By NIYI OSUNDARE

THE audience exploded in admiration. Chuks and I were locked in cordial embrace. We both knew my gratitude was beyond words… I have carried that poem with me ever since. Its echo hovered over my consciousness as I composed ‘Birth Day’, one of the poems in Days, my book of poems published in 2007, and that particular poem was dedicated to Chuks Ihekaibeya and memories of ‘Crimson Moments’.

But Chuks was no joyless nerd and shriveled book shrimp. He was a rounded human being who cherished the plenitude of life. If Chuks’smile was disarming, his laughter was lungful and robustly infectious. The orator knew his way to the highest reaches of elocution, but he also knew how to mine lowly dialects for their pithiness and earthy humour.

He was colourful, demonstrably colourful, but never flashy; sociable without being noisily gregarious. His was a life devoted to the methods of the mind, the priceless treasure of quiet moments. Hence he chose his company judiciously. Two of the people he introduced to me in our first two weeks in Leeds were Gaius Anoka, the famous Thespian and very pleasant human being, and Ogbonnah Agbai, a witty and humorous fellow who had also just arrived in Leeds for a degree in Geology.

NIYI OSUNDARE

He was Chuks’ junior in high school and displayed reverential awe for his former senior’s character and  oratorical prowess. Ogbonnah and I were age-mates and constantly traded age-mate jokes. Chuks renewed his acquaintanceship with Siyan Malomo, my close friend and our mutual colleague from Ibadan, who was on graduate studies in Geology.

Chuks loved music generally and reggae with a passion. He and I used to comb the music store at Chapel Town in the West Indian district of Leeds for the latest sounds from the Caribbean. We fell in instant love with The World Needs Love, The Pioneers and Jimmy Cliff’s The Harder They Come, loved dancing, very much as I too did, and I was never tired of teasing him about his dancing style which was something close to a mix of the gallopy reggae stride and the shoulder-shaking athleticism of Atilogu. And almost invariably, he replied by mocking my waist-wiggling moves. Quite often, we concluded our entertainment session with a cerebral analysis of the lyrics of the songs as if we were back once again in Dan Izevbaye’s poetry appreciation classes at UI!

I returned to Ibadan in September 1974 to begin my career as a university teacher. Chuks and I corresponded vigorously in the first few months before life despatched us on its different trajectories. Thereafter, our correspondence became less frequent, then went into many years of hiatus. But it wasn’t total silence. I remember our afternoon together in London in December 1986 when I was in the UK to receive the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Older, mellower, and wiser now, Chuks and I went over our usual fare: literature, music, philosophy, and politics. We pondered over the conundrum called Life and its Eshulike vicissitudes. And more than ever before, my friend and I agonized over the perennial delinquency of our country Nigeria and our continent Africa, and the problems of being black in a world in which that colour still stinks like a disabling blemish.

Our second contact was official and indirect: I was so delighted in November 1999 to receive a letter signed by Chuks in his capacity as Special Assistant to Chief Emeka Anyaoku to whom I had copied my petition to the British Ambassador to the United States regarding a bungled entry visa application issue. A couple of months later Chuks and I met at the Murtala Muhammed Airport where he introduced me personally to the affable Secretary-General of the Commonwealth.

Eloquent response

I was hardly surprised to see that Chuks had become a respected Commonwealth official; for in addition to his literary and intellectual acumen, the art and act of diplomacy came to him as a natural asset. In later years he became a Commonwealth envoy and much demanded point man. Our last correspondence took place a couple of months ago, and it carried Chuks’ characteristically perspicacious and eloquent response to my 2012 Save Nigeria Group (SNG) lecture in Lagos. We had agreed to reconnect physically again, and I was thinking of this happening the next time I was in the UK. And then, last week, that highly moving obituary notice from Chukwuma Azuonye.

Cerebral, well spoken, urbane, and consistently humane, Columbus Chukwujindu Ihekaibeya was an accomplished human being with a global soul. He strove for excellence in everything he did, and had no patience with half measures. Chuks loved people and he cherished being loved in return. He had but one tribe, and that was the human race, and he did all he could to project it the noblest heights. Now the music is gone, but the melody remains.. . . . Sleep well, my dear Chukwujindu. Sleep well, Orator.