Late Prof. Austin Chukwu

The Unfading Echoes

The Unfading Echoes

How hard it is to evoke you in this limited space!

Larger than pen and paper,

You fill pages upon pages of lives.

Here is but a nutshell:

Enyi Oha, Nwanne Oha, Omelu Oha, Nna Oha,

Humanity is your tribe.

Everyman's moon and everyman's shade,

Can you indeed be spoken of in the past tense?

Can you really die?

The blind are aware of what they do not see

And so do we remain conscious of you, your body though unseen.

In your corporeal absence, you pervade our senses - stubbornly.

Your legacy lives, therefore you live

Death, you are a delusion!

Images of PG lectures and seminars with you

Perpetually irrigate our memories

Mastrpieces of British Literature, Caribbean Literature, African-American Literature

Literature and Society - anything literature

Possessed of a passion for the verbal art, you relished your profession.

To you, literature was life, and life, literature.

Before you we sat,

Acolytes, savouring the outpouring of your knowledge

Our wits awakened, our perception widened and sharpened,

We hailed, "Proooof!"

How can we forget?

Even in this memory, you live!

Mobile critic, mobile historian, master of the spoken medium!

We would not go to greet you in a hurry

For greetings often grew into hours of insightful narratives, of discourse on diverse subjects

Such was your versatility, such your vibrancy

"Prooof" you were and always will be!

He was the roaring voice that resisted injustice

The single eye of objectivity

The open book with niether guile nor falsehood

The untiring voice that rebuked wrong and rejoiced with what was right

The voice that thundered in ASUU,

Raging for the dignity of the profession and of comrades.

Behind the militant, intimidating demeanour

Lay a tenderness so easily... VIEW FULL TRIBUTE

WHAT A SCHOLAR ! WHAT A LEADER !! WHAT A HUGE LOSS TO HUMAN-KIND !!!-

Professor Austin Chukwu was a tall figure in the academia and trade unionism. He lived and died a dogged activist, versatile scholar and humane administrator. Most people who interacted with him shared his intellectual greatness, spirit of goodwill, wise counsels, goo humoured nature and effective leadership qualities. He believed fervently in the core human values of justice, fairness, honesty, hardwork and discipline. Guided by his principles, he became a bold, fearless and outspoken critic of man’s misdeeds in both public and private sectors of our national life.

As a former Chairman of ASUU, South East Zone, he was an exemplification of self-sacrifice. He put aside personal interests and fought courageously and unrelentingly for justice, fairness and good working conditions for academic staff of the university system. Face to face with Governors, Vice Chancellors , State Legislators, Traditional Monarchs and fellow Academics, Professor Chukwu was never a fair-weather character. He called a spade a spade no matter whose ox was gored

Over and above, Professor Chukwu was a boundary and cultural breaker. He treated all those who interacted with him with respect and honour, irrespective of faith, ethnicity, status or gender. He taught people to break free from the habit of fussing about earthly desires and deprecated arrogance, power struggle, man’s inordinate craze for status and brazen exercise of authority. His amazing and incredible exhibition of humanness of life endeared him to many and also incurred him the dislike of an infinitesimal number of detractors. This explains why he enjoyed massive and unquestioned... VIEW FULL TRIBUTE

CONDOLENCE MESSAGE

The entire staff and students of the Department of Sociology/ Psychology/Criminology & Security Studies, Federal University Ndufu Alike Ikwo received with great shock and consternation, the demise of your dear husband, father, grandfather, brother, and indeed our own mentor and pioneer Dean, Professor Prince Austin Chukwu, whose sad and untimely demise occurred at the early hours of Monday, the 7th day of August 2017.

While we are beginning to accept the fact that the sad news is indeed a truism, we are consoled by the obvious that your husband, father, brother and our own academic father Prof Chukwu lived an accomplished life—by all standards. To say that Prof, in all human endeavours, and particularly in the field of academia, touched and   influenced lives that came in contact with this renowned and enigmatic scholar is simply an understatement. A very unassuming man, Prof never allowed his intimidating scientific status to weigh on any of his peers, subordinate and younger academics. From IMSU to ABSU, to EBSU and finally to FUNAI, he was a true academic par excellence and an administrative model to the envy of Max Weber—the colossal Sociologist behind modern Bureaucracy.  He ran a true ‘open-door’ administrative policy—welcoming and entertaining suggestions, advice and listening to diverse views from seniors and juniors with unrivalled and unequalled rapture.  Prof Chukwu was a man of excellent character, impeccably honest, very transparent in his relationships with people, systematic and critical, and above all a man of  high degree of integrity.

It is axiomatic that the inevitability... VIEW FULL TRIBUTE

A TRIBUTE TO AN ACADEMIC ICON, PROFESSOR PRINCE AUSTIN CHUKWU , PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND HUMANE LETTERS

A TRIBUTE TO AN ACADEMIC ICON, PROFESSOR PRINCE AUSTIN CHUKWU , PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH AND HUMANE LETTERS.

Our dear Prof,

I have battled with this reality for weeks now and still find it very hard to believe that you are gone.

You had been our academic father, mentor, and boss. Your untimely demise was too sudden and shocking to us. Your demise was an eclipse at noon; it is still incredible and bewildering. Your demise is a thunderous fall of a giant pillar of citadel of learning in Nigeria. Your demise is a great quake in the entire literary world.

A great custodian of knowledge and standard, a great reservoir of Afrocentric values and stance;

A defender of the weak and the oppressed;

Oke nna, your exit has left a gulf, a vacuum which non can fill, a shoe too large for any to step into; you were just phenomenal

Okeennna ee!!! You got the best out of me ; You made the best out of me... when it was as though I was at the verge of quitting.

Thank you for reaching out to me and giving me an opportunity to learn and be mentored by you. You showed me the warmth and affection of a father.

Thank you for walking me through the long path from graduate assistantship to my present position; from my first year of Masters Degree programme till the day of my PhD graduation. You remain my intellectual father of all time.

I sorely miss your reassuring, assertive speeches

I  miss your candour and encouragement

We miss... VIEW FULL TRIBUTE

A CONDOLENCE MESSAGE TO EZEOGO JOHNPAUL CHUKWU

It is with deep sense of sorrow that I commiserate with you and the entire family over the demise of your beloved father, Professor Austin Chukwu who slept in the Lord on 7th August, 2017 on attainment of 66 years.

Your late beloved father lived a good Christian life. He was a man of honour, an ASUU veteran and also a renowned scholar whose academic records are worthy of emulation. His death therefore, is a monumental loss to the entire family, friends and well wishers, Ebonyi State, and Nigeria at large.

Please, take heart on this unfortunate loss as I pray the Almighty God to grant your family the fortitude to bear the pains of his demise.

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