By Peggy Strain, News & Information
Larry McMurtry's sprawlingWestern novel, Lonesome Dove, tells the story of a man's final promise to a dying friend to return his body to his homeland. The journey is fraught with hardship but the deceased eventually is laid to rest near a river beneath a grove of pecan trees where he enjoyed peace in life and longed to spend eternity.
Kunle Ojikutu (in photo above) never read the book but he lived the story.
Over several intense weeks last winter, the assistant vice chancellor for student affairs met, befriended and promised a dying graduate student he would have his body returned to his birthplace in a small village in Nigeria.
The final journey home didn't take place by horse-drawn wagon across the American frontier as in McMurtry's novel. It was a high-tech odyssey that began with Ojikutu's search across the Internet for someone familiar with the terrain and military regime of Nigeria, who would be willing to escort Solomon Arhunmwunde's body by jet from Lincoln to Chicago to Frankfort, Germany to Lagos, Nigeria.
"He said he wanted to go home to his mother and I gave him my word. If I didn't keep the promise, there would be no way I could live with myself," said Ojikutu, whose extrordinary commitment to help eased the final days of a man he didn't know.
Just how the body of the 43-year-old man finally was returned to his mother and buried beside his father in a small village within the rainforest of that country's interior is a remarkable story of compassion and respect for human dignity by a man who extended himself to a stranger.
Both natives of Nigeria, the two men first met in January after Ojikutu received a telephone call from a resident in Solomon's apartment building who had become concerned because she hadn't seen the man and alerted University officials, who referred the call to Ojikutu.
That day he drove to Solomon's apartment at 1025 N. 23rd St., to check on his welfare and summoned an ambulance. The man was critically ill, and although conscious, he had collapsed on the floor of his apartment. He was nearly paralyzed by numerous malignant tumors that had invaded his spine. When he arrived at Lincoln General Hospital, he was in renal failure, Ojikutu remembered.
A loner who prided himself on his independence, Solomon kept his nose to the grindstone and his eyes to the future. He was intent on obtaining his doctorate in chemistry and supported his widowed mother in Africa by sending her one third of his modest UNL teaching assistant salary every month.
He had sought treatment for back pain but the cancer wasn't diagnosed. He tolerated the pain amid a single-minded pursuit of his studies but the disease was draining the life from him. . After his death, an autopsy showed Solomon had pancreatic cancer, a notorious silent killer because it doesn't produce symptoms until advanced stages. Nearly always fatal, it also occurs most often among patients much older than Solomon.
Over the last four fast-moving weeks of Solomon's life, Ojikutu became a friend, advocate and brother. He arranged for immediate medical care and within days pressed for a second and third opinion to the initial diagnosis neither man wanted to accept:. Cancer had invaded Solomon's spine, lungs and heart and soon would eclipse his brain and take his life.
It would rob him of his life and the all-consuming goal that brought him to the United States 12 years ago. ``His parents had sent him to the United States to do well and he did well. He was this close," to getting his doctorate, Ojikutu said in a recent interview, his thumb and forefinger spread half an inch apart. Solomon hoped to become a full-time teacher.
He was devastated by the confirmation of his terminal illness and filled with despair as he realized that his dreams would forever elude his grasp. He kept denying the gravity of his situation, Ojikutu said. He would talk of going back to his apartment, resuming work, again dedicating himself to his students.
Eventually he accepted the brutal reality that he was dying and alone in a foreign land with no financial prospects of returning home to die nor even having his body shipped back to Africa.When diagnosed, the best case scenario was he might have six months left. But that soon proved too optimistic.
Chemotherapy and radiation were performed at Lincoln General Hospital, where Solomon spent.a month and built an upaid $41,000 bill. But the second hand was ticking and he had days or weeks, not months. There was talk of statistical likelihoods and survival rates. But eventually he was told all available treatment had been tried. You don't have much longer, they said.
"I cannot imagine what it must have been like for him without family. Typically that is the one thing you have when you are dying You have family with you and that was the one piece he was missing," said Ruth Van Gerpen, Lincoln General Hospital oncology coordinator.
"School was his life," she remembers. "He was grateful to the United States and the university for his education. He couldn't believe how Americans and even other foreign students didn't fully comprehend what they have here. He said he kept every book he ever got. He had friends but he said he didn't need them. People were not as important as his education."
But before succumbing to death, there was a final lesson not found in his chemistry books: That life can be wondrous and unbearably cruel at the same time and that he did indeed need friends. In the end he found them, deriving great solace from a handful of students who came to the hospital and most of all from Ojikutu. He became the nearest thing to family that Solomon had in this country and passed many hours at his bedside.
From the same land of birth, they were two souls who intersected in a cold Nebraska winter by happenstance. He began to care a great deal about the brilliant, bookish man who lay dying. In the end he was a confidante and guide chartering the passage to death. "We became best friends," Ojikutu said simply. "We laughed, we cried, we shared stories."
He described Solomon as a quiet, reserved individual who kept to himself and had no true friends. But Ojikutu said there was warmth and caring beneath the reserve others might have taken as aloofness. And Solomon didn't like imposing upon anyone. His wish to have his body shipped home was expressed only when he was repeatedly pressed to get his affairs in order.
Ojikutu would visit Solomon two or three times a day and eventually made the decision not to place him on life support. "We were tremendously impressed.and could not have accomplished all we did to help Solomon without his assistance. His strong advocacy assured continued insurance for Solomon's care at Lincoln General," Van Gerpen said.
The assistant vice chancellor was given power of attorney over Solomon's affairs, but the cancer was destroying his brain and he couldn't correctly relate phone numbers or addresses. Ojikutu scoured Solomon's apartment to locate next-of-kin information by sorting through personal papers. "It more or less became detective work," he said.
Eventually he located the family by calling a number on one of Solomon's old phone bills. His former pastor answered and led to connection with the family, which had moved and hadn't received four telegrams Ojikutu had sent.
Without the help of Ojikutu, who is the former director of the Unversity Health Center, it's likely Solomon would have died alone in his apartment. Unclaimed bodies are picked up by local authorities and offered to science or given a modest burial through charity by Lincoln funeral homes.
Solomon spent his last two days of his life at the Madonna Rehabilitation Center, where he died about 4 a.m. Feb. 9 Ojikutu was with him late that night and remembers their last conversation. "I put my hands on him and looked him in the face and I said, 'Solomon, you're going to go home.' He couldn't speak, but his eyes did," Ojikutu said of the trust and gratitude shining through.
Solomon died before one of his brothers -- alerted by the pastor in Africa -- contacted Ojikutu seeking information. Time had run out before Solomon could say goodbye to those he loved or any of the things a dying man knows he won't ever get another chance to say.
Solomon was gone, but some of Ojikutu's hardest work still lay ahead. He found himself suddenly enrolled in a crash course in international law governing transport of the dead. He spoke with everyone from the German consulate to local pathologists and funeral directors who were as inexperienced in the task at hand as he was.
"Even in death you need a passport to travel," he quips. So he spent about three hours in Solomon's apartment searching for the document and hoping it was still current. That turned out to be the case when he finally found it on a closet shelf.
Ojikutu quickly realized the biggest obstacle was going to be getting Solomon's remains from Lagos, Nigeria over poorly maintained roads to his birthplace in the village of Uzebu. The family didn't have any funds for bringing the body back, which cost about $13,000 and was paid for with student health benefits, chemistry department donations and "By not taking no for an answer," said Ojikutu with the grin of the Cheshire cat.
He worked the phone and coordinated a computer search through "Nigerian Net" on the Internet where a Nigerian native, a white collar professional from Kansas, volunteered to take Solomon home.
Still working to put Solomon's affairs in order, Ojikutu became estate executor after Solomon's mother put her thumb print on documents sent to Africa with his body. Ojikutu and other volunteers recently cleaned his apartment and sent his personal effects to his family. His 1981 Mercury needed repair and is not worth much but he wants to send the money to Solomon's mother. He also is trying to determine whether Solomon had any life insurance that might benefit the woman, who is at least in her 70s and depended upon him as her sole support.
Ojikutu doesn't believe his Samaritanism was extraordinary and shrugs
it off saying he would have done the same for anyone. "He was a human
being and he deserves respect and dignity. This was the key thing that
was driving everything I was doing. God gave me the opportunity to help a
needy person, one of our students who was in dire straits. I think
anybody could have done it."
By Kim Hachiya, News & Information
UNL's Academic Senate narrowly endorsed a proposal that would offer university benefits to domestic partners. By a vote of 30-24, the senate placed its approval on the proposal sent to it by the Employee Benefits Committee in March.
That committee had asked for the senate's endorsement before the committee sent the proposal to the University-Wide Employee Fringe Benefits committee for study.
The senate's imprimatur does not automatically confer the benefits. The universitywide committee has representatives from all four NU campuses. Among issues this committee might study are the numbers of people who would be affected and the cost.
Several universities, including the universities of Iowa, Minnesota and Chicago, and Stanford University extend benefits to domestic partners, who have been described as "spousal substitutes."
According to the April 5 Chronicle of Higher Education, the Michigan state senate last week approved a bill that would limit state funds for public colleges that provide benefits for unmarried couples. If approved by the Michigan house, public institutions that provide benefits to domestic partners would lose an amount of public funding equal to that spent to extend the benefits. Currently the University of Michigan and Wayne State University provide those benefits, the Chronicle reported. UM spends approximately $160,000 annually on benefits for partners of about 100 employees.
Discussion of the Nebraska proposal proved heated and appeared to break into two groups: one which argued for the proposal on grounds of economic equity and the other which argued against, citing "family values" and morality.
James Goedert, associate professor of construction systems technology, urged the senate to reject the motion and press its resources toward preserving families. "We don't need another document that says long-term commitment. We have marriage (for that).There is no reason for heterosexual couples to have these benefits. And if homosexual couples are allowed to get married, then we have no issue," he said.
Leo Sartori, professor of physics and astronomy, and Gargi Roysircar-Sodowsky, associate professor of educational psychology, argued that benefits were a question of economic equity.
In other action, Chancellor James Moeser asked the senate to join him in extending appreciation to Joan Leitzel, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. Leitzel announced last week she will become CEO of the University of New Hampshire. Moeser said the sense of loss is tempered by pride that UNL's leadership is considered top-notch.
He urged faculty to send him suggestions for an interim vice chancellor and said the search committee will be named soon.
Moeser said he is traveling around Nebraska meeting with UNL employees posted outside of Lincoln and visiting with alumni and citizen groups. He said "main street Nebraskans" strongly support UNL and higher education, which is helpful in rallying support in the legislature.
He also said the harassment document has been returned from NU general
counsel and will be circulated for final review.
Elie Wiesel, (shown at right) who survived Nazi concentration camps to become a human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner, will be the keynote speaker at an April 15-16 international symposium, "Contemporary Forms of Genocide."
The conference will focus on contemporary solutions to genocide such as the Holocaust of World War II, which took 10 million lives, stunned the world and prompted vows of "Never again." However, large-scale murder is reported in Bosnia, Rwanda-Burundi and other countries today.
The conference also will feature Sybil Milton, historian of the U.S. Holocaust Museum Research Institute and Israel Charny, executive director of the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem. Also featured will be Helen Fein, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Genocide; Sam Totten, chief editor of Genocide in the Twentieth Century: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts; and Robert Hitchcock, author and UNL associate professor.
A native of Sighet, Transylvania (Romania), Wiesel and his family were deported by the Nazis to Auschwitz when he was 15. His mother and younger sister died there but two older sisters survived. Wiesel and his father later were sent to Buchenwald.
His personal experience of the Holocaust has led him to become an author, teacher and storyteller in global defense of human rights. Wiesel won the Nobel Prize in 1986 and his more than 40 books have won numerous awards. One of his books, Night, has been translated into 25 languages. An American citizen since 1963, he lives in New York and is a Boston University professor.
Wiesel will speak about "The Seduction and Danger of Fanaticism" at the symposium. The symposium lecture will occur in conjunction with the E.N. Thompson Forum on World Issues. Wiesel's presentation at 3:30 p.m. April 16 will be at the Lied Center for Performing Arts. It is free and open to the public.
The rest of the two-day symposium is at the Clifford Hardin Nebraska
Center for Continuing Education. Registration, which is required, is
$215. For more information, contact Barbara Emil or Antonia Gammage at
the UNL Division of Continuing Studies, 472-2844.
The Department of Academic Conferences and Professional Programs is offering a new registration option for UNL faculty, staff and students who want to attend "Contemporary Forms of Genocide" but may have difficulty fitting the entire program into their schedules. "The Random Sampler" permits holders of valid UNL ID cards to attend a maximum of three sessions at any time during the symposium on a space-available basis. The cost is $25, which does not include meals or materials.
For more registration or program information, contact Academic
Conferences and Professional Programs, 2-2844.
Early in 1995, the Business Services Advisory Council conducted a survey seeking input from the campus on how well the Business and Finance service units were meeting the needs of the campus.
In an effort to provide the university with feedback regarding the survey, the committee has listed below some of the responses from the various service units to the questions and concerns raised by survey respondents. Future editions of the Scarlet will cover the remaining questions. Those with additional questions about a specific service unit should contact the person listed for that particular service area.
By Dave Engberg, Office of International Affairs
U.S. foreign aid agencies must refocus their objectives if they are to remain viable in the face of today's new international realities and budgetary constraints according to recent remarks by U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) chief administrator J. Brian Atwood.
"The cold war consensus in support of adequate funding for international programs no longer exists," Atwood said during a March 12 speech to the congressional advisory committee on voluntary foreign aid. "The time has come to disenthrall ourselves from the past and arrive at a vision of where we are going."
International development programs, like those administered by USAID, have long been important components of U.S. foreign policy. Various U.S.-sponsored programs, for example, have been designed to support disease prevention, stop the spread of environmental degradation, strengthen democratic institutions, and assist countries in their transition to market economies. Nearly 80 percent of these U.S. foreign aid monies are spent on U.S. goods and services.
Still, even though they account for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, foreign assistance programs are considered by many to be financial black holes. They have recently been the focus of heavy attacks by both stumping presidential contenders and Republican legislators wanting to cut spending on international program spending.
On March 14, House-Senate conferees completed action on legislation that would require President Clinton to close either the U.S. Information Agency, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency or USAID. Clinton plans to veto the conference agreement.
USAID employees are not waiting around to see what happens. According to Atwood, the agency has already initiated efforts to streamline operations, make programs more "results oriented," and "radically transform" the manner in which they will conduct international development in the future.
Downsizing is an important first step in this process. Since 1993, the agency has decreased personnel strength by 19 percent and has also begun reducing number of countries they target.
"In the next five years the number of sustainable development missions will shrink from the current 43 to approximately 30," Atwood said. "Remaining missions will be located in key countries where need is great and specific measurable objectives can be achieved.
"A large part of the agency's reengineering effort is designed to decentralize decision making power. By putting more control in the hands of mission personnel, their government and non-government organization counterparts, and of course the final recipients of our assistance, we will design programs that are more likely to produce results," Atwood said.
USAID also expects to have the institutional capacity to mount missions in up to 10 transitional countries where ethnic, political or regional conflicts could threaten U.S. national security, and provide limited, informational support to an additional 20 or so needy countries.
The goal, according to Atwood, is to redirect the agency's focus in a manner that allows them to be "more a facilitator and knowledge provider than a source of funds."
UNL anthropology professor and occasional USAID program facilitator Robert Hitchcock said he is impressed by the agency's progressive new development approach. For many years, he said, the agency was over-bureaucratized and failed to adequately address the needs of the very people it purported to assist. By funding projects that involve local people in their own development and strengthen grass roots capacity, Hitchcock said that USAID can better help emerging market countries grow in ways that promote both stability and sustainability.
UNL agricultural economics professor Glen Vollmar was less sanguine about the proposed changes. His office currently oversees the administration of multiple collaborative research programs funded with USAID money.
"There is a tremendous amount of uncertainty at the moment," he said.
"We hear something new from USAID on an almost daily basis. At this
point we have adopted a "wait and see" attitude and have basically given
up on USAID money until things get sifted out."
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For questions regarding these Scarlet pages, contact:
dtaurins@unlinfo.unl.edu
(402) 472-8518, Fax: (402) 472-7825