Hi, my name is Ernest Munachi Ezeogu. Ernest is a European name. So you will do well to ask the Europeans what it means. I was told it means something like "serious". But tell me, if I were that serious would I have the time to be surfing the internet? Wouldn't it be a pity if things got any more seriously than they are at the moment? On a more serious note, I do not think it pays to be that serious. My non-literate parents gave me the name because the missionaries would not baptize me unless they gave me a Christian name. So they coughed out Ernest. And that was it. You can't get more Christian than that, can you?
But the name that really means something to them is Munachi. Mu-na-chi simply means Me-and-God. English would politely put "me" last and you have God-and me. The equation balances either way. God is with me. May God also be with you.
You see I am Igbo. You try too hard to pronounce it right the first time and you might bite your tongue. Our British colonizers tried for many years, gave up and only settled for Ibo. Oluadah Equiano, the Igbo boy who was brought into America as a slave but who nevertheless defied all odds and rose to be a literary celebrity could only write "I am Eboe" and since then that spelling has come to stay. That is by the way. A rose called by any other name would still smell as sweet, wouldn't it?
The Igbo nation is now part of Nigeria, the most populous black nation on earth invented by Lord Lugard in 1914. Does that help? I used to work as a missionary in Zambia. When I tell them I come from Nigeria they say "but where is Nigeria"? I say it is on the Atlantic coast and they say "but where is the Atlantic"? I say it is in West Africa and they say "but where is West Africa? Is it close to Nairobi?" Now tell me how to answer that. The haggling would continue until very reluctantly I would say, "Did you ever hear of Biafra?" And all of a sudden their eyes would flash with light and their mouths beam with joy of an "a-ha" experience. "Now you are saying something!" Then I would inform them that Biafra exists no more but I would only be talking to myself. Biafra they know, and as far as they were concerned I was a Biafran. I was a friend. But I was determined not to give up. I kept telling them that I was from Nigeria. The day I gave up was the day a friend introduced me as coming from Nigeria in Biafra. It couldn't be otherwise as far as a Zambian was concerned. Oh, do I miss Zambia? Ask me do I miss Africa?
I almost forgot. I was supposed to be introducing myself to you, my guest. If you don't quite follow my story up to this point, that's not too bad for starters. I am not quite sure I do follow it myself. But then does it really matter.
Back to the point. My family name is Ezeogu. It is a title name. Nobody is called Ezeogu from birth. You have to earn it, for eze-ogu means chief of war. I come from a clan of the brave. Rights are no use unless they are defended. But my clan never fought a war of aggression. Today the war field has changed. The big war ahead is the war against evil in all its forms, the war against hunger and poverty, against ignorance and narrow mindedness, against injustice and selfishness, the war against war itself.
Is it a recognition of the shifting focus of the war that we must today engage in that led me to be a priest and an academician? Oh yes, I am a priest, a Roman Catholic priest, a Spiritan Roman Catholic priest. Now what does that mean? A Spiritan does not mean a spiritualist. It is simply a name used to designate a priest or brother who is a member of the Holy Ghost missionary congregation. As a priest I am particularly interested in the Bible not as a tool for counter-denominational polemics and intrigues but as a means of bringing all humankind into the one family of brothers and sisters that Jesus spoke of as the kingdom of God.
Yes, you are right. I also have a very lively interest in poetry and in writing in general.
