By Tonia Okereke
First son of late Green Eagles captain and coach, Christian Chukwu, Christian Chukwu Jr has revealed that the late football icon stopped taking foreign coaching jobs to stay close to his family.
The younger Chukwu said in an interview with the Punch that the late former Green Eagles skipper’s career took him to different parts of the world and he had to leave his family behind. But the player once called ‘Chairman’ in respect by the fans and fellow players, later decided to reject lucrative offers from abroad in order to stay close to his wife and children.
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Chukwu Jnr told the paper: “He was a very calm, loving and caring father. He was good in listening to us the children, even to the extent we were surprised by the way people respected him more than the way we respected him. It was like he had authority outside but with us he made everything easy, very easy with us. He didn’t bring his chairman status to the home, in the house, he was very calm.
“He solved our problems when we had any. It was because of us he retired from coaching outside the country. He coached so much outside – Kenya, Lebanon, Algeria – and it was because of us that he decided to take a break to come down and stay with us and train us. He tried his best as a family man, he was a good and wonderful father.
Speaking further on how his late father prioritised his family, Chukwu Jnr revealed: “He will always call and we will talk for very long periods of time. That was when there was NITEL landline, we will open it and everyone will take their turns. I will talk, my elder sister will talk, my younger sister and everybody will talk and he never missed whenever he had the chance or had free days off work, whether it was in the US, Lebanon or Kenya, he would always try to come back and stay like one or two months before going back”.
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