Who is he? Where does he come from? What experiences and schooling qualifies him to address such themes? These and similar questions often fill people’s minds when they encounter something that rises above the commonplace. But who I am matters not, for there is nothing about my background that objectively changes anything about the content. Consider the following:
A courier arrived at a house to deliver gold. The skeptical housemaster proceeded to interrogate the courier about his background. After answering each question, the courier kindly asked the housemaster: “Is the gold any different now?”
As it is with the housemaster and the gold, so is it with people and content. The idea behind man’s curiosity of an author’s background is to determine credibility and qualification, and thus to decide beforehand whether or not his words have enough value to be heeded. Thus, many people wish to find confidence in the personality before the content is objectively examined. In this, many disqualify themselves from being objective examiners.
For this reason, it is fruitless to spend much time on my background when it neither alters nor lends weight to the substance of the content offered in this website. Nevertheless, to establish a basic familiarity, I will provide a simple overview.
My ancestral roots can be traced to the southeast of Nigeria among the Igbo people. But I was born in Lagos and spent my childhood there, before moving to the United States at a young age. I completed high school in Michigan, then graduated with a bachelors from Bowling Green State University. Soon afterward I earned a Masters, and now I have a PhD in Educational Leadership.
I have lived in many states, which has allowed me to experience different types of people. My beginning in Nigeria gave me a perspective that never allowed me to fully merge with my environment here in the States, but observe and experience it slightly detached. Yet the years I have lived here (US) also separates me slightly from fellow Africans, with the consequence that my experiences exist in the intersection of two different worlds like a vesica piscis. Therefore, being between and within these worlds, it is natural that the call of life purpose will awaken aspirations that lead in two directions. But only apparently, for life can be poetic in that, with time, these two roads will eventually converge into one; the same way two points in a pyramid are separate at the bottom, but eventually merge only as they strive upward.
I try to constantly refine my abilities and use them to enhance my environment here in the Western hemisphere. But as this effort only embraces one of the two circles that comprise my earthly identity, it is only natural that, as I mature, the urge arises to develop a field of activity that enhances the other. In this, I am merely giving to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and giving to my continent what belongs to my continent. For verily, a fecund tree can produce enough fruit to feed more than one person. It is with this equity that my activities should be regarded.
Over the years, I have used writing as a tool to process and clarify my thoughts about life. The consistent practice, coupled with my ongoing pursuit of spirituality, in time transformed my writings primarily into essays that focus on recognizing and applying the universal principles that govern all forms of human activity. From this recognition, the desire to share for the benefit of others naturally arises. Due to certain developments, I have taken a greater interest in the development and future of Africa, and more specifically my birth-country. And it is the union of this interest with my earnest pursuit of spirituality, passion for writing, and nascent doctoral career, that produces the new field of activity called nation upbuilding.
~Dr. Ikenna Q. Ezealah
In Association with Foundation for Ascent
Nation Upbuilding 