Sometimes, a little over 20 years ago, a little drama occurred in a land dispute in a customary court somewhere in the old Orlu Zone of Imo State. As the dispute escalated, one of the parties struck upon a not altogether un-Nigerian way of getting an upper hand in the proceedings. He was a senior traditional ruler and business man who had lots of money to spare. He approached the presiding officer with an offer of One million Naira. That was a considerable amount in those days. Several years later, this traditional ruler narrated how he was both baffled and awed that a man who, in his estimation, barely earned enough to put a roof over his head, could turn down with more than a whiff of anger a sum of money that was worth more than anything he may have earned in his working life.
That presiding officer who was committed enough to doing things right that he turned down more money than he he’d ever earned was Augustine SoChukwuma Odinkalu, who died on Christmas Eve, 2015, at the age of 79. A life-long teacher and community leader, Austin, as he was known by many, was one of a generation old enough to have memories of the Second World War but young enough not to have fought in it.
Born in August 1936, Austin was the fourth surviving child of a young widow, Rosaline (Rosa) Nwaugbala of Umuhu-Okabia in present Orsu (formerly part of Orlu) Local Government Area of Imo State, South-East Nigeria. A beneficiary of missionary education, Austin began primary education at St. Joseph’s Primary School Umuhu-Okabia, around the end of the Second World War. He would later complete this in 1951 at St. Charles’ School, Ihitenansa.
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