By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu
The capacious International Conference Centre, Enugu was filled to the brim on Friday, July 17 when the Prof Bart Nnaji Birthday Symposium, “Powering Tomorrow: 70 Years of Engineering the Common Good”, took pride of place.
It was awe-inspiring beholding the gathered creme de la creme of Nigeria calling the shots with remarkable aplomb.
The Presidential Fireside Chat of former President Olusegun Obasanjo moderated by the chairman of the editorial board of ThisDay newspaper, Olusegun Adeniyi, was a hit.
The Keynote Address by HRH Khalifa Dr Muhammadu Sanusi II, Emir of Kano, flowed with grace and uncommon cadence.
The Chief Host, Governor Peter Mbah, presented Enugu State as the most accommodating dreamland of all Nigerians.
Governor Alex Otti of Abia State in whose domain Prof Nnaji’s Geometric Power Group is situated was as ever his resourceful self.
The man who’s the issue in Nigeria today, Mr Peter Obi, stood strong amid the consummate attention.
•From left: Former Governor Peter Obi; Emir of Kano, Mohammed Sanusi; Prof Bart Nnaji, Mrs Agatha Nnaji, Governor Peter Mbah, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, and Governor Alex Otti
The celebrant, Prof Bart Nnaji, was quite radiant with his adorable wife, Mrs Agatha Nnaji, aka OsoDi.
The event also marked the unveiling of the book, Bart Nnaji – The Challenge of Facing the Future, which I wrote.
To borrow the words of the legendary poet, Christopher Okigbo, I was “the shrub among the poplars/Needing more roots/More sap to grow to sunlight/Thirsting for sunlight/A low growth among the forest.”
When the book reviewer, Prof Okey Ndibe who had flown in from the United States with his personable wife, Sheri, asked me to stand up to be recognized, I disappeared!
His Eminence Eze (Dr) Engr. Eberechukwu Kanu Oji, Eze Aro IX, the 9th Monarch of the Ancient Arochukwu Kingdom undertook the charge of the book presentation of Bart Nnaji – The Challenge of Facing the Future.
After the event, my mischievous friends have been ribbing me with the charge of making tons of money, but I cannot get tired of telling them that the book is not an exercise in money-making whatsoever.
I believe in the philosophy of the master music producer of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”, the American Quincy Jones who said: “God walks out of the room when you’re thinking about money.”
The joy for me is having the chance to work with a man of integrity, Prof Bart Nnaji, a personage everybody would want to be associated with.
The challenge initially was working out the size of the book to be written – whether to write a fat tome purporting to accommodate all of Prof Nnaji’s global accomplishments or paring down the book into a concise volume to inspire general readers.
A durable associate of Prof Nnaji, Dr. C. Don Adinuba, former Anambra State Commissioner for Information, advised me to follow the course of concision as championed by Dr Stanley Macebuh, founding managing director of The Guardian, who had stated that any writer who cannot tackle his subject in 800 words knows nothing about the subject!
It’s far easier to transcribe the entirety of an interview and publish it as a fat book than gleaning for true meaning to publish a slim book.
I took the harder choice, whence the blurb: “Bart Nnaji: The Challenge of Facing the Future is more than a biography – it is a testament to purposeful leadership and a call to action for all who believe in a greater Nigeria.”
The books that change history happen to be the short and sharp texts such as De Motu Cordis by William Harvey, a 70-page 1628 AD classic that developed life-saving insights about blood circulation, the pumping heart, and unidirectional blood flow.
Prof Nnaji’s work in helping mankind deal with the challenge of facing the future can jolt history like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, a 40-page up-setter that roused the American colonists to cry independence, thus killing the decadence of British colonialism and shattering the then prevailing props of the monarchy.
There’s yet another slim book in Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau that promoted individualism while damning slave-holding by proclaiming: “That government is best which governs not at all” Call it an article and not a book, but it was a history-changer!
Karl Marx wrote the fat book Das Kapital, and wondered aloud if it could earn the cigar money spent to pen the tome, but he won half of the world when he collaborated with his sidekick Friedrick Engels to write the slim book, The Communist Manifesto, that exhorted humankind into revolutionary frenzy through the immortal words: “Workers of the world, unite; there is nothing to lose but your chains!”
Bart Nnaji: The Challenge of Facing the Future has been published at a critical time when the future is poised on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
It is well with Nigeria that the country has Prof Bart Nnaji in the midst, a guru who mastered the subject many years ago.
Prof Bart Nnaji’s wife, Agatha, told the insightful story of the couple visiting South Africa only for one uppity scientist deigning to explain e-Design to Bart until she had to tell the wannabe that he was actually talking to an innovator of e-Design, a clear case of a catechumen teaching the Pope catechism!
The point is that Nigeria has to tell her story now before it is commandeered by others as per the lions without historians against the hunters.
State governors with their eagle eyes set on the future such as Barrister Peter Mbah of Enugu State and Dr Alex Otti of Abia State are already building Smart Schools.
The publishers of Bart Nnaji: The Challenge of Facing the Future, Narrative Landscape Press Limited, Lagos, cannot but see that the work is cut out by ensuring that the book on the visionary leader Prof Bart Nnaji is supplied in the curriculum to win the future.
Uzor Maxim Uzoatu is a renowned poet, journalist and author