A PROFILE OF VERY REV. FR. PROFESSOR HYACINTH EMENTA ICHOKU

Prof. Ichoku, popularly known as Owa, hails from Nawfia, a centre of ancient civilization and culture in Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State. Nawfia, where he was born in 1959, is surrounded by major neighbouring towns like Enugwu Ukwu, Nise, Amawbia and Enugwu Agidi. It is not only one of the ancestral homes of the Igbo people in terms of origin; it is a town connected to other towns, thus preparing its citizens for a cosmopolitan spirit and lifestyle. And this local cosmopolitan character of Nawfia town is at the base of Prof. Hyacinth Ichoku's Igwebuike spirit that makes him appreciate the beauty of alterity in all its good forms. Like Plato, he holds that: “It would be better for me … that multitudes of men should disagree with me rather than that I, being one, should be out of harmony with myself.” His life form squares with what Plato captures thus: “Every heart sings a song, incomplete until another heart whispers”.

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