UNotes 8 : CHARLES ILEOGBEN
CHARLES ILEOGBEN
Weird and original. This enigma was born an analyst. He groomed himself to become a critic and a very good one at that. He has no flair whatsoever to imitate anyone and the more you clamour, the more he differs.
We share the same name and at some points he was a big thorn in my flesh. He just has a way of getting under my skin and it wasn’t a day’s job to get him out. He had the weirdest thinking structure I had ever encountered then and this endeared him to me. If you wanted to analyze things and turn them inside out, Charles was the man to see.
He is also one of the best writers I have met and read when it comes to contemporary poems and narratives. Charles would write from his head without any prompting and it would take all your grooming to decipher the meaning and get the required understanding. He is never really compelled to write. He just writes when he wants to.
A staunch lover of music and one that made me get crazy with MERCY ME gospel artists. He had his collections and gave his time to music as he could. He is so business minded that you could mistake him for a core Igbo man. With his calculative mind, he would groom a business from the ground up and calculate the profit and loss before embarking.
A very good and impressive cook. Charles would leave lectures to cook. He was never really an academic person but do not challenge him in a course work. Even without notes or handouts he was still very outstanding. The more complex the situation and concept is, the better Charles understood.
We became project mates and carried out one of the most challenging and original projects. I learnt from him to take deliberate risks and throw some care to the wind. I learnt to be thorough, specific and detailed. He stamped me with the desire to keep thinking outside the box and sometimes without even the presence of the ‘box’.
If an article was printed, a single look and Charles would fish out the errors. We understood ourselves so well that we blended even when people avoided our likes. Charles is very bold and his manner of speech can be taken to be disrespectful. He never backs down on projects and can spend all he has to get it right.
He was one person that kept me on my feet in school and though we hardly call ourselves these days, whenever we do, it’s like picking up from the last time we left off. Charles is a gift to this world and only few people seem to notice it. I am glad I am among the few. He is a different specie.
His crave for God is both logical and spiritual. He wouldn’t come across to you as someone who is downright spiritual but he is a bonafide child of God and most times you don’t see it coming but he would readily challenge the societal norms and tell you what is expected of a child of God.
Dear Ileogben, keep being original, keep being contemporary, keep thinking, keep getting better, maintain and improve on your God factor.
Charles says… U Bamboozle!