Some personal recollections on the distinguished Engineer by C. DON ADINUBA
This has been the toughest birthday tribute I have attempted to scribble. A lot of wonderful things have been penned about Bart Nnaji whose birthday both Nigerians from all walks of life and foreigners are celebrating this weekend in Enugu, and they are true. He is absolutely a wonderful person, near superhuman. World-class achievers are like that, except that many are not as caring and humane and generous and egalitarian as he is.
It is difficult to discuss him without one being seen as carrying out an exercise in hagiography, even though his attainments in global engineering research and lately in extinguishing darkness in nine local government areas in Abia State that make up the Aba Ring-fenced Area, upon almost two decades of obstacles by people in government, make him a prime candidate for historical canonization. I am, therefore, intentionally showing here that he is one of us, just another human.
Unknown to his children and many others, Nnaji did many things young men do, despite high attainment in his profession at an early age that may be regarded as even callow. Anytime in the early 1990s he flew in from the United States where he was holding a senior academic position as a distinguished engineering professor in a top research university, we would dance hard at Night Shift in Lagos at night just to unwind. He is a skilful dancer. On one particular occasion in 1992, he was dancing Criss Cross’s hit, Jump, exactly as the singers do in videos that the Night Shift proprietor, Caleb Olumense, turned to me and said, “This young American professor is talented in many ways!” Biodun Shobanjo, chairman of the Insight Communications Group, who was a Senior Fellow of the foremost club, agreed. Despite dancing away all night, Nnaji would be the first person to get to the airport the next day to catch the first flight to Abuja or any other city and work ceaselessly throughout the day.
