Professor ABC Nwosu, Osighelu Mkpume, is Secretary of the Central Organising Committee for the burial of late Eze Igbo Gburu Gburu, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. In this interview with our Abuja Bureau Chief, MALACHY UZENDU, vintage Nwosu recalls Ojukwu’s youthful moments; how undergraduates from the old Eastern Region would have killed Ojukwu had he refused to lead them in the civil war and what could easily seduce Ojukwu.
We understand that not only are you from Nnewi, Eze Igbo Gburu Gburu, Dim Ojukwu’s home town and secretary of the national burial committee, but both of you were nephews. Tell us what you know of Ojukwu’s childhood years?
What I know about him is not as Secretary of the burial committee. I am from the Nwosu family, so, he was a regular visitor, if not member of the Nwosu family. His father’s elder sister was married to my grand father. So, he was a favoured member of the Nwosu family. He was a regular person; he was much loved by the members of the family and accepted by the members of the family. In fact, many members of the Nwosu family were also accepted by the Ojukwu family.
So, Ikemba was a very popular person, very strong person. We were younger by almost ten years. Even at that, he was very lovable. He was very intelligent; passing all his examinations with superlative performance and exhibited high level brilliance even at that youthful age. He was somebody you could look up to, to be like.
As at then, senior ones would naturally bully their younger ones; was he in that mould at all?
No, not at all. Until his death, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was one of your favourite persons to hang out with. People like to hang around him, up to his death; people like me and several others like to hang around him. He was fun to be with; he was kind; he was generous; he was highly intellectual.
Being the son of a wealthy African millionaire, one would have thought he would be avoiding children of poor peasant people in the villages then, especially given the class and social status disparity. Was he that kind of person in his adolescent years?
We did not see him in that light. I have told you the relationship. Instead, each time, he would park his sports car in front of his auntie’s house. And, we, the younger ones, as I told you, his sports car was one-in-town, Volkswagen (Caman gear); it was one-in-town. We all hung around and this dashing young man; successful by all standard, would come out. Even until his death, he had this ability to draw young people around him. He was not repelling at all; he was not a bully. He had the ability to draw people to him; he would mentor them without really meaning to mentor them, but that was what he was doing; they would just emulate his conduct. He was such a nice man. His intellect was very sharp; his wits were very sharp; he would simply win people over without really trying to do so. Then, everybody looked forward to his coming.
Having been this close to the family, would you lead us into the similarities in traits of character between Ikemba and his father, Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu?
I am less than qualified to do so. I am about ten years younger than Ikemba. The other way round, it is he who should do that; he was the one who knew me as a younger person, not me. But by the time I saw him, I didn’t see him as a young person; I saw him as a young successful man who had it all.
His father had certain qualities: He was sharp and was all well pushing for excellence. He was excellence personified. His son, Ikemba, from what we saw had a very big weakness; very big weakness. He was easily seduced by intellect. He liked to surround himself with people who are argumentative but the argument would have substance and pitched at a level and in the end he would come up and bring up the brilliant idea that would defeat everybody; he was that a genius. He enjoyed triumphing; he would always triumph.
I have said it before that I never met a man who was as much intellectually gifted as Ikemba; he was extremely intellectually intimidating. Ikemba was original thinker. There are few people like him: Okadigbo was original thinker; Ambassador George Obiozor is original thinker; Udenta is an original thinker. I keep imagining how it will be one evening if everybody was there and then, Ikemba in the end, he will provide that angle in the end; it is like playing chess. Then, when he comes out lately, you see that he would provide the solution to those things that have kept everybody on their seat for too long. That was Ikemba that I knew. He was also a man of the people; that is what I don’t think he took after anybody.
Ikemba was exceedingly comfortable with the poor. Ikemba would prefer to be in Ajegunle than to be anywhere else. He had this empathy for the poor and the down-trodden. I remember in Enugu, there was this particular friend of his; we would all gravitate to that place. He didn’t give a damn if that place was GRA or Independence Layout; we would all move to that place, sit down and discuss and that’s where Ikemba would find himself; he would choose to stay in one room in such a place and he felt comfortable and great. He didn’t give a hoot about your suit and your jakuzzi and all that as long as he met good people. I don’t know where he got that from but that was him.
That’s why as I said, he never tolerated siren; driving with people out of the road, no, Ikemba would never do such a thing. He was happiest when Okada people are all around him and these labourers from Ogbo Mmanu throwing their shovel up and shouting Ikemba. It makes him extremely happy and he felt at home. It gave him more pleasure than anything else. I don’t know where he got that from but he got it.
Can we then say that people who were opportune to take over from him, especially our leaders from the South East now, they don’t even want people to come around them; they surround themselves with many Policemen?
Nobody took over leadership from Ikemba. And there are no leaders from the South East right now or after Ikemba. Outside Ikemba, I don’t believe leaders have emerged. You have had occupiers of top political offices; not leaders: Governors, Senators, Ministers, Commissioners, etc; but, they have not been leaders. A leader is not somebody who is living in Government House, or Ministers’ Quarters or Apo Legislative Quarters, Abuja or wherever; no. A leader charts a course. A leader comes in and there is commotion; not by sycophants or praise singers, looking for contract, no. A leader walks into Ogboete market, Enugu for instance and you see all the old women and men, young men and young women, saying “ooohooo, our leader is here” and they all close their shops willingly and follow him, like Christ would draw his flock close to himself while he was there. If Alaba people are being threatened and they say, wait, we will go and tell our leader and Jos boils and they say, wait, we will go and tell our leader; and Maiduguri is on fire or Adamawa or Yobe or Kano and they say, we must tell our leader. And the leader feels pained and responds. There has not been leaders actually.
What is responsible for this? Is it that after all he did, people don’t understand his styles or they failed to get his message about leadership?
I don’t know really. I can however hazard three guesses: First is that Ndigbo now worship a completely new god; the god of material wealth, money rather than the God of spiritual wealth, with long tested values for which Ndigbo are known. So, you are more likely, if it was now, you will see that people will worship and admire someone who has immense wealth; one who uses that immense wealth to get whatever he wants.
Two, people are not prepared any longer, just like he did, to lay down their lives for a cause. Ikemba was to lay everything to stop pogrom for instance; to stop killings of Ndigbo and hatred against Ndigbo. There are few Igbo persons who are prepared to be single minded about something.
The third is that the circumstances of his leadership, which he said in his own words and I don’t want to keep repeating but he said: he was simply Horatius, the Captain of the Gate, doing his duty, refusing to open the gate so that his people inside will be slaughtered. So, you couldn’t buy him; you couldn’t compromise him. No matter how much he hated to be at that gate, he did his own job and did it very well.
He has told me this personally not less than 20 times, that if he hadn’t been appointed Lieutenant Colonel, as Governor of Eastern Region, perhaps, he would have been a different person. That if other Lt-Colonels of Igbo extraction who were senior to him were appointed, it would be a different thing by the time he found himself in a position to lead his people. So, he had to accept that the chalice should pass from him.
He hoped on Aburi, that everything would be okay. But, when it didn’t pass, Horatius had to do his duty. The difference is that these days, when people are pushed to that gate, a lot of things will happen. But Horatious had to wait until his people had completely destroyed the enemy. When this was done, he jumped into the river and only God saved him that he didn’t drown in his armour. So, Ojukwu had to do his duty. These days, I don’t know how many will chose that option when there is option that you can compromise; the option that you can sell out. Some people ran away, it was Ojukwu who was insisting where is our Commander-in-Chief? He wasn’t the most senior officer next to Ironsi. I look forward to when people are prepared to do something not for their own self glory, but for the sake of a people.
You were in University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) as a young promising student when the civil war broke out. Some of you made this great sacrifice by joining the Biafran Armed Forces. Could we say it was because of what you found in him that made you carry out that great sacrifice or were you conscripted into the army?
We did not follow Ojukwu to war; Ojukwu led us in war of the people. So, we the people wanted the way and Ojukwu provided the leadership. I am certain that if Ojukwu did not provide that leadership, they would have killed him; I mean, the people would have killed him.
You got it wrong. I wasn’t at UNN. I was a federal government scholar at the University of Ibadan. We were the set caught by the civil war; I would have taken my degree examinations in 1968 at the University of Ibadan. Those who were a year before me took their degrees in 1967 and graduated. We were the set caught by the war and we had transferred to the University of Nigeria. During that period, we were not conscripted; we voluntarily joined the Biafran Armed Forces and trained and commissioned as officers of the Armed Forces of Biafra. In fact, all those who didn’t join were held in the highest contempt by their peers, men and women.
Many who just finished secondary school, my cousins, joined before me and became Captains, etc. You were not a man if you didn’t join and it was not conscription. If you listen to the songs with which we had to do the war, it has nothing to do with Ojukwu. We would sing: The cry of Biafra has reached the Almighty God and the chorus would be Odumegwu Ojukwu, lead us; wise man, lead us; learned man, lead us. It didn’t say money man.
It wasn’t Ojukwu that decided. I know that as students then, we would have killed him if he didn’t lead us in the war. You can find out from the President of the Biafran Students Union, Prof. Emeka Enejere, he will confirm this to you. So, it wasn’t the other way round, but when he led, he led well.
The kind of leadership currently being provided by our current leaders in the South East in particular, from governors, senators, local government Chairmen, is it that they didn’t learn anything from him or what?
There is a difference between leadership and rulership. What we have now are rulers, not leaders. Leadership is when you motivate a people to do things and achieve for themselves. Under Ojukwu, refineries were set up, there was a major advance in arms manufacturing; there was major leap in engineering technology generally; there was land Army. Under that leadership, there was patriotism, there was everything.
Rulership is what happens when you are in-charge and you can order the Commissioner of Police and you can commission projects for the villages. Leadership is when you motivate the people to maintain law and order and you can drop your money in the market and come back the next day and pick it up. Rulership is when you have the Commissioner of Police and everybody is afraid of you and that is exactly what we have now. That is why once a Minister finishes, he finishes; once a Governor finishes, he finishes. Check from 1970, how many had been Governors in Igbo states, how many can come out and say let’s go and the people will follow him? It is only Ojukwu since 1966. So, that is a lesson for many of us; what we can do now is mentoring the young ones so they don’t fall into the same pit.
Does it mean then that you were motivated to put together around mid 90’s what came to be know as Mkpoko Igbo which drew people from all over the globe to a conference in Enugu. How did you bring up that idea?
Mkpoko Igbo is slightly more complicated than that. I didn’t originate Mkpoko Igbo. I walked into where it was being discussed and I thought it was a brilliant idea. When the originators of Mkpoko Igbo were developing cold feet, I ran away with Mkpoko Igbo, that was all I did. It was a brilliant idea; the people who mooted the idea were stock with it and I ran away with it.
When we told them let us move on with this idea and they wouldn’t move on, few of us who wouldn’t want the idea die, pushed it on and it became what it eventually became. Let me tell you, the major motivating force for Mkpoko Igbo was Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. I spent several days with him perfecting the documents with him at 29 Queens Drive, Ikoyi. Not many people knew about this.
The bulk of the money that was used to do that was raised by Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and he called some of them by name. The only person alive now is Senator Arthur Nzeribe. Those dead are Evan Enwerem and Chief Dike Nwora of Awka, Owelle Awka. They were friends of Ikemba that he brought together, otherwise, that Mkpoko Igbo in Enugu, the financing would not have been possible. You can see, it was an idea we had to do and everybody have now seen the contributions of Mkpoko Igbo, which was also sponsored by the World Igbo Congress in Atlanta, Georgia.
The dream has not died. I used to have an office at Edinburgh Road, Enugu. The entire documents are in my house. The spirit is alive. It was only this year I dismantled the office, where I put, Mkpoko Igbo, no friend; no foe: simply Igbo interest in Nigeria. It is still there. After the release of Ojukwu’s memoirs, we are going to get it on once again. We are seriously thinking that events that have just cropped up and the emerging relationship among brothers in the old Eastern Region in burying Ojukwu, will not be left to die. So, we see a larger thing than Mkpoko Igbo; we see a larger movement not a narrower thing like Mkpoko Igbo.
People believe that people from the South South zone betrayed Ndigbo during the war but at Ojukwu’s burial, all the states in the old Eastern Region are participating. How did you achieve this feat?
There was no effort at sabotaging the war from the South South. Let me say that a lot of mistakes were made concerning the account of how the war was fought. Ojukwu actually did enough to speak on these in his up-coming memoirs which we are putting together.
Let me talk on three things here: Some of the most brilliant commanders that Biafra had were from the South South. You cannot tell the story of Biafra gallantry in the war fronts without Lt-Colonel Nsudor, the Brigade Commander then at Onitsha; or without Major Archibong, then Conrad Wawo and the rest. It was gallantry all the way. When a man gives up his life shoulder to shoulder with you, it will be so unfair to begin to malign him especially when many of you were not gallant. Many Igbos were not gallant, they were fearful and many people from the South South were gallant.
Do you know that Nigeria’s High Commissioner to London was Ignatius Kogbara. He is Ogoni and he changed to Biafra. This Ambassador Ralph Uwechue, left being Nigeria’s High Commissioner and he was made Biafra High Commissioner to France and did enormously.
I had mentioned the military commanders and don’t forget that we had Major General Philip Effiong and the Administrator for Port Harcourt was Emmanuel Aguma and also people like Oko-Okon Ndem. Secretary to the Government of Biafra was MU Akpan, how can anybody say that. It was part of the mistakes that we have not acknowledged and recorded properly but we are doing so now; we are putting together the gallant role of other people outside Igbo heartland in the old Eastern Region who did gallantly.
It intrigues me that we have the 19 northern governors meeting and you don’t have the Eastern governors meeting from Enugu to Yenagoa. There is something not right about it. We have developed a new concept. You can’t go wrong with the development of the people; infrastructure. It is when you begin to talk for struggle for power; how to corner the maximum for myself and my people that you have problems as we now have. What can be better than developing one railway from Enugu to Yenagoa: what can be better than developing the sea ports we have in Port Harcourt; in Calabar and Tinapa, etc? These are the kind of things we should be thinking. Why can’t we have the Eastern corridor and stop chocking Lagos? Get the Aba traders and everybody instead of congesting and killing Lagos, you make Lagos breathe. Nothing can take the importance of Lagos, but let it breathe. This is what people should be thinking about and you will see that it will bring about new attitude; not my Mercedes is bigger than yours.
The main thing about Ojukwu is citizen; it’s either I am a citizen of Nigeria, or I am not. He wanted people to be seen as Nigerians and be free. That is why nobody responded to the statement being credited to Senator Joseph Waku. Let the statement be Waku’s. It is his own, because the attitude is that Waku is free to come to Nnewi, Ojukwu’s town and my town and run an election; to go to any land and run an election. After all, there were several Igbo in Tiv land before independence.
If it wasn’t like that, why should Ojukwu be born in Zungeru, Zik born in Zungeru; why should Umoru Altine be the first Mayor of Enugu? That is the kind of thing we are gradually loosing by our current attitude.
How are you integrating Movement for Actualisation of Soreverign State of Biafra (MASSOB) into this burial programmes when security agencies have been killing some of them?
I am sure people know the 40-member committee. You will see that if you remove the people nominated by the nine governors of the old Eastern Region and remove family members, you will see that it is only about 10 members who came from Ohaneze Ndigbo, National Assembly and from among the youths. On that list, the leader of MASSOB is a member, but not as MASSOB, he is a member in his individual and personal c Ojukwuapacity as Chief Ralph Uwazuruike. Uwazuruike and Elliot Ukoh were put there to represent the youth. Unfortunately for one reason or the other, two of them are not there so we have decentralised the youth participation to the states.
I am sure that you know that MASSOB is a proscribed organisation in Nigeria. If it is a proscribed organisation in Nigeria, it would be unwise for the committee to seek through the back door to de-proscribe it by recognising it in a function where the Federal Government is involved and where the President and Commander-in-Chief is expected to be in attendance with the Nigerian flag and then, you have MASSOB flag flying in the same place. But putting it this way, do you see any lack of wisdom in recognising another flag when the Head of State who has sworn to defend, uphold and protect the constitution of Nigeria will be in attendance? It will be unreasonable; it will be unwise and we expect that MASSOB will respect the desire of the committee to give the leader a burial that is unprecedented.
Our emphasis is to put Ojukwu in the sky; among the gods. That is where Ojukwu belongs. He will not struggle for that space with either governors or with MASSOB or with anybody. He belongs there alone and it is the duty of the committee to put him there alone and I can tell you that Chief Uwazuruike understands that. And I can tell you that Chief Uwazuruike is a perfectly reasonable man in this matter and will not do any thing that will dent the memory of the leader. I can tell you that Chief Ralph Uwazuruike will make sure that we don’t create chaos by making sure that coercive forces are not running all over the places.
By MALACHY UZENDU,
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