Shakespeare’s long held view that while some were born great, others achieved greatness on their own by sheer dint of hard work including Chief Chinweike Okoro popularly known as Chyke Fussion is true.
Chinweike Okoro was born to the average family of Elder David Onwubiko and Madam Lucy Ahunna Okoro both of Umuokoro Compound of Okoro Okpaegbe kindred Umuobiakwa in the Obingwa Local Government Area of Abia State on September 19, 1949.
For his primary education, he attended S.D.A. School now known as Amaise Central School where he passed out in 1963. Subsequently, he enrolled into Collins Commercial School Aba, where he learned typing and shorthand, a pursuit that was terminated by the unfortunate Nigeria Biafra war. In 1972, at the end of hostilities, he gained admission into Wilcox Memorial Secondary School Ogbor Hill Aba, where he graduated in 1976.
Long before he secured the Wilcox admission, he had started showing and demonstrating great musical traits anchored on talent during which his equally late uncle Chief John Ngozi Nwaehibe popularly known as Johny Fleming started grooming him to near perfection.
Johny Fleming, it will be recalled was among the very foremost pop stars of the vintage era who played as well as sang with bands such as Wavelengths in Enugu, Rock 28 in Onitsha before joining the Wings in faraway Maiduguri. At that point Johny Fleming it can be said dropped Fussion halfway into musical paradise.
Thereafter the living High Chief Walton Arungwa picked the young lad and gave him all the thorough musical lessons required in theory as in practical with which Fussion blossomed into serious musical reckoning afterwards.
Having followed Walton Arungwa who had just returned home to stay after years of musical sojourn and expedition in Calabar provided the opportunity for Chyke Fussion to join and thus became founding member of Super 7 at formative stages. Super 7 which later metamorphosed into what became known as Apostles in later days.
At that point, there was no stopping Chyke Fussion who has now become a confirmed truant at the highly disciplined Wilcox Memorial Secondary School where he often missed out of classroom works preferring instead to pay greater attention to his musical inclinations.
Both his parents and the school authorities punished him severally for failing to subject himself to domestic rules and existing school curricular and threatened to expel him if he continued with his truancy all of which fail on deaf ears.
While the threats lasted, Chyke Fussion’s fame was rising astronomically beyond Aba and the whole of East Central State. In 1974 the Apostles recorded their debut single of “Down-down the valley” and “Battery Rock” with which the group established itself as a group that has come to stay.
But when in 1976 it went ahead to pacify, condole and sympathized with the government and people of Nigeria particularly the Igbos of the East Central State whose shops where raised down in that regrettable early morning fire that gutted them all in a pathetic musical note was all the Apostles as a band and Chyke Fussion as a person and vocalist of the tune “Enyim Lee” and “Mmeregini bu Ogu” among other well thought out, well composed, well played, and well blended lamentation songs that came from deep down the stable of the Apostles as was sang by Chinweike Okoro a.k.a. Chyke Fussion with which he stamped his musical authority on the sands of musical times to the glory of his name as the Apostle of the Apostles.
Accordingly we are here today not just to bury him but also to praise him as we shall not forget to point out that though he was quite a hardworking young man he was also the stubborn and no-nonsense type who pursued his musical career with every vigor and passion, winning for himself and the Apostles, the Ngwa-land and Igbo nation the corresponding musical accolades that compelled entertainment journalists and editors referring to the Apostles as “Ndi Nkwa”.
It is safer to say that the Apostles may not have achieved it all without Chyke Fussion applying and bringing to bear his God-given talent to it.
Chyke Fussion, as he lived and of course in his hay days was one of the most fanciful floor show vocalists of the Nigerian pops. He was a good family man and husband of one wife Miriam with three children namely – Adaeze Chizurumoke Confidence Okoro (Daughter), Michael Chinjikem Okoro (Son), Noble King Chiedozie Okoro (Son), as his children with numerous other relations left to mourn him.
Chyke Fussion slipped off his bathroom floor and broke the bone in his left leg on Wednesday April 17 and consequently died painfully on Wednesday May 15, 2024 after several Western and Orthodox medications failed to cure him. Before his death, he had many musical albums to his credit. He was also a member and major stakeholder in the PMAN.
On May 1, 2002, His Royal Highness Eze C. D. Nwajiogu the Ala Ukwu I of Isiala Ukwu Autonomous Community in Obingwa honoured and installed him as the Akaji Nkwa I of Ngwa-land in recognition and appreciation of his contributions to the development of Ngwa and Igbo land generally through music.
He was severally described as the greatest singer musician ever to emerge from Ngwa-land. And because of his love for music he fluffed or rejected many opportunities to travel abroad for further studies preferring to remain here pursuant of his musical ambition to logical conclusion.
While he may not have made all the money, he made all the name and goodwill that comes with fame enough to sustain those he left behind if it were in a society where love and peace, probity and accountability thrives unhindered. Although nature abhors vacuum, the Ngwa-land may not again have such an ebullient singer/performer such as Chief Chinweike Okoro a.k.a. Fussion in the nearest future.
By his death therefore, his family, the Umuobiakwa people in Obingwa Council area and Abia State in general can be said to have lost regrettably one of her greater sons and the Apostle of the Apostles of our time.
Adieu Daddy,
Adieu we loved and cherished you but God loves you most.
See you the resurrection morning, when we shall meet to part no more.
Michael Chinjikem Okoro (Son)
For the family
