Various events in my Life
During my first year in Tanzania I bought a second-hand car. It could have been fourth hand but who cared in a country where having a car at all was the ultimate. It was a Vauxhaul Viva car with a registration plate TDP 20, a simple number that popularized this …
When I arrived Dar-es-Salaam I first lived in number 2 Shaaban Robert Flats a short walk from my office, the Ministry of Lands, Wizara Ya Ardhi, on Ocean Drive. On the other side of the Drive was the large expanse of the Indian Ocean with ships moored. It was a …
As I had written elsewhere, Tanzanians put us Biafrans on a higher pedestal than themselves. It was amazing the type of reception we got where ever we went, whether to the beach, the night club or even the bars of which there were many. In my travels to the ujamaa, …
I had passed my Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors final examination in 1967 and was looking for employment and the reply I got to some of the applications for employment that I wrote was ‘go back to your country, Nigeria.’ Of course at that time in the middle of the …
This is a personal tribute to my departed cousin and friend, HRM Eze Professor Chukwuemeka Vincent Ike, OFR, NNOM, Ugwu Aro, Eze Ikelionwu 11, who departed this earth on 9th January, 2020, and was laid to rest on 11th April, 2020. I have always known him as Vin and first …
My first Christmas in England had been spent in Coventry in the house of a pen friend- see my earlier post, Christmas in Coventry. Before I left Nigeria I had not known about the pen friend phenomenon. But in England I learnt that the European could be most curious about …
That was a favourite joke of my Jewish boss, Mr Rosen, in Elizabeth House, Ministry of Public Buildings and Works where I served my articleship towards the Final Examination of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors on three days of the week. My bosses and coworkers were mostly very pleasant. …
As a follow up on previous post Flash Back – Fools Rush In, in Lagos I was employed by T. A. Hammond & Partners, Quantity Surveyors, with offices on the Marina with whom I had been in communication for weeks. I moved into a hostel in Obalende. My employers had …
I do not have a good memory for people and their faces. This failing in my nature has often embarrassed me especially when I travel to my hometown, Ndikelionwu, where some people, especially the older ones, accuse me of being haughty. They say, is this not the son of so …
I spent the first three months of 1960 living with Mr Okeke-ifi and his family in the Railway Quarters in Kaduna and my preoccupation was writing applications for a clerical job while waiting for the results of the West African School Certificate examinations. The preferred job with many school leavers …
