Former Information and Communications Minister, Dora Akunyili, wept yesterday while paying tribute to departed master story teller, Prof. Chinua Achebe of Things Fall Apart fame.

According to a story this morning in The Guardian of London, “As we say in Igboland, when an extraordinary person dies, the iroko [African teak] has fallen,” said a weeping Dora Akunyili, a former minister who worked with Achebe during his tenure at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

In a tribute posted last night on her Facebook page, Prof. Akunyili, a former Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), described Prof. Achebe as one of her role models, lamenting that his “death leaves a void not only in Nigeria and Africa but also globally because he is one of the best novelists the world has ever produced.” According to Akunyili in the tribute: “As we say in Igboland when an extraordinary person dies, the iroko has fallen. I feel a sense of personal loss because Prof. Chinua Achebe was not only from my state, Anambra, but was also one of my role models right from my days at the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), where he taught until the road accident that made him to relocate to the USA, where there are better facilities to enable him to continue to work. I attended UNN and later taught there before I joined public service.

“Prof. Achebe’s death leaves a void not only in Nigeria and Africa but also globally because he is one of the best novelists the world has ever produced. He will be sorely missed but we take solace in his rich legacies.”

•Photo: Prof. Dora Akunyili.