Professor Chinua Achebe, the Eagle on Iroko, the founding Father of Okike, a journal of creative writing and essays, the founding father of UwaNdigbo, another journal whose medium was Igbo while it existed, the acclaimed father of Nigerian literature, the founding editor of Nsukkascope that championed the voice of freedom at the University of Nigeria in the seventies, the eminent Emeritus Professor of English, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the voice of cultural liberation in Africa, your mighty spirit lives on.
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Your sun rises to the West. Chinualumogu Achebe, your Chi has seen you through to this inevitable and ultimate promise of the final return, a return of the flesh to the soil of its birthing, but your enduring spirit is global.
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Any wonder that your presences have been reported to be felt in your home, despite the passing on of your flesh in another country, another continent! Achebe, our true man of the people, things do not fall apart where the creative genius reigns eternal. And the trouble with Nigeria can now be fought from the mighty heights you have ascended. No boko haram will see there.
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No ethnic militias shall dare there. And we are now at unease as expected of mortals. The savannah is very much with us, but it is no perching space for your transcended self. The war of this world has been fought and overcome, by you, but the stories live on in the mouth of girls and boys.
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Yes, tomorrow is pregnant as the Igbo would say it, but today has found us mortals paying tribute to a noble soul.
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This country is still a presence with us, but we pray for the future to be greater and better than the past. Taabugboo!My dear teacher, the novelist has greatly taught Life, but unruly Death is ungovernable, unteachable, and undisciplined.