah, who served this school as teacher from 1979 and as Principal from 1990 until his retirement in 2007.
He built our first science laboratory, started the school library with books from his own shelves, and insisted that every student, rich or poor, should leave this school able to write a proper letter. Many of the doctors, engineers, priests and teachers this town is proud of today passed through his office.
The school held a special assembly in his honour on Friday. The students sang his favourite hymn, and the library will now bear his name. Please accept our deepest sympathy.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. Josephine Nwankwo, Principal
We mourn a brother Knight whose faith was lived quietly and practically. May his soul rest in the peace of the Lord.
A gifted bass and a faithful friend. The Class of '65 will sing for him one more time.
Amawbia has lost a pillar and a peacemaker. His counsel steadied our union for decades.
Our in-law treated our daughter as a queen for fifty years. We share the family's grief and its gratitude for his life.
Every Sunday he sat in the third pew and sang the loudest. The choir will miss his voice and his encouragement.
He taught me algebra in 1994 and taught me how to be a man the same year. When my father could not pay my WAEC fees, I found my name on the list of candidates anyway, and nobody would tell me who had paid. Years later, at my housemanship, a letter arrived in his handwriting: "Chinedu, I hear you are now a doctor. Remember the people who cannot pay." I have kept that letter on my desk for twenty years. Rest well, sir.
A short film made by the family from home videos and photographs.
Turn your sound on. On a phone, turn it sideways to watch full screen.
The family of the late Nze Dr. Louis Chukwukadibia Akah is deeply grateful for the love that has surrounded us since 10 August.
To everyone who visited, prayed, cooked, sang, sent messages or travelled to Amawbia: thank you. To the doctors and nurses who cared for Dede in his last months, and to Rev. Fr. Anselm Okeke and the parish of St. Joseph's, we are grateful beyond words.
May God reward your kindness, and may you return safely to your homes.
Daalụ nụ.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.2 Timothy 4:7
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