THE IMPARTIAL OBSERVER
Ojukwu: Exit of a Reluctant Rebel with a Cause
HANK ESO
Sunday 27 November 2011
I have had my belly full of war. I will always fight for the welfare of the
Igbo, though this time around on the table of dialogue. As a people who lost a
war, we, the Igbo elite, owe the Igbo the responsibility of leading them out of
their defeat trauma, out of the siege mentality they have developed over the
years. At Aburi, I stated the Igbo case and I will continue to do so wherever
necessary.
~~
Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu
Chukwumeka
Odumegwu Ojukwu, the former Biafran leader who went by many English and Igbo
sobriquets of derision and distinction has passed away. He was 78. He will be
remembered for good or bad, as one of the great African lives of the
twenty-first century.
Ojukwu was a reluctant
rebel with a cause. He was controversial and enigmatic and not being a man that
spoke glibly, nothing could distinguish his complex nature as his utterances;
his unapologetic defense of his people the Igbo and his avowed love for Nigeria,
but only so, a Nigeria that respected its broad diversity.
Understanding Ojukwu’s
disposition is to understand his intrusive love for the classics, but yet a
deeper preference for Hamlet out of all works of William Shakespeare. If he had
a darker side, he used it efficiently at those moments when he was most
inscrutable and hence confused his interlocutors. Ojukwu was always politically
engaged, it was therefore defeatist to try to exclude him from the political
process as some tried (see,
Fencing Odumegwu-Ojukwu from the
NPRC, grossly impolitic ). For him every discussion
had a strategic angle, and in that regard, he was in all things, very
Clausewitzian.
It is unknown, but widely
suspected that Ojukwu might have written his civil war memoirs.
But in his 1989 book,
Because I Am Involved, he sets
out with deep insight and unambiguous clarity his thoughts and position on
issues dearest to his heart, without being bashful.
He claimed that his greatest obligation
in all his undertakings was singularly
“to be true to myself”. Of Nigeria, he summed up its greatest problem as the
trouble with leadership per se, but how “succeeding
leaders have contrived to make Nigerians strangers in their land.” Hence,
“the true problem with Nigeria is that she is fully embroiled in an identity
crisis.” In remembering Ojukwu, of whom much has been written, including
biographies, it would be best to psychoanalyze the man with his own words.
On fighting the Igbo Cause, he averred:
I
have had my belly full of war. I will always fight for the welfare of the Igbo,
though this time around on the table of dialogue. As a people who lost a war,
we, the Igbo elite, owe the Igbo the responsibility of leading them out of their
defeat trauma, out of the siege mentality they have developed over the years. At
Aburi, I stated the Igbo case and I will continue to do so wherever necessary.
On Nigeria, he
postulated:
I have emerged from [these] periods of self-doubt strengthened in my faith in
Nigeria, sustained by an obsessive concern for the well-being of all her
peoples. I feel proud that I am a
Nigerian. Not many countries in Africa can boast of the broad spectrum of
excellence in many fields of human endeavor as are represented whenever
Nigerians meet.
On another instance he said, “If
I don't agree that Nigeria is my country today, my right place is in the bush,
leading guerilla warfare against Nigeria. But I have agreed that Nigeria is my
country. I want it to be the best place on earth.”
Both the latter and former dispositions toward Nigeria sounds almost
hypocritical coming from a man who sought to secede from Nigeria in the Spring
of 1967 and took up arms in self-defense of this tribe in one of the most costly
and devastating civil wars in Africa. The Nigerian war lasted 30 months and had
over one million casualties. The war’s residual impact on Nigeria lingers, 44
years later.
Whatever may be said of Ojukwu, he negotiated in good faith
at Aburi, Ghana to save Nigerian from the destructive consequences of war, which
he understood as a student of history and military history.
As a military leader, Ojukwu understood the essence of command,
communication and control, which was why Biafra lasted thirty months, when most
expected it to crumble in weeks. He
led that nation through a consultative process that involved Elders of Thought,
an advisory group, to which he turned before making critical decisions.
But admittedly, he made some mistakes.
Ojukwu went to war only after the Aburi Accord unraveled over
resources sharing, and explicitly over the proposed federal taxation of revenue
accruing from the Eastern region’s resources of oil, palm produce and coal.
Remarkably, and with great credit to Ojukwu’s insight many years later,
Nigeria is still mired deeply in the controversy over resources sharing and
especially of the derivations from oil. Since the Nigerian civil war ended
countless innocent lives, Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike have been lost in
the Niger Delta crisis; itself, a fallout of some of the unresolved issues at
Aburi.
When the late Ken Saro Wiwa of Ogoni was jailed for fighting
for the cause of the Ogoni people and their rights to oil revenue from their
region, Ojukwu reportedly sent him a terse cryptic note in his prison cell,
which simply said: “Good Morning”
-- an allusion to the fact that he had woken up belatedly to join a
struggle he Ojukwu had waged many years before, of which Saro Wiwa and his ilk
from the Niger Delta region sabotaged, when they did an about face after Biafra
was declared and opted to remain in Nigeria, and in the process expropriating
all Igbo-owned property as their compensation .
Ojukwu was all things to all men; he was perhaps the most
beloved, hated, misunderstood, mis-interpreted and mis-quoted Nigerian that ever
lived. He has been called hero,
villain, pugnacious, and obstinate. For his part, he was most unrepentant about
his actions, views and thinking and would defend then stoutly and stoically in
his deep baritone voice, during a conversation, interview, debate or public
speech. Ojukwu understood more than most of his contemporaries in Nigeria, the
political calisthenics of the nation. His never took his forte for decision
making and problem-solving lightly.
Ojukwu was human and therefore had his foibles.
He was slow to anger, but would dress down anyone he felt was impetuous,
and put down interlocutors who made assumptions and did not get their facts
straight before engaging him. This
was particularly true of journalists.
Ojukwu understood propaganda and used it efficiently for the means and
ends of Biafra. He continued to do so for the Igbo cause even as he lay on his
death bed.
Ojukwu had a rebellious streak born of his strong
convictions. He rebelled against school authorities while in an elite secondary
school in Lagos, spearheading a student strike as a ten-year old.
He rebelled against his father, by joining the Nigerian military as a
recruit after graduating from Oxford. In the military, he challenged his drill
sergeant and instructor, over the correct name of a safety-catch on a rifle,
earning himself stint in the guardroom. He rebelled against Nigerian military
hierarchy, first, when the order of leadership succession was upended after
General Aguyi-Ironsi’s assassination in July 1966 and Brigadier Femi Ogundipe
and Colonels Adeyinka Adebayo and Epko Bassey the ranking officers were passed
up and the position given to Lt. Colonel Jack Yakubu Gowon. He refused to take
orders from Gowon. Finally, he rebelled against Nigeria, when the Aburi Accord
collapsed and Nigeria could no longer guarantee the safety and security of
south-easterners, a majority of whom were Igbo.
Ojukwu was an effusive master of discourse, history and
politics. As I once noted in this
space: “Odumegwu-Ojukwu still represents
an incontrovertible reference point that is well beyond a footnote in the
political history of Nigeria and the Igbo nation. But then, even footnotes can
be illuminating. As he proved during the Abacha 1995 Constitutional
Conference, Odumegwu-Ojukwu can bring added value, substance, and even drama to
a national conference. ” This point finds concurrence and validity in the
tribute yesterday by General Muhamadu Buhari to Ojukwu: “In
all our transactions and engagements on and off the political scene, I found Dim
Ojukwu a most forthright and honourable player. He was a tireless, intelligent,
focused and frank negotiator who would never give a word he wouldn’t keep.”
Ojukwu was not a malicious person despite being brutally
blunt and even opinionated. This is borne out in the testimony by the epitaph he
proposed for Chief Obafemi Awolowo, after he passed;
“He was the best president Nigeria never
had.”
Ojukwu, an iconoclast was like the television commercial on E. F. Hurton. When
he spoke, people listened, even his detractors. He was cerebral and considered
as his greatest personal achievement, the fact that “whenever
I speak, I am taken seriously by Nigerians, the people I want to serve.”
He further observed of himself; “A
night bird that I am, I do most of my thinking and writing at night, preparing
for the monumental task ahead.”
Ojukwu was privileged, but it was a privilege he never took
for granted and one that inspired him to be his own person. His father, a
wealthy transporter offered him the best education and training anyone to ask
for, along with strict discipline that included corporal punishment, thus
instilling confidence and so, “without
any knowledge of wants and fear”.
Ojukwu married thrice.
But it was well known that he had eyes for beautiful women and the aura
to seduce them. As such, the conventional wisdom was not to leave a wife or
girlfriend around him unattended. In truth, however, many beautiful women sought
to get close to Ojukwu and solicited his attention, given his charisma, wealth
and urbane bearings. Being in Ojukwu’s company, many would attest was educative
as it was of immense pleasure. The
women he married, Njideka (nee Onyekwelu); Stella (nee Onyeador); and the
latest, Bianca (nee Onoh), were all beautiful, educated and, like Ojukwu, had
unquestionable pedigree. They
complimented him as much as he complimented them. He doted on his women, and
loved them without qualification. Ojukwu’s persona, both academically and
personality wise, was a romantic.
Among the greatest accomplishments of Ojukwu were several
roles that did not derive directly from his pedigree.
He was born in Zungeru, in Northern Nigeria and raised in Lagos.
He attended C.M.S. Grammar School, and Kings College in Lagos, both
prestigious secondary schools before going off Epson College and Oxford
University in London, where he earned a history degree with honors. Thus he
spoke Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba fluently. He was avid sportsman and entered
national stage at the age of 33, already a ranking officer in the Nigerian Army,
which he joined at a recruit. He served in the army for ten years, led the
Biafran revolution for three years, lived in exile for thirteen years, and
returned to Nigeria in 1982 after full political pardon by the civilian
administration of President Shehu Shagari, only to be detained by the
Buhari-Idiagbon military regime for ten months and then released
“without questioning, without accusation,
and without charge”.
Upon his return to Nigeria, he stoked controversy by joining Shagari’s ruling
National Party of Nigeria (NPN), rationalizing that joining the main political
opposition then, Obafemi Awolowo’s Unity Party of Nigeria (PN), would have been
tantamount to selling out the Igbos.
He would surmise later that despite the criticisms he faced he was never
faulted for his “desire and determination
to put bask the Igbo in the mainstream of Nigerian politics.”
Many years later, Ojukwu would run for
elective offices in Nigeria, including the senate and the Nigerian presidency.
Eventually, he became the national leader of APGA, a position he held until his
demise. Many saw Ojukwu’s political activism as being self-occupied and
ambitious, but Ojukwu was involved because as he once proclaimed,
“I am the final Biafran truth” and
saving Nigeria from self-destructing was a mission to which there could be no
conscientious objector.
Ojukwu was a man of remarkable mannerisms.
From his Biafran days until his death, he wore a luxuriant beard, which
he was fond of pulling on. His demeanor was always that of a pensive and
deep-thinking sage. And whenever he walked, Ojukwu always had both hands
securely clasped behind him. As a student, soldier, leader, and politician
Ojukwu revealed a bias for authors and philosophers such as Shakespeare, Yeats,
Hobbes, and Machiavelli. A student
of comparative politics, his dressing as a soldier mirrored those of Fidel
Castro and Argentinian revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Moreover, he once
drew a parallel between his Igbo race and their tribulations with those of
Israel and the Israelis.
With Ojukwu’s passing what has ended “is
the complex story of the relationship between Ojukwu and his country” (Val
Obienyem, in the 2005 biography;
“Ojukwu: the Last Patriot”). A
paradox, he was loved and maligned for the same reasons, and mostly so, by
people less erudite than him; some who knew they could not hold sway or hold the
fort anywhere Ojukwu was present. In his 1982 biography, “Emeka”
by Fredrick Forsyth, Ojukwu avers that the personal moral virtues a man should
aspire to, is simply integrity, humility, and courage. He said: “This
to me is the beginning of all wisdom” …
A man aspiring to integrity, humility and
courage will surely not lack a fair sense of justice, loyalty honour, generosity
and compassion.”
There will be many more assessments of Ojukwu now and in
years to come. Each pundit, essayist, historian and chronicler will find
suitable adjectives to qualify this man, the reluctant rebel with a cause, and
to justify their analysis of his persona.
In the end, they will all rally to one clear conclusion; his was by no
means an ordinary life. It was full, mercurial and extraordinary.
Each write-up by itself will no doubt give a unique sense of Ojukwu’s
place in history. Ojukwu is dead, but his place in history is not a candidate
for death in the not-too-distant future, which is to say: Ojukwu died but is
already immortalized in our hearts and in our history.
With neither anger nor partiality, until next time, keep the law, stay
impartial, and observe closely.
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Hank Eso is a columnist for Kwenu.com. His observations on Nigerian, African and global politics and related issues, has appeared in various print media, journals and internet-based sites. © Hank Eso, 27 November 2011.
Email:
hankeso@aol.com