UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA NSUKKA DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND LITERARY STUDIES HONOURS POET CHIJIOKE AMU-NNADI

By Nkem Ossai

One of the great minds in the field of poetry that the University of Nigeria, Nsukka has produced, a big masquerade so to say, Chief Chijioke Amu-Nnadi was yesterday, 11th July 2023, honoured by the University of Nigeria’s Department of English and Literary Studies. 

By 2.00 p.m., Princess Alexandria Hall of the university has already been filled to capacity as the audience waited eagerly for the arrival of Chief Amu-Nnadi (the star of the awardees).

When he eventually arrived, the hall heaved a sigh of relief. And when he handled the microphone, the ovation was standing and endless. I couldn’t be prouder as an Nsukka man. Again as he delivered one of his poems titled, “Everything Beautiful” in his majestically baritone voice, the audience became ecstatic and eclectically electrified.

Chief Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, who is also an alumnus of the great university, received the “Exceptional Poet Award.” Presenting the award, the Head of Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Prof. S.U.N. Okoye-Ugwu described Amu-Nnadi as truly exceptional, noting that he had made the university proud.

In the citation expertly delivered by the Editor of ‘Muse Journal’, Amu-nnadi was described thus:

1. Best graduating student from Department of Mass Communications, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, (1986)

2.  Author of six poetry books:

i. ‘The Fire Within’ (2002), winner of the inaugural ANA/NDDC Gabriel Okara Poetry Prize

ii. ‘Pilgrim’s Passage’ (2004), listed for the 2005 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature

iii. ‘Through the Window of a Sandcastle’ (2013), shortlisted for the 2013 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, and winner of both the 2013 ‘ANA Poetry Prize’ and the inaugural Glenna Luschei African Poetry Book Prize in 2014

iv.. ‘A River’s Journey’ (2016)

v. ‘A Field of Echoes’ (2016)

vi. ‘The Love Canticles’ (2020), shortlisted for the 2022 NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature

How  J.P. Clark, a great Nigerian author sees Amu-nnadi:

“Amu-Nnadi  is a revelation.” (Prof. J. P. Clark, on ‘a River’s Journey’

And below (A review by Chris Abani) on ‘Through the Window of a Sandcastle’, as a judge for the African Poetry Book Prize. 

“We come face to face with a truly original voice (who) recreates new metaphors, new spaces of being, and new cartographies of the African soul. There are traces here of Christopher Okigbo’s striking vision and voice, of Eliot’s sense of epic, of Walcott’s ability to turn quotidian diction into a song of light, and yet a melancholy, a brilliance, a dance that is all original, all Amu Nnadi.”

Amu-Nnadi is also working on an album of songs, titled ‘everything beautiful’, created from his poetry, out of which five singles, ‘amazing’, ‘everything beautiful’, ‘weed smoke’ and ‘memories’, have already dropped. 

He is the Resident Poet of the Port Harcourt Literary Society.

Other awardees were Justice George Nnamani, President of Enugu State Customary Court of Appeal and a prominent traditional ruler, HRH Igwe Samuel Ikechukwu Asadu, the Ọgadagidi of Edemani. 

Amu-nnadi sang “everything beautiful” in a baritone that will make you think you are already in Paradise, while Pamela Scott, sonorously sang “amazing and questions”, two of the songs from the album they’re working on. The songs held the audience spellbound and made them ask for more.

What can I say? than that a great man has come our way: To God be all the Glory.