Fallen Hero: Captain Matute Elvis Mbene's Last Talk With Dad

                  
Captain Matute, is one of the country's valiant Rapid Intervention Battalion (BIR)soldiers, fallen in the line of duty. He hailed from Fako Division, South West Region. The 33 year old died on February 25, 2015, along the Mora-Limani road, in the Far North, when his car exploded, after his driver and himself, drove on a land mine, planted by insurgents.RIP While reading about him online, I came across this story by the Standard Tribune . Its an interview in which his dad recounts their last phone call. It's one of the most emotional stories I've read in a while. May God give his grieving parents, and all grieving families, the fortitude to bear the loss. Keep reading...

Captain Elvis Matute’s parents Chief Mbene and DorothyHis bereaved father, Chief Emmanuel Matute Mbene, 68, told me at his Towe (Alpha Club), Mile 1 residence in Limbe, 26 February, the day after the tragedy: “On Tuesday, I rang him. He didn’t pick the call. On Wednesday morning at about 9am, he rang me and said he couldn’t pick my Tuesday call because they stayed the night in the bush, on the front, in the bush.“I said to him, ‘you know those Boko Haram people, be careful, they can surprise you people’. He said, ‘As well as we can surprise them too’. That was my last conversation with him.“At a few minutes to 1pm, I received a call from a police commissioner, a family friend who informed me my son had been killed in battle. He advised i should get in touch with the BIRs in man O’ War Bay for confirmation.”Half a dozen other soldiers reportedly survived with injuries from the incidentChief Mbene, 68, quarter-head or third class chief of Towe, said he went home and found a way to inform his wife, Dorothy. “I first preached to her to prepare her mind before unleashing the bombshell. I could see she suspected something was wrong from the way I spoke but I prepared her mind and though she was devastated with the news, we both found a way of managing it. She’s alright. You can see she’s calm.”Dorothy Mbene sat stoic in their living room, looking into what looked like a void throughout my chat with her husband on the veranda. Those who know her say that is unusual as she could be very emotional.As for himself, he said he absorbed the shock his usual way. “I’m a positive thinker, nothing schocks me.”Ayisi Onana, a longtime neighbour, now living in Germany, confirms. “Yes [chief] very strong a man. You can hardly read his mind.”True to character, Chief Mbene reversed roles between mourner and consoler. Receiving calls from sympathizers in between our interview for these series of stories (there are two others), he admonished his consolers to take courage and be strong.To a certain Nadege calling from London: “Nadege be strong. We all have to be strong, else who will comfort the other? Your father just left my house.”To certain Chamda : “If you meet a man without a smile, give him one.”To a lady on a condolence visit to his residence: “It’s God’s plan. We cannot ask questions.”If this war drags on and more men fall in battle and bereaved families begin to pull together to share grief and comfort each other, Chief Mbene is kind of man many will find comfort in.

The late Captain and wife