A letter to Chidume

You came and perceived, driving through every life tussle, in the hustle of frowns, smiles and laughter, conquering everyday tasks in your unique way! The poet in me acclaims and writes this poetic diphthong for you, yet my mind’s mathematics seeks to quantify your unquenchable taste for sciences, with an undoubted grandeur of assembling people. À Dieu legendary mathematician! À Dieu Chidume! The gods of African mathematics beat you a befitting welcome, but we the duals mourn a giant mathematical library gone. For in manners so sure, you desecrated the myths of mathematics, letting its altars at our mercy. Faring so well and secure, you profess its theories with countless counterexamples! Rest well, Professor! Tell my daddy, I’m still in the days where riffles whistling chants, in epic scenes of burning indigenes' houses, and glamouring soldiers’ professionalism amidst the “one and indivisible!” Tell him I didn’t forsake the pure mathematics challenge but trying to recover from health-related issues. Tell him Soyinka still draws breath, and though I haven’t met him I love reading his works. Tell him that BBC fairs much better but the focus on Africa program is just another tale of a dog’s barking. Farewell Papa Functional! Who can deny you weren't a genius, the man of a thousand impeccable publications, the fragrance and eloquence of mathematics. For with frantic puzzles, you made pure mathematics your passion, embracing all its applications. And while sipping coffee by day, you made mathematics nights vigil inevitable, revealing the mysteries behind every equation and foretelling them. Farewell Emeritus! Tell Nnamdi, Nkrumah, Nyerere, et al. That our hall of residence and offices bears their names, That we haven’t united but Nigeria is the giant of Africa, and the Biafrans want their share! Tell Mandiba, we miss him! That all his educational institutions flourished like the Empire of Mali! Tell Achibe and Folon that the centre indeed can no longer hold and things are falling apart! Tell Foncha and Endeley, we became two cubes of sugar and deny dissolving in the basin of water. Tell them they now kill our children on their way to school, as our Field Marshals give them "a no pity" sleepless nights! Rest well baobab! What a mathematical prowess! Your fight is now over but your works live on and will never retire! À Dieu, À Dieu!!! My epitome of a mathematician! My préféré, Prof. Charles E. Chidume.