“Sir Chukwuma is carrying with him the rigorous demands of Nigerian politics” —Ebuka Onyekwelu
Last week, Sir Paul Chukwuma, Esq, was called to the Nigerian Bar, alongside many others including Dino Melaye and Chief Osita Chidoka. During this event, one key lesson finds expression in the timeless saying that one cannot give what he doesn’t have. Like on other such occasions, there were critical lessons to be learned.
Chukwuma, a first-class graduate of Philosophy, has emerged through years of hard work as a reputable businessman and a very successful investor. Founder of Olivia University in Burundi, he has also perfected plans to establish Capital University in Anambra State, his home state. With a master’s degree in law which he earned with distinction from the University of Derby, United Kingdom, and a stint at the Lagos Business School, Sir Paul Chukwuma is driven by a vision that is rooted in the efficacy of knowledge. Beyond his love for knowledge, Chukwuma has demonstrated in his personal life that true success is founded on sound knowledge and sustained through a constant hunt for knowledge. His love for education is not one embellished in rhetoric, but a life lived over the years.
Born into a modest family with a teacher as his father, Paul Chukwuma initially set out to become a Priest in the Catholic Church. When that turned out otherwise, out of his personal choice to be relieved of the Priesthood vocation, Chukwuma, upon graduation with a first class at the University of Nigeria, rejected an offer to teach at the Institution. In search of a better life’s offer where academics meet real-life challenges and blend so well to produce a desirable personal effect and societal transformation, he plunged into the ‘unknown’ presented to him during his National Youth Service days in Abuja. From that unknown has emerged thousands of job opportunities for the workforce under the many companies controlled by Sir Paul. At 47 years old, Sir Paul Chukwuma is still in pursuit of knowledge in preparation for territories yet to be ploughed.
Currently aspiring to govern Anambra State on the platform of the Young Progressive Party, YPP, Sir Chukwuma is carrying with him the rigorous demands of Nigerian politics. Undeterred, he pushed on through the especially challenging training at the Nigerian Law School, completed the process, and was thereupon called to the bar. Here is a man whose weighty aspiration to govern Anambra State could not subsume or substitute for the values he places on the acquisition of knowledge, quality training, and learning. In many ways, Chukwuma’s call to the bar and his ongoing campaign to lead Anambra State pursued concurrently with neither paying for the other, is a major lesson in purpose and fulfillment. When a man’s vision is cast on a solid foundation of sound knowledge and then pursued with a passionate commitment, he leaves no goal unattained. This is the story of Sir Paul Chukwuma.
For a man of Chukwuma’s stature, resolute and committed to goals, ready to put in the work, unyielding to convenience, and unwilling to make excuses, there is no barrier to his set vision. As Chief Osita Chidoka puts it in his commendation speech at the call to bar dinner for Sir Paul Chukwuma, “I find you a remarkable person. Remarkable that he combines these effortlessly. Some people know him as a businessman, some know him as a philanthropist, some know him as an academician, but not many connect the dots. Behind that face, behind that demeanor, is a hardworking man who delivers consistent good output. So I believe that anything he lays his hands, he will do it well,” Chief Chidoka said. Uzu Okagbue, the YPP Deputy Governorship candidate, made a similar commendation. For Uzu, “When a man walks with purpose, guided by discipline and unshaken consistency, even silence becomes a witness to his greatness. Those who have watched him closely and even those who have watched him from afar will agree: his path has been marked by intentional excellence,” Okagbue said.
At first, he earned a first-class in Philosophy. After over two decades, he repeated the feat, graduating with a first class in Law. In Barrister Paul Chukwuma, the weight of a man’s vision meets in equal measure his drive to see his vision through, and for him, there are no excuses because, in the actual world, only results and excellence matter.
♦ Ebuka Onyekwelu, journalist and trained political scientist, is a writer and columnist with the West African Pilot News
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