Professor Chinua Achebe is laid to rest

The Anambra state governor, Peter Obi on Wednesday led other dignitaries from Nigeria and abroad to pay last respect to the late literary icon, Professor Chinua Achebe, at the Alex Ekwueme Square, Awka.

The funeral ceremony began with a boundary reception at Amansea where Mr Obi and the Senator representing Anambra Central senatorial zone, Chris Ngige, received the body of the late sage before proceeding to the Alex Ekwueme square, Awka, where dignitaries poured encomiums on late professor Achebe.

All emphasized his life of honesty, integrity, dignity and concern for the downtrodden.The body lay in state at the middle of the square and was surrounded by Achebe’s kinsmen wearing traditional attire with red caps to match.It was a day of speeches as friends and acquaintances who came from all over the world spoke on the ideals of the late literary giant.

Achebe, 82, died on March 21 at a Boston hospital in the U.S.Born in Ogidi, Anambra, the author won a scholarship to the University of Ibadan and later worked as a scriptwriter for the Nigeria Broadcasting Service.

He chose to write Things Fall Apart in English for which he received criticism from authors including Ngugi wa Thiong’o.

But Achebe insisted that he felt “that the English language will be able to carry the weight of my African experience; it will have to be a new English, still in full communion with its ancestral home but altered to suit its new African surroundings’’.

Before his death, he had twice rejected Nigerian honour of Commander of Federal Republic, complaining about corruption in the country.