Dr. Paul Chika Dike, PhD. OON. The Ogene na Enugwu Ukwu.
A Tribute.
The stars have departed,
The sky in a monocle
Surveys the world under
The stars have departed
And I—where am I?
Stretch, stretch, Oh antennae,
To clutch at this hour,
Fulfilling each moment in a
broken monody
That was Christopher Okigbo prophesying anomie, a prelude to the Nigerian civil war. A broken monody. Yet to be repaired.
In 2010, sixteen years ago, I brought out my second volume of poetry titled “Die Oh Death (Or the musings of a Split Conscience & Other Poems), following visions of or predictions of death around me. In his review of the book, Professor Chidi T. Maduka, a Professor of Comparative Literature at the University of Port Harcourt, wrote as follows:
“On ruminating on the significance of death, the author represents an awe-inspiring phenomenon as a mere transformation of the evanescent human life into a new state, in which a person becomes a new being in a warm embrace with the Creator.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today to publicly pay tribute to an “altered life”, waiting for a rebirth. In the rarefied continuum of life and death, in the Igbo worldview or spiritual eco-system, our ancestors believe in a cyclical life pattern, a going and coming in a seven-life cycle, with each life cycle becoming better than the previous one. The idea of a spiritual resurrection is therefore not foreign in our climes. Paul is very much with us, and I feel his muted presence since his earthly departure in February 2026.
Why not? A fine spirit like his cannot just refuse to be. When I visited his family following his sudden departure, I was shown a beautiful picture of him in a new attire foretelling his readiness for a journey to a beautiful, ethereal (or, is it surreal?) world.
We believe in the world of the Ancestors—the saints departed – who are departed but not gone, through whom we sometimes approach Chukwu, the creator of the universe, not in the belief of life as a brief candle, the life that prattles and rambles, and is seen no more:
“Out, out, brief candle, life is but a walking shadow, A tale told by an idiot, Full of sound and fury; Signifying nothing”. Not my life, not the life of the Ogene of Enugwu Ukwu.
That is Shakespearean, that is Occidental. In Igboland, we think differently. The living and the dead are a continuum of existential experience of mysteries based on mystical knowledge that is beyond the ordinary. The ancestors asked questions and were given answers, the type of answers later taken up by some Western scholars. In this respect, we can cite a book titled ” Journey of Souls -Case studies of Life Between Lives”, first published in 1994. In his introduction, Dr Newton asks the following questions:
“Are you afraid of death? Do you wonder what is going to happen to you after you die? Is It possible you have a spirit which came from somewhere else and will return there after your body dies, or is it just wishful thinking because you are afraid? Ontological questions that our ancestors answered before their fortuitous encounter with the West. It was easy for us to accept the biblical injunction “not to cry like those without hope”. It was not and still is not in our character to do so.
Dr Paul Chike Dike was also a fine writer and an artist who edited several books, including a review and edition of “The Women’s Revolt of 1929.” It was a summation of a symposium on that subject matter in 1989 at Port Harcourt. Death and Life are also the subjects of that struggle, and he handled it with a unique understanding of an artist who had also experienced warfare. The women fought a bitter fight to have dignity and ensure a better life for their children and for all of us in the struggle against a debilitating alien culture and an extractive institution. Dr Dike wrote in a mature and measured tone, that of a man who understood that there is something beyond living and dying.
The women of Oloko, near Aba, in today’s Abia State, led by the amazon Nwanyereuwa, demonstrated grit and gravitas when they took on the agents of colonialism and caused them to implement reforms in South East Nigeria that changed colonial rule and perception of the African. The women brought honour and dignity to themselves, refusing to live a life of odium and cowardice, symbolic of the idiom “Odi ndu Onwu ka nma”.A worthless life, without impact.
That aphorism is echoed in the lyrics of an American poet, A Psalm of Life, written in 1938 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
“Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time.”
Dr Paul Chike Dike came, saw, and conquered. He left footprints on the sands of time through his works here on earth. He lives forever in our hearts, and we pray to God to equip the family with the strength to bear his glorious transition into the au dela.
Professor IHECHUKWU CHIEDOZIE MADUBUIKE
Former Minister of the Federal Republic.
