Late Prof. Austin Chukwu

EPIDEMIC

And so this is it,

Lying rest 

Like peace sleep 

Gone! 

Never to wake again 

Never to be disturbed again 

By this turbulent things

A part of the whole 

You will see rest 

Beyond the realm 

For those who cannot change 

For those who play 

For those who are bare 

For those who bear 

It is not for always

Living is not for always 

Nor death the ultimate 

We are here once 

But forever made 

(Ubani Kenneth)

Prof. Austin Chukwu came, saw and conquered. He is forever made. He left his footprint in the sands of time. Such should be ours, sleep on the great lion, till we meet to part no more. 

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Tribute to a Crusader, Maverick, Icon and Exemplar!

You bore your profession with pride and devoid of fear, your humanity on your sleeve and with fire in your soul.

Who was not touched by your erudite presence? You knew no class, race, position or gender in your fight for equality and excellence. When I had no one to stand in the gap for me, there you were standing tall, demolishing all opposition and finding me worthy.

Your candlestick may have been removed from us mere humans but your legacy will live on in many of us - one of fearlessness, erudition, justice, pride with honour and a trail of academic achievements. Even in death, you stand tall among the living.

Sleep on Professor Austin Chukwu. 

Adieu crusader, maverick, icon and exemplar!

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live." - Norman Cousins

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TRIBUTE FROM ASUU-FUNAI TO OUR HERO: PROF AUSTIN CHUKWU

Death  remains one singular phenomena that has placed the Creator far above the creatures. It marks the  grand division between animate and inanimate. It opens the veil to greater freedom of Soul. Death assails both great and small, the illiterates and the literates, the poor and the rich. The pangs  of death are overwhelming and must take its victim out of physical sight irresistibly,   If not for these brazen  attributes, how on earth  can one expect you,  Prof Chukwu to have succumbed without releasing  verbal assault  on this monstrous assailant that struck on the fateful morning while  you were getting  ready to be on your  beat at Funai. Which mortal can dare you, our great  intellectual giant and  our erudite scholar in this manner? Of course none. It can only come from the  invisible and invincible antagonist, that hovers around mortals, taking advantage of our biological and biochemical loopholes at shortest notice.

Like all great Souls that has bestrode this universe,  you  departed when the ovation was at the peak, not minding that ASUU-Funai has scheduled a congress during  which a major decision was to be taken.  Your exit  took every member of the congress unaware, like a midnight storm, and almost leaving us like orphans. 

Prof, you were  a  chip-off-old block whose indelible footprints will resist even  the most violent soil erosion. You were a prince by birth and lived like one but without hurting the poor. You  belonged to a class but chosen to close the classely demarcation. In... VIEW FULL TRIBUTE

departure of an icon

The big iroko tree has falling, the lion of ishieke,though u are gone but ur warm words will never depart from our heart.sleep well the great icon.

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So Long, Beowulf

"...Now Beowulf bode in the burg of the Scyldings,
leader beloved, and long he ruled
in fame with all folk...
...Of men was he
worthiest warrior wide earth o’er
the while he had joy of his jewels and burg.
Let us set out in haste now, the second time
to see and search this store of treasure,
these wall-hid wonders, — the way I show you, —
where, gathered near, ye may gaze your fill
at broad-gold and rings. Let the bier, soon made,
be all in order when out we come,
our king and captain to carry thither
— man beloved — where long he shall bide
safe in the shelter of sovran God.”
(Extract from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50114/beowulf-modern-english-translation etext version by Robin Katsuya-Corbet; released into the public domain July 1993.)
Source: The Harvard Classics, volume 49 (1910)

Prof, your academic fame and gallantry were sans pareil.
Your philosophical astuteness and literary perspicacity still remains unequivocal even among peers of quantum and substantial academic prominence.
Prof, you initiated us into the magnificent and scintillating world of literary metaphors and dazzling onomatopoeias.
But as it is ineluctable for even the best ones amongst us to double-over at the cataclysmic blow of antagonistic death, today we bow our heads in pain at the departure of a colossus, a man of monumental and prodigious academic proficiency, an embodiment of adroitness, a literary luminary, a voice to the voiceless, an activist of unassailable and inviolable propensity, with a proclivity of incorruptibility.
Adieu prof, for mere words cannot catalog your personality –
Beyond the mortal stream
Do find repose
In the bosom
Of Chukwu
The Prime Architect
Of the frail human destiny.