ONE of the few surviving nationalists and former
Minister of Aviation in the first republic, Chief
Mbazulike Amaechi has revealed how he hid the
foremost South African nationalist and former
president of South Africa, Chief Nelson Mandela for
six months in Nigeria to evade his arrest by officials
of the apartheid regime in that country.
Amaechi, who spoke with Vanguard at his Ukpor
country home in Nnewi South local government
area of Anambra State said people like Mandela are
great assets to humanity and should not be going
through the pains of life.
The former minister, popularly known as ‘the boy is
good’, said it was a privilege to him being asked to
live with Mandela when he ran away from the
apartheid regime and came to Nigeria in 1963,
adding that they shared great moments during the
six months plus Mandela lived in his house.
According to Amaechi, even when Mandela returned
to South Africa and was sentenced to life
imprisonment, he still wrote him letters from prison,
showing how appreciative he is.
The interview with Amaechi on Mandela went thus:
PRESENTLY, the foremost South African nationalist,
Nelson Mandela, is sick and in the hospital. We
want to know if you had any relationship with him
in the past or an encounter?
Yes, he was the leader of the Africa National
Congress, ANC. He led the group that struggled for
democracy in South Africa. That was the time of the
apartheid regime in South Africa and when the
British government was desperately looking for him
to imprison him; he ran away from South Africa and
took refuge in Nigeria. That was when the late Dr.
Nnamdi Azikiwe was the President of Nigeria and
late Dr. Michael Okpara the Premier of the Eastern
Region.
When Mandela came to Nigeria, Zik as the leader of
the nationalist group in Nigeria in consultation with
Okpara decided that they should find a nationalist
of Mandela’s caliber who would accommodate him.
So they called on me to take Mandela and
accommodate him.
At that time, I was the parliamentary secretary and
also a member of the parliament before I became a
minister. He moved in to my house and stayed for
about six or more months with me and my wife. I
was then newly married while he was in his early
40’s or so.
We used to go out together and both the British
intelligence and the South African intelligence
services knew that he was with me, but there was
nothing they could do about it because I was in
government. Then, after sometime, during our
discussions, he said: “My stay here, how long will it
last? “I think I better return to South Africa. They
will either kill me or send me to prison and it will
spur the other nationalists remaining to continue
with the struggle.
So, after about six or seven months in my house, he
decided to move back to South Africa. When he
went back, he was promptly arrested, charged and
sentenced to life imprisonment. He went to prison,
but the nationalism in him did not depart from him.
He continued doing his best for some of his
colleagues. He wrote me a letter from prison asking
me to find employment for one Dr. Barange.
Barange’s father was a lawyer who defended the
nationalists in a previous case, while Barange
himself was a geologist. The apartheid people in
South Africa were seriously looking for him and so
Mandela wanted him to get out of South Africa. I
was able to get a job for Dr. Barange at the
University of Ife as a senior lecturer in Geology.
Mandella wrote me from prison. In fact when you
called that you were coming, I went to my office to
search for this letter. This is the letter he wrote me
from the prison on the 18th of February, 1964, he
signed the letter as Nelson Mandela, prisoner No
116570/63.
Then during his 74th birthday, he was still in prison,
I joined his family to send him goodwill messages.
When he came out from prison, I wrote him too.
When he came to Nigeria after his release, he
specifically requested to see me and Dr. Azikiwe.
So, when he came to Enugu, the then governor, Col.
Robert Akonobi, because we were in military rule
then, wrote me to say Mandela wanted to see me. I
honoured the invitation and I went to Enugu with my
wife to see him. He was in the company of his
former wife, Winnie. We shared some time together
before he went back to South Africa.
After that visit in 1993, have you been
communicating with him?
Yes, my last letter to him was on 18th November,
1993.
Since the last letter, have two of you been
communicating?
No. We have not spoken to each other again. When
he was appointed the President of South Africa, I
was invited to his inauguration ceremony, but the
military here did not allow me to go. They said I
needed clearance to go and I did not get it.

hmmmm

Is that the man called "THE BOY IS GOOD"?, the man don old oo

Nigeria as a nation was the singular most helpful country to SA during its apartheid days in all ways including financial and material and morale supplies. That earned Nigeria the Big Brother title. (Zik) Nigeria defended the cause of SA in all domestic and int'l discourses. President Jonathan had earlier this year brilliantly reminded the South African gov't and people of all how Nigeria had carried the SA on its shoulders during SA's very bad days when he (Jonathan) addressed the SA parliament. Painfully, it appears like SA feels it has arrived at the destination of development, civillization and fulfillment and now acting a little very irrascible to Nigeria and other African countries now.