IN MEMORIAM
Tribute In Honour Of Late Victor Fashole Luke
By Koyie H.Mansaray
Jan 6, 2008, 15:31

Victor Fashole Luke is no more! The news I heard over the airwaves of the radio that fateful Friday morning 28th December 2007 was to me a personal blow. I was bereft of words when I went into the kitchen to tell Susan, my wife that someone very dear to me had passed away. We were both shocked and devastated by the unbearable burden of the irreparable loss.

Exactly a week before his death,i.e Thursday 20^th December, I virtually ran into Mr.Luke along the Siaka Stevens Street by the Lion’s Photo Studio.He was driving, he told me, to see his mechanic at Ascension Town .He obliged me a lift as it was always characteristic of him. I was already late for a wedding at the St Anthony Church. It was during the course of the short ride that he narrated to me his recent visit to the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in order to beef up his literature review and his bibliography for the doctorate in Linguistics. He even told me that he was to submit his thesis in April this year! Alas, that is a worthy goal the cold hand of death has thwarted. If SOAS plans to confer on him the doctorate Mr.Luke has been toiling to earn, it has to be done posthumously. Therein lies the real sense of tragedy. This death falls within the mould of the definition of Tragedy in Aristotle’s Poetics. I quote:

“Tragedy is a form of drama exciting the emotions of pity and fear. Its action should be single and complete, presenting a reversal of fortune, involving persons renowned and of superior attainments……”

Nobody can deny the fact that Victor Fashole Luke’s demise has excited pity and fear, not only within the confines of the Mount Aureole campus, but through out Sierra Leone and beyond. This single action of passing away is complete in itself, but carries with it a reversal of fortune. An accomplished academic who was within the grabbing distance of winning the ultimate laurel of academia has left all of us plunged into the unfathomable abyss of loss:colleagues,students friends,well-wishers,but worst of all, loved ones in the

Luke family circle. Certainly, late Fashole Luke was an eminent personality of exceptional renown and his accomplishments can be best described as superior attainments. I first came to know Mr.Luke some thirty-two years ago while he taught at the then Milton Margai Teachers College. I was to learn later that he had already taught at the then Port Loko Women Teachers College in the Northern Province of the country.

.In his inevitable flamboyant posture, no one would fail to take notice of this elegant, dashing gentleman. Getting close to him you would come to appreciate his humanity beyond the veneer of flamboyance; his simplicity and his fear of the Lord he would demonstrate in no small measure.

One very laudable quality Mr. Luke possessed was his mastery of oral delivery in the English language. It was always a delight to have him as chairman of noteworthy functions anywhere. I became a student of the late scholar in October 1999 when I opted to do the Masters in Linguistics. He was incidentally the Head of that Department at the time .For the two years I spent at his feet; I grew to respect and esteem him as my mentor. I enjoyed and treasured his lectures in Sociolinguistics, Semantics and Pragmatics. As Head of Department; Mr.Luke demonstrated fatherly kindness to his students when they were in a predicament of any type. He would sit you down and give you pieces of counselling that would set your mind at rest even in the face of a debilitating prospect. I learnt examples of

fortitude from Mr.Luke.This was one of his enduring qualities that endeared him to innumerable number of his past students with whom, like myself, he fostered an everlasting friendship. Mr.Luke is having a slumber. I hope to see my friend and my mentor once again when the trumpet for rapture sounds. Sleep on Mr.Luke! Take a respite from this dreary toil signifying nothing.