CHIEF (DR) AUSTIN CHUKS-ORJI, A MAN OF GREAT HUMILITY, A TRIBUTE!

To the many well-wishers and sympathisers who thronged the hall of the Most Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Antioch, California, USA to pay him their last respect on November 28, 2009; he was that affable and amiable man who always wore a smile. So many of them gathered did not really know the gravitas and accomplishment of the man lying prostrate and face-up in a beautiful brown casket?

Dressed up in death as he would while alive, impeccable and immaculate, in a well matched two piece suit with a neck-tie and his trade-mark fedora hat lying next to his body. He was as restful in his eternal sleep as he was while alive. The morticians did a perfect job and his body did not in anyway betray his looks while alive. Every mourner was satisfied in the job that was done to preserve his body.

The wake-keeping was well attended with over five hundred people taking up every available seats, some standing and spilling the hallways and even into the outside of a cold wintry Bay Area night. There was a funeral mass, followed by performances of traditional African music and masquerades; funeral orations, eating and dancing, while the gathered celebrated the life and times of a man many people in Bay Area of Northern California affectionately knew as GQ! He was a man of good character and unfathomable humility.

Chief (Dr) Austin Chuks-Orji, the Ogbuenyisiogu 11 of Obe, Nkanu, Enugu, Nigeria obtained a PhD in Finance way back in 1971. But the way and manner he carried himself, mixed and mingled with even the lowly, never betrayed his attainment of the apogee in academic pursuit. He once owned and operated four McDonald's Franchises, a Ford/Lincoln/Mercury car dealership in America; as well as the then Macons Nigeria Limited, which bakery arm made the popular and delicious Macon's Bread in Enugu, Nigeria; (anyone who grew up and lived in Enugu back in the eighties would attest to the popularity and quality of this bread). He was also the national vice chairman of the then Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe-led Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), - a very high political party office in NPP and second only to Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya - the very chairman! He was also chairman of then Anambra State Housing Development Co-operation. He was an author. He was a member of board of directors of so many companies and government parastatals. He was married and blessed with eight children and some grandchildren. He was a successful man. To Icheoku, GQ was a good man!

Chief (Dr) Austin Chuks-Orji died in the United States of America on October 26, 2009 following complications from surgery. He was born at Aba, in present day Abia State, Nigeria on May 29, 1943. He was highly educated. He was a politician. He was a businessman and entrepreneur. He was a husband, a father and grandfather. He had brothers and sisters including nieces and nephews. He was good dresser and dapper, which earned him the acronym GQ! He was also an African high chief. He was loved by his family and so many friends and admirers. Chief (Dr) Chuks-Orji lived in the Bay Area of Northern California United States of America for quite some time; but in a somewhat humble and meek manner. Icheoku says, but for his eulogy, many would not have known who he really was and/or his actual worth? And so it was that Chief (Dr) Austin Chuks-Orji lived and mingled with all without isolating or segregating himself from the proverbial commoners; some of who did not know or could careless that in their midst was such a great-man of no mean worth and contacts; a reminder of the Igbo aphorism that in a strange land, people usually do not recognise the proverbial "big-man" from another land (mba ama onye ukwu)?

So as Icheoku mourns the passing of a very good-man, fondly called GQ; a man who lived a short fulfilled and fruitful life of 66 years, we pray that his soul rests in peace! May the Almighty God forgive him his sins and reward him accordingly for his fairness; and for lack thereof in the treatment of his fellow human-beings, show him mercy, Amen! We shall all miss his fondness, care and empathy; and above all his mentoring! A man of great humility, which humility masked the worth of the man, whose name was Chief (Dr) Austin Chuks-Orji. So long, GQ!