SIMON KOLAWOLE LIVE. Email, simon.kolawole@thisdaylive.com



Sometime in 2003, when I was Saturday Editor of THISDAY, I got an SMS from someone who announced that Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, was dead. As it is customary with rumour mongering, it was soon to use today’s buzzword trending. I was getting calls left, right and centre. How would I confirm the rumour? That is the sort of burden on the necks of editors. People believe we have access into the inner recesses; they expect instant confirmation of rumours from us. An idea crossed my mind: why not call the Eze Igbo Gburugburu himself?

I picked my phone. I called. He picked. It was Dikediohamma himself, live on the other line…
“Hello sir,” I said, confused.
“How are you?” he replied.
“F-F-Fine sir…” I normally don’t stammer.

Then an embarrassing silence ensued. I was stuck. Would I say: “Is it true you’re dead?” No, I am not Olusegun Obasanjo.
Finally, a lame idea struck my mind.

“I’m just checking on you sir!” I said, tamely.
“You’re just checking on me!!!” he said, incredulously, mischievously. Obviously, he knew where I was going and how I got stuck. He had heard the rumour himself.

He then said, calmly, in impeccable Yoruba: “Simon, ma se yonu. Mosi wa nibi!” (“Don’t worry. I’m still alive!”)
I laughed respectfully. I started calling back the rumour mongers. “Ojukwu is alive!” I announced, officially. “I just spoke with him. Don’t spread the rumour.”

But finally, last Saturday and after many more death rumours Ojukwu drew his last breath at the age of 78. The last few years were stricken with illnesses. He never recovered from the stroke he had last year. It is really sad that a key actor in the history of Nigeria has gone to the world beyond without being able to fulfil his promise of delivering “that book” on the civil war (“Wait for the book,” he used to say.) That leaves a huge gap in our history. (And why has General Yakubu Gowon not written his own yet?)

Was Ojukwu right to go to war? As I normally say, I am a post-civil war child. Everything I know about the war is based on other people’s accounts. Whatever opinion I have is based on what the key actors and historians said—and none could be said to be unbiased. History, after all, is a narration from a perception. So it is always difficult for me to come to a conclusion that truly satisfies me on events surrounding the war.

But there is a conclusion I often make: we went to war in 1967 because our leaders were too young, too immature to manage the crises that followed the failed coup of 1966. We learnt our lesson in a very bitter way, on the corpses of an estimated one million casualties. The issues in 1966 are yet to go away. Ethno-religious killings have not ceased. The North/South divide is still clearly defined and stares us in the face all the time. The only difference today is that we have managed to avoid another war. Maybe we have learnt our lessons. Maybe we are not courageous enough to renegotiate Nigeria. Maybe we are postponing the evil day. Or maybe we are meant to be together after all.

Whenever you discuss Ojukwu, you mention the war. Yet this was not the only thing that defined him. He was brilliant. He was intelligent. I have no doubt in my mind that if Biafra had succeeded, it would be one of the most developed countries in Africa today, given its technological advancement within a spate of three years. Putting Biafra aside, Ojukwu belonged in the class of political orators. He had a good command of the soap box—and like Chuba Okadigbo, Samuel Akintola and KO Mbadiwe, Ojukwu’s oratorical power was alluring.

We loved and hated Ojukwu for many reasons. He was a man of controversy. You could accuse him of anything, but you could never accuse him of running away from trouble. In 1993, he left the Social Democratic Party (SDP) for the National Republican Convention (NRC), arguing that the Igbo had been short-changed by the SDP with Bashorun MKO Abiola having emerged as presidential flag bearer and Alhaji Babagana Kingibe as his running mate. Reminded that the position of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation could go to the Igbo, he shrugged. “The secretary is a glorified tea boy,” he said.

When the June 12 election was annulled and Gen. Sani Abacha took over power, Ojukwu became more or less Abacha’s ambassador, campaigning against Abiola’s bid to reclaim his mandate. He delivered a particularly thought-provoking—and provocative lecture in Kaduna in 1995 when Abiola was in detention. He said what Abiola did, by proclaiming himself president, was equal to treason, “and we know that treason is the greatest sin you can commit against your country”. If the irony was lost on him, it was not lost on the June 12 activists, who chuckled aloud about Ojukwu’s own history with treason. It was later rumoured that Abacha had returned most of his father’s seized property to him.

In 1996, Ojukwu engaged Igbo leaders, under the auspices of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, in a long-running battle of wits over his claim to the “Eze Igbo” title. The Igbo don’t have a king, they told him. He said he was “Eze Igbo Gburu Gburu”—King of Igbo anywhere and everywhere. He sought to defy the territorial definition of kingdom and proclaimed: “I am the King of the hearts of Ndigbo”. In 2003, he provoked a national debate when he was invited to Abuja by the State Security Service (SSS) over some statements he made supporting the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which was seeking a republic for the Igbo. Ojukwu spurned the SSS invitation because he was only given a one-way ticket. In 2007, after collecting his outstanding military pension, he protested at being referred to as “Colonel”, maintaining that he was a General, having been so promoted by the Biafran military. After all, his contemporaries in the Nigerian army retired as generals.

The first and last time I saw Ojukwu, I almost cried. It was in Owerri, Imo State, in April 2007. My brother, Chidi ‘Uzor, had invited me to have a taste of life in his village. On our way from the airport, we ran into a slow-moving traffic caused by a convoy that looked like a campaign train. I noticed an unusual excitement on the part of bystanders each time a particular car passed by them. They would scream, wave and shout: “Eze Igbo!” That must be Dim Ojukwu, Chidi said. I couldn’t see Ojukwu clearly from the back where I was, but I could tell that his side glass was wound down and he was waving to the bystanders as well. Commercial motorcyclists were so excited they turned back and started “escorting” the convoy. Men and women and children whose parents had probably not been born when Ojukwu declared the Republic of Biafra in 1967 were all cheering in ecstasy.

“But the impression we get in Lagos is that nobody loves Ojukwu anymore,” I asked Chidi. He laughed.
“That is the view of the elite. As you can see for yourself, this man is a hero of the masses any day. The people just love him,” he replied.

Chidi and I decided to follow the train wherever it was going to see things for ourselves. The train ended up at Ahiara Mbaise. We learnt Ojukwu was being sent off, having spent almost a week in Imo campaigning for APGA ahead of the general election.

“Ahiara is symbolic,” my friend said. “That podium there, under that shed, was where Ojukwu made the declaration of the Republic of Biafra in 1967. So you are part of history today!”

Ojukwu mounted the podium to speak. The crowd roared. Obviously, he was not as agile as he used to be. He appeared to be visually challenged, judging by his movement on the podium. He spoke in Igbo, and since my understanding of Igbo has never gone beyond “kedu”, I was stuck. Chidi was too excited to bother about translating the message to me.

Opinions would forever differ on Ojukwu. Some would say he was a man who dragged Nigeria to war because he was hungry for power. Others would say he was forced to declare war because the Igbo were not getting a fair deal in the Federal Republic of Nigeria. For me, I would always remember him as one of the most intelligent Nigerians that ever lived.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/we-loved-him-we-hated-him/103855/