By Moma Sandrine
Early Tuesday morning, fans, friends, colleagues and family members of Peter Tebit Chi, popularly known as MacChi received the shocking news of his exit from the surface of the earth.
According to what The Sun gathered, MacChi had been sick for over a month, during which he kept moving from one hospital to another, seeking medical attention. Due to his devotedness to his job and his fans, Peter Tebit Chi despite his poor health condition decided to serve his hungry audiences with information on May 5th, marking his last day on air.
Peter Tebit Chi was a reporter for Radio Hot Cocoa and was described by many as one of the city’s finest as far as pidgin news broadcasting is concerned. His painful exit to eternity is indeed a loss for the management of Radio Hot Cocoa, as the station manager Gideon Takar explains “Peter Tebit Chi was a University dropout and over many years he sought and gained enormous experiences performing at odd jobs. In his quest for livelihood, he learnt to repair sewing machines and created a repair shop in Bamenda with branches in Foumbot and Douala. He was fascinated by the glamour of Audiovisual Broadcasting and this led him to join Radio Hot Cocoa FM94.0 as an apprentice under Anyi Collins. Collins was the most vibrant Pidgin news presenter in the North West Region. When Collins moved for greener pastures, Peter Chi comfortably replaced him and built his own image as an outstanding Pidgin news presenter. The Pidgin news at Radio Hot Cocoa became an envious flagstaff programme that attracted advertisers, because, besides its peculiar style in presentation, Peter always did a lot of research so as to always introduce something new. He loved Radio Hot Cocoa that even few days before his last breath; he indicated his sadness for not serving his large audiences. Radio Hot Cocoa has lost a great broadcast genius. May his soul find peace with the Lord”.
The passing away of MacChi is a great loss not only to his fans and family but to the entire media corp. Elvis McCarthy is a pidgin news broadcaster and he explains how the death of his colleague has left a vacuum in his heart “As a colleague and rival, because our names had similarities, MacChi and mc Carthy. I had almost 15 calls from people being afraid I was the one. But to be honest, I cried all night when I spoke with the sister and she told me his condition and that he was now in the village. The only thing I would have done was to open MacChi a fund to help him stay alive while on sick bed, but I got the news of his illness a week and he died. He was a colleague who each time calls me rival and I called him rival beacause we did same programmes, same time, while I was in Afrique nouvell FM at 4pm Tory time. Nice guy, determined and always prompt on his news show”.
Peter Tebit Chi who hails from Batibo in the North West Region upon his exit, leaves behind a wife and six children (with the youngest child being four years old). At press time, his body is lying at the Bamenda regional hospital mortuary pending burial.