They let him down
By Sam Omatseye 1 hour ago


I wanted an encounter with the Ikemba at his Ikoyi residence. My editor, Lewis Obi, assigned me to interview him for the African Concord. After several miscues on foot in that windswept dusk, I eventually arrived his home, and introduced myself to his gateman. He returned from the warlord with Ojukwu’s rebuff. He was once the leader of a nation, the messenger quoted him, so he could not grant an interview to a mere staff writer. He could only accommodate an editor.

The second failed encounter was at the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria contest. The Ikemba, in front row, evinced a tranquil dignity while I stalked him for an interview. After Bianca emerged the winner and the curtain fell, I was at a loss to locate him. Later I learned he had disappeared to and for the love of his life: the willowy champion of the night. Bianca was still a spinster and within the wooing ambience of the lord.

Those two images of the man often interspersed with my childhood fancies. During the civil war, Ojukwu’s image was cast in villainy. We were told he was a wicked man, and to buttress that fiction, the man’s stern exterior was advanced as evidence: His sharp, bold eyes, his unsmiling visage, his ruddy and voluminous beard, his voice of an enchanter and his emphatic gait.

The fiction of a rough-hewn villain stayed in my head until I began to read Nigerian history and interrogated my father, who witnessed the turbulent days in Nigeria, including the pogrom of which he was almost victim because of his looks and accent.

On my own, I devoured tome after tome about his life and times and discovered that Ojukwu was actually winsome. He was about the most fluid orator in Nigerian history, was too enlightened for some of his colleagues in the armed forces, made naive judgments as war leader, staked his neck out for his besieged people, gave us the classic romance yarn of the century with his beauty and beast flavour, died when even his people had not appreciated him well enough.

Some leaders are associated not with what happens in all their lives but a few years. Lincoln was about the American Civil War, Charles de Gaulle was about the French Resistance, Churchill was about the Second World War. Anything they did before or after dwarfed beside the sometimes Rabelaisian moments. History gave Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu the gift of the civil war.

The Igbo point to the war as an engagement of pride in the pogrom aftermath. In the smoke and blood of the battlefield, the shortcomings were stark. The Igbos were short on men, on materiel, on resources, even on international support. It seemed doomed from the start. In Chimamanda Adichie’s novel, Half of the Yellow Sun, the Madiebo character complained that Ojukwu had compelled them into a war without enough weapons. Were they going to fight with their hands? They fought for pride. Ojukwu represented that.

It did not matter if they won the war. In spite of a million deaths and pulverised towns and villages, the Igbos did not lose it. They retained their humanity. It is like the fight of a small boy against a street bully. The small boy had been wronged time and again and he decided to fight the bully not for victory. He wanted the battle for pride in spite of the bloody nose and broken arm.

But for all the narrative of the war, Ojukwu’s mistakes have been documented: His strategy of battle, his relationship with his generals, his endless carousing while his fellow patriots boiled and burned in battle. This must be one of Ojukwu’s cardinal failings: he handled a just war poorly. But what has received little scrutiny is the psycho-social context of the warrior.

Ojukwu was born a patrician. His father was well-heeled and arguably the wealthiest Nigerian at the time. Apart from being well-heeled, he was also cosmopolitan like Zik, and a polyglot. He spoke Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba like natives. His tongue also conquered the accents and inflexions of the English language. With these gifts, he embodied a contradiction. He belonged to the upper crust, but he was expected to wage a grassroots war.

When he stood in a crowd, he stood out. In his book, Emeka, Frederick Forsythe wrote with awe about his carriage and charisma, comparing him with de Gaulle. Yet, he was involved in a battle with people he knew intimately: Yorubas and Hausas.

Before the war, he had talks with leaders of thought, one of them was Chief Obafemi Awolowo. It deadlocked. But according to Wole Soyinka’s memoirs, You Must Set Forth At Dawn, Ojukwu went to Awolowo’s chalet at night with a professor and another lieutenant.

They knocked on Awo’s door and the Ikemba wanted to have a session with the sage. Awo had with him the police chief of the Western Region and another lieutenant. Ojukwu said he wanted to confide in Awo that the meetings could not change his mind on the war because his people had already decided to fight. He only had to confide in Awo because of the respect he had for the sage. Whereupon, Awo thanked him and requested him to give him a notice before he declared war. Ojukwu agreed. That was the story Awo told Soyinka. The professor who accompanied Ojukwu confirmed this account to Soyinka in the NADECO days in Washington. Soyinka asked Awo why he wanted Ojukwu to give him a notice, but Awo kept mum and said the other person who knew was the police chief and he would not divulge the reason either.

Ojukwu declared war without alerting Awo. Not long after, Awo joined Gowon’s government as finance minister. Ojukwu never reacted to the book. Soyinka never disclosed the professor’s name, and those whose name he disclosed are dead. If Ojukwu did not give Awo notice as promised, it reflected Ojukwu’s integrity as an Igbo man, but he should not have promised Awo. Or was Awo naïve to have expected a war general to have disclosed his war secret? Or maybe, Awo wanted to test Ojukwu’s naivety to see if a general would reveal a war secret.

Whatever the case, the meeting reflected the contradiction of an Ojukwu who loved his people but also showed empathy and disenchantment to the other side. After all, Awo had said, if by omission or commission, the east was allowed to go, the west would have to join. But at that time, the Western region was already militarised by the northern troops and rebellion was well-nigh impossible.

When Biafra fell, Ojukwu had fled, and returned 13 years later after a presidential pardon from Shehu Shagari.

On his return, the resourceful Igbo had rebuilt a ruined region. But some disconnect has existed between Ojukwu and his folks between then and his death at the weekend. One, he came and joined the National Party of Nigeria when his people’s heart was with the National People’s Party. His rhetoric about “a new direction,” did not sway the Igbos to the NPN, even though Zik who was party leader played coy in the Igbo’s hour of need during the war. As a cosmopolitan breed, was he trying to show a large heart by joining the party of the “enemy” or was he conned by the NPN elite? Was his private ambition toppling his people’s dreams? He contested as senator and was rigged out. The Igbo people did not come to defend their war hero. They let him down. They demystified the Ikemba. The NPN who gave him the platform took back his victory. They recoiled from a resurgent Ikemba eyeing the senate presidency.

The other way the Igbos let him down was the absence of a monument in the east for their most important historic figure. The Americans have The Lincoln Monument, Jefferson Monument, the Washington Monument, etc. Ojukwu has none of historic stature.

He also led a party (APGA) on whose wave not many Igbos swam. Ojukwu may have been a flawed hero. But history has no Christian hero. As playwright Brecht wrote:

No one’s virtue is complete/ the great Galileo loved to eat.

If Ikemba did not get enough appreciation in life, posterity beckons that something substantial be done for him even in death.




http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/columnist/monday/sam-omatseye/27782-they-let-him-down.html

cool

This is a good article which has raised a number of questions and issues.

A "hero" unappreciated by his people.
How do others then appreciate him.
The Biafran war was unneccasary.

Bababassey: "After all, Awo had said, if by omission or commission, the east was allowed to go, the west would have to join. But at that time, the Western region was already militarised by the northern troops and rebellion was well-nigh impossible." according to Sam Omatseye in They Let Him Down.

The answered question is this: Why did Awo not reject Gowon's appointment and remain neutral when he knew that the war was an attempt by the North to dominate Yorubas and the rest of the country - which by the way has been the reality of post-Biafra Nigeria?

So Awo fought for a Nigeria where the Hausas will dominate political power and distoted federation?

Statue for ojukwu? For where?

Event Zik not  only didnt get shittt from his own people as much as they praise him, his resting place is on top refuse.

You must think  ibo people give a damn about anybody talk less their heroes.

All the noise about ojukwu is tribal,  its has nothing to do with love or affecttion.

@POST

The writer managed to have Ojukwu in the same light as Churchill but failed to inform us that Churchill lost his bid in another run as Prime Minister few months after being held as a WWII hero.

I do not think it was a let down when Dr Onwudiwe defeated Ojukwu in the senatorial context but a true political flux of the era. If Ojukwu had contested under NPP which tilted toward his people on the national strata, he would have been a senator-elect.

You mean if you were in Awo's shoes you would remain neutral in a war to be fought physically within Nigeria's geographical space where Lagos was seat of government? This article reinforces the belief that Ojukwu declared an unnecessary and a doomed war. He went but did not get any assurance from Awo about the West's support for Biafra.

I personally believe and of the opinion that Ojukwu should have apologized to Nigerian federation for the senseless fratricidal war he brought upon the nation. The genesis of Nigeria problem started with the coup of 1966 perceived either erroneously or otherwise to have been championed by Igbo boys in the Army. The pogrom and the war that followed were a mere reaction to the bloody coup which eliminated leaders of thought in Northern Nigeria.

That was the coup that destroyed federalism and brought unitary system of government. We have been in darkness ever since.

Uchek:

Bababassey: "After all, Awo had said, if by omission or commission, the east was allowed to go, the west would have to join. But at that time, the Western region was already militarised by the northern troops and rebellion was well-nigh impossible." according to Sam Omatseye in They Let Him Down.

The answered question is this: [b]Why did Awo not reject Gowon's appointment and remain neutral [/b]when he knew that the war was an attempt by the North to dominate Yorubas and the rest of the country - which by the way has been the reality of post-Biafra Nigeria?

So Awo fought for a Nigeria where the Hausas will dominate political power and distoted federation?

Nice writeup.

Another view of Ojukwu.