Anambra Congratulates Dr. Chidi Chike Achebe On Winning Bard College Award

Both outgoing Anambra State governor Willie Obiano and incoming governor Chukwuma Charles Soludo have felicitated with the second son of Chinua Achebe, Africa’s greatest novelist, raconteur and essayist, over his choice as winner of the 2022 prestigeous John and Samuel Bard Award in the United States for excellence in medicine and science.

According to the state Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, C. Don Adinuba, Obiano and Soludo expressed delight at the honour to Dr Chidi Achebe, the second son of the preeminent writer, on hearing the news late yesterday.

” This is a parting gift to me and the Anambra people as I am about to depart office after eight years of giving my best to a great state”, Adinuba quoted Chief Obiano as saying.

“Professor Chinua Achebe remains a very great man even in the grave, and it is reassuring that his children like Chidi, a medical doctor who trained in some of the best institutions in the world, is steeped in the tradition of global excellence”.

Professor Soludo described Dr Achebe, chief executive of African Integrated Development Enterprise (AIDE), as a worthy ambassador of Anambra State whose passion for Africa’s rapid development “is reminiscent of his father’s lifelong commitment to Africa’s emancipation”.

Soludo, who will assume office on Tomorrow, observed that despite living abroad for decades “the younger Achebe is acutely conscious of his roots and belongs to an ever increasing number of Anambra indigenes keenly interested in contributing actively to a new dawn in our beloved state”.

Calling Dr Achebe a worthy ambassador of the country, the governor-elect said “he is a pan Africanist of the finest hue”.