MY BELOVED GO UNI | by Professor Christian Anieke
Today sitting in my office I admire your incandescent beauty
I gaze at your broad chest and watery waist
Ringed by long flowing green kaftan
An orchestra of birds and bats playing for you.
Today sitting in my office I meditate on your two liquid hands
Dancing hands of variegated complexions and shapes
With a melting heart I eavesdrop to catch the clapping of your hands
Your liquid music sipping through my veins: soft and soothing.
Today sitting in my office I watch fat parading cows
Out of fear or excitement they break into trumpeting
Necks bent and feet thudding in perfect accompaniment
With an army of flies and insects dancing in circles and labyrinths.
Today sitting in my office I glare at a green parade of trees
Trees yet unrecorded by biologists and researchers
I gawk at plants of all colours: blue, red, yellow, white, gold, orange
And fascinating shapes: snake-shaped, tortoise-shaped, grass-cutter shaped.
Today sitting in my office I muse on your beauty
And today I have fallen in love with you again.
- Excerpted from ‘The Infant Prodigy And Its Steps Towards Its Beautiful Home: The Vice Chancellor’s Speech on the 8th Foundation Day of the University (20th October, 2017)’
Very Rev. Fr. Prof. Christian Anieke, born 1st October 1965, is a Nigerian Roman Catholic priest and Vice Chancellor of Godfrey Okoye University, Enugu, Nigeria. Ordained a priest in 2000, Christian is a professor of English Language and Studies. He became the founding Vice Chancellor of Godfrey Okoye University, an institution owned by the Catholic Diocese of Enugu in Nigeria, in 2009.
Christian Anieke’s studies and research in Philosophy, Biblical Theology, English and American Studies and English Language has seen him study in Urban University, Rome; the University of Innsbruck, Austria; Bath Language School, Stratford-upon-Avon; Oxford University; and the University of Muenster. He has a B.Sc. in Education and English from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. At the University of Innsbruck, he graduated summa cum laude from his doctorate program in English and from both of his masters programs in Philosophy and Theology.
He is the author of Chinua Achebe’s Trilogy: A Study in Bicultural Communication (2014), Intercultural Problems of Communication: The (Re) Presentation of the Igbo People and Their Culture in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Arrow of God and No Longer at Ease (2005), Hybrid Formations in English (2002), The Symbol of the Dove at the Baptism of Christ (2000), and Metaphysics as a Natural Disposition in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1994); and co-author of Frontiers in Education: Advances, Issues and Perspectives (2015), Stories of Peace (2011), Njem Goliver Jere, an Igbo translation of Gulliver’s Travels (2009), and A Dictionary of German, English and Igbo (2008).
A native of Ezeagu, Enugu State, Nigeria, and an honorary citizen of Mitterikirchen, Austria, he holds the chieftaincy title: the Ezeudo Gburu Gburu of Umumba Ndiagu, Enugu State, Nigeria.