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Unfair Attacks On Ojukwu By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye
Late last year, President Goodluck Jonathan was at the Enugu home of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu. Their meeting took place behind closed doors. No statements were issued after it, and no attempt was made to let the public into the details of their deliberation. It was a private meeting, and they wanted it to remain so.
A week or so after the meeting, news that the Ikemba had taken ill hit the front pages. After he was treated briefly at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) Enugu, he was flown to the UK to enable him obtain adequate medical attention which, sadly, is still largely non-existent in these parts, due to several years of leadership failure. With him on the UK trip was his wife, Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu, and a number of aides. Not a few Nigerians were worried about the state of health of the most adored Igbo man (living or dead). But several days later, Governor Peter of Anambra State, who had, reportedly, devoted much time, energy and resources to ensure the Eze-Igbo got quality attention, came out to state, to the relief of the nation that the Ikemba was doing quite well. That was a most comforting piece of news.
But something else happened. Barely a week after Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s trip to London, the Presidency announced his wife’s appointment as the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Diaspora Affairs. Although, it is quite easy to conclude that the appointment may have been one of the key issues the president discussed with the Ikemba during their Enugu meeting given the proximity of the meeting and the announcement, no amount of desperation on the part of President Jonathan to reap the clearly huge capital which the presence of Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s wife on his administration would accrue, can excuse the very distasteful timing of the announcement. The indecent haste was totally unjustifiable, and betrayed some bits of imprudence, if not irresponsibility. Nothing would have been lost if it was delayed for another two weeks or even more. The furor, though clearly gratuitous, stirred by that announcement should, therefore, be blamed largely on the very poor judgment characteristically betrayed by the Presidency.
I, however, had my reservations about the appointment. But I had to consider the larger implication of making public my reservations which might compound matters further and held my peace. But what happened soon after was enough to confirm the impression that those who had been waiting for an opportunity to insult and denigrate the Ojukwus could hardly wait before grabbing the rare chance offered by the report of the appointment, especially, on the internet, to unleash themselves on society.
While some people maintained that the office given to Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu was far beneath her status (as Ikemba’s wife) and capacities, an army of faceless internet commentators demanded to know (with extreme bad manners) what qualified a “mere former beauty queen” for such an appointment. Indeed, the blatant sexism in such line of reasoning should worry informed women of today. Well, one can only forgive the egregious ignorance of most those characters posting those insulting comments, because most of them may be young people with excess time at their disposal, and may still have been in diapers by the time Mrs. Ojukwu qualified as a lawyer some two decades ago. Apart from being the wife of the Ikemba which comes with a lot of exposure, experience and responsibility, Mrs. Ojukwu has been running her law chambers and NGO for several years now.
But that is not even the issue. Mrs. Ojukwu has said that her husband gave his blessing to the appointment and it is totally irresponsible to speculate that she is being less than truthful. Only the Ikemba himself can contradict her. Those who claim to love the Ikemba more than his wife of over two decades and have gone to town with the most uncharitable accusation that she abandoned her ailing husband need to have their heads examined. I have neither met Bianca nor her husband, but I do not need to in order to make the points I making here. Here was a young very beautiful girl of 22 who fell in love with the Ikemba, then in his mid-fifties (with three children older than her), and married him despite stiff opposition from her family. Despite her age, beauty and fame (yes, she had her own fame), and the very loud fact that only very few people gave the marriage any chance of survival, no ugly stories have been told about their union all these years.
The edifying stability that has flourished in that home despite its peculiarities speaks volumes about her maturity and virtues. Should such a lady not be applauded instead of being unfairly derided by people who hardly know her and may not even be better than her? If she had stayed by her man all these years, during the flower of her youth, why would it be now that she would want to abandon him? Why is it too difficult to let the Ojukwus be the best judge of their situation, especially, when it concerns their private family affairs? I even read an article on the internet the other day accusing Bianca of being a gold digger! Now, that should be strange, shouldn’t it? This is the daughter of the former Governor of the old Anambra State (comprising the present Anambra, Ebonyi and Enugu), in fact, one of the leading political and business figures in the old Enugu State and the nation, the very comfortable Chief C.C. Onoh, being called a gold digger! How unfair can people be in their bid to exercise the limitless freedom the internet offers!
The controversy was further compounded when news hit town that Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State and what remains of his All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) was about to take the outrageous decision to adopt President Goodluck Jonathan as APGA’s presidential candidate for the April elections (They have now done that). The last time I heard about this kind of “adoption” was during the dark days of Gen. Sani Abacha when virtually every political party in Nigeria out-ran each other to crown the goggled General their candidate!
But in reacting to this development, Mr. Uche Ezechukwu, in a recent two-part column, alienated most of his readers by untidily dragging the name of Ojukwu and his wife into the piece, and deployed very offensive words to describe Ojukwu’s health condition which greatly rankled not a few Nigerians, not just Ndigbo. He probably meant to use the Ojukwu angle to strengthen his case against APGA’s misadventure, but ended up unduly overstating his case, if not spoiling it altogether. Nobody seems to remember anymore the fine points he had thought to make in his essay on the need to take time to grow a political party until it gathers weight and strength. What is on everybody’s mouth out there now is how he went all out to rubbish and ridicule Ojukwu before the world.
Why for instance would Ezechukwu pick issues with Bianca’s public announcement that the health of her husband was improving? Was he expecting her to announce his obituary? And why would he presume to know the exact state of the Ikemba’s health better than his wife when he has not been anywhere near the man’s hospital ward? I also fail to see how a woman who traveled with her husband on December 23, 2010 and stayed with him until February 4, 2011 before dashing to Nigeria to attend to some family matters could be accused of abandoning her husband even if she used the opportunity of her visit to appear at a rally to tell the people that her husband’s health was improving. Whether Ezechukwu’s intervention has helped Ojukwu or gravely damaged him is for Ezechukwu to decide. Even if he had, like several other people, some reservations about the appointment, he has now done much more harm to the image of Ndigbo and the Ikemba (which he was purporting to protect) than Bianca’s appointment can ever hope to inflict.
Having said that, I must hasten to add that if one can look beyond Ezechukwu’s really hard language against Gov. Obi and Victor Umeh, one may empathize with his disappointment with their action, but certainly not his motive, whatever it might be. The belief that APGA may not have any chance in the next presidential election (but who can accurately predict anything in politics?) is no reason to accept defeat before the contest even begins. We saw what happened to Alliance for Democracy (AD) when it cut a similar deal with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. That marked the gradual disappearance of that party. Now, look at the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). With just one state under its control (just like APGA), its consistency and perseverance has paid off. It is now becoming a force to reckon with in the nation. Just imagine what would have happened to ACN if Atiku Abubakar had not returned to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but had instead reappeared as ACN’s presidential candidate?
By now, the ACN would have become the party to beat. With Ali Ciroma beating his very loud drums up North and lining his ‘Chocolate Cream Soldiers’ behind Atiku, the ACN would have since completely shed every trace of exclusive Western colour and become a truly “national” party? And by now, the PDP would have been sweating under its armpits!
If Obi and those following him are tired of APGA as they appear to, the most honourable thing to do is to leave the party for those (whoever they may be) who are able to understand that a political party is not just a platform for merely recovering a governorship mandate and winning the presidency, and join the PDP fully. The party that is in the minority today may become the major party tomorrow. It only takes consistence and perseverance. What this underlines clearly is that there is a wide divide between being a good administrator and a good politician, and the tragedy of having a political neophyte leading and deciding the fate of a political party. Several people readily acknowledge to me that Obi has done fairly well as Governor, but it is quite easy to see that when it comes to politics, “Obi is a boy” as the famous Elementary School English Reader declares. If he is led to believe that after his tenure as governor expires that APGA should also follow suit, then, it would be most unfortunate. He should remind himself that APGA means much more to many people than a mere political party and so recoil at the thought of history recording him as the man who initiated and presided over its funeral rites.
-------------------------------------- March 7, 2011 |