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Ikemba Nnewi Goes Home : The Strange Tale Of An Encounter Between General Amnesia And Mass Hysteria By Dr. Ola Balogun *
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In the course of his life time, General Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu (aka Ikemba Nnewi) was a man who had an unmistakable flair for dramatic gestures, coupled with an interesting tendency to indulge in rhetoric, grandiloquence and hyperbole...
If Ikemba could have witnessed the grandiose funeral that he was accorded by the large crowds that gathered to pay him homage as he was being buried last week, he would certainly have loved the drama of the occasion! He would have been even more been delighted by all the display of emotion and the outpouring of rhetoric that his funeral provoked!
Interestingly enough, a much overused quotation from William Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” that speaks of comets “blazing in the skies” when great men pass away, kept cropping up like a bad coin in many articles and speeches inspired by Ikemba’s demise.
Apparently, hardly anyone was inclined to remember what might perhaps have been a more apt quotation from a different play by Shakespeare (“Macbeth”), wherein it is reported of the unlucky Earl of Cawdor (who lost out in the bitter power struggle that ensued from his ill-starred rebellion against the king of England) that: “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it”
The fact remains that whether one liked him or not, none can deny that Ojukwu appears to loom greater in death than in life... justifiably or not?
Certainly, some of the encomiums that have been heaped on the late Biafran warlord might appear somewhat puzzling to some of those who actually witnessed the events surrounding the Nigerian civil war a few decades ago.
For instance, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawlings surfaced from Ghana to declare to the entire world that the late Ikemba Nnewi was a “great African”, even though he willingly confessed that he knew nothing about Nigeria’s civil war years beyond the fact that Dick Tiger (his boxing hero) was said to have fought in the ranks of the Biafran armed forces!
Quite bizarrely, Jerry Rawlings (whose knowledge of contemporary African history appears to be quite sketchy) does not appear to have ever heard that the dauntless fighter whom he generously described as “a great African” somehow managed to maintain an open-ended alliance with some of the worst enemies of the peoples of Africa at the time of the Nigerian civil war, notably the apartheid regime in South Africa and the fascist leadership in Portugal, who gladly supplied Ojukwu with weapons and ammunition on a large scale, in a somewhat similar fashion to their dangerous romance with the late Jonas Savimbi of Angola (who bore an uncanny physical resemblance to Ojukwu, oddly enough)...
Some have sought to excuse Ojukwu's alliance with the forces of oppression in apartheid South Africa and the fascist Portuguese African colonial empire on the grounds that he was forced to that extremity by the burning desire to ensure that Biafra survived at all costs...
A plausible defence perhaps, even though it is rather difficult to conceive of a supposedly “great African” wining and dining with such clearly avowed enemies of the peoples of Africa!
Be that as it may, while it may be conceded that Ojukwu’s ill-considered alliance with the very people who were torturing and killing millions of Africans in South Africa, Rhodesia, Mozambique and Angola at the time might be overlooked as a case of desperate expediency, it does sound rather jarring to hear an overt fellow-traveller on the apartheid side of the great contest for the liberation of Southern African being described a few decades later as “a great African”.
Ditto for Ojukwu’s secret agreement with General De Gaulle of France to grant the French oil company Elf extensive access to the oil resources of the Niger Delta in exchange for weapons and diplomatic support from a French Government that had only recently emerged from decades of ruthless warfare against the peoples of Algeria and Cameroun.
Thus, under the assumed guise of seeking to aid the “starving children of Biafra”, the same forces that had heartlessly massacred hundreds of thousands of Algerian and Bamileke children emerged to pose to the world as champions of “humanitarian aid” to Biafra, with Jacques Foccart (the ubiquitous head of the French secret services) toiling tirelessly to mix arms shipments with Red Cross supplies that were flown under cover of darkness into the Biafran enclave nearly every night from staging points in Gabon and the island of Sao Tome.
Again, the odd role that was played by Jacques Foccart and his cohort of secret agents and mercenary soldiers in prolonging the Nigerian civil war can quite possibly be forgiven to some extent as another instance of desperation on the part of Ojukwu (who appeared to believe that Biafra needed to be preserved by all and EVERY means available), but can Ikemba Nnewi justifiably be described as “a great African” after all that?
Even more puzzling, President Goodluck Jonathan (perhaps motivated by a futile desire to restore some of his fast dwindling store of luck with the people of Nigeria), came out boldly to declare that the late Ikemba was a great “patriot”!
Well, the lucky accidental President of Nigeria is no doubt entitled to his opinion on the matter, but it does appear rather odd that he totally failed to localize Ojukwu’s supposed “patriotism” :
In all objectivity, it might conceivably appear to be more appropriate to define Ojukwu as an unreconstructed Igbo patriot who never really thought in terms of Nigeria as a whole, which makes it all the more puzzling to hear some apparently well-intentioned folks declare that “Ojukwu sacrificed himself for the sake of Nigeria” or (in a more extreme formulation) “Ojukwu died so that Nigeria and Africa might be saved”...
Unfortunately, this proposition (no matter in what variant!) appears to fall flat on its face when one compares the late Ikemba’s political trajectory with those of clearly identifiable African leaders like Nelson Mandela, Kwame Nkrumah, Edouardo Mondlane, Steve Biko, Chris Hanni, Felix Moumie etc.
Incontestably, a man like Steve Biko gave his life for Africa, but can the same really be said of Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu?
Although the millions of Ndigbo who gathered on the streets of Awka, Enugu, Onitsha, Nnewi, Umuahia etc. to pay homage to their departed “Eze Gburugburu” ( a rather strange sounding title that has no historical precedence in Igbo land) were genuinely convinced that Ojukwu was one of the greatest leaders that Africa has ever known, it is highly improbable that this was actually a widely shared perception in the rest of Nigeria, particularly among the peoples of the present Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states, who claim to have been unwilling captives in the Biafran entity that emerged from Ojukwu’s ill-fated declaration of secession.
At he risk of appearing to swim dangerously against the tide, one cannot help noting that the vast outpouring of grief among the general Igbo population all over Nigeria on the occasion of Chief Emeka Odumegwu’s demise inevitably presents some puzzling aspects to those Nigerians who were already adults at the time of the Nigerian civil war.
To some extent, one does understand that the genuine sense of bereavement experienced by the quasi-totality of Ndigbo springs from the widespread nostalgia that many continue to feel for the failed dream of Biafra as an independent Igbo homeland, with which the late Ikemba is closely associated.
More intriguingly, one notes with some degree of amazement that the rewriting of history has been carried so far by some people (including a number of prominent non-Igbo citizens) as to suggest that the late Ikemba was actually some kind of proponent of a new revolutionary entity that was supposed to replace the Nigerian state that was in existence of the time on the basis of the Aburi accords (which he apparently suckered his less well educated military colleagues into signing).
The last gasp hodgepodge attempt to provide some form of ideological clothing for the concept of Biafra under the appellation of “Ahiara declaration” has also often been cited in recent days as a pristine example of Ojukwu’s far-reaching political wisdom, which we now hear provides a valid basis for nation building in the whole of Africa! Might this not be a little far-fetched?
Amidst all the outpouring of heated rhetoric and sentimental hyperbole, the question that really needs to be asked is :
Was Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu actually a reformist leader motivated by a desire to restructure Nigeria for the benefit of all Nigerian citizens, and not simply a champion of the Igbo population?
Although it may not please many who are not conversant with the history of 1960s Nigeria to hear this, the answer to that crucial question does not lead to the conclusion that Ojukwu ever cared about the citizens of Nigeria as a whole!
In reality, there is a fundamental contradiction that lies at the heart of Ojukwu’s role in history, which is currently mirrored by the largely incomprehensible attempt by a gentleman named Ralph Uwazuirike to achieve what he describes as “the actualisation” of Biafra. The contradiction is this : Can Ndigbo simultaneously secede to establish an independent Biafran state and still remain Nigerian citizens at the same time?
In the present-day context, is Uwazuirike saying that all those of Igbo origin who are established all over the Nigerian federation in Kano, Jos, Maiduguri, Calabar, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Oshogbo, Bauchi, Lagos etc. should pull up the stakes they have built up in various parts of Nigeria, sell all their landed property and businesses and relocate to the Igbo heartland? How feasible Is that? And how would Ndigbo really stand to benefit from such a wild scheme? And yet Uwazuirike apparently continues to present himself as a leader of some sort who has something valid to offer Ndigbo! How strange! Is there something that the rest of us have failed to understand in all the seemingly empty rhetoric on which the resurgence of Biafra prognosticated by folks like Uwazuirike is based?
Travelling back in time to the tragic era that preceded the civil war itself, can one really describe the horrendous massacres to which thousands of Ndigbo fell victim at the time in some parts of Northern Nigeria as some kind of premeditated act in which the entire northern population took part?
Even though one cannot but sympathize deeply with the many thousand Igbo victims of the massacres that occurred in the north at the time, a balanced examination of all available facts would tend to suggest that the pogrom and rioting to which massive numbers of Igbo citizens fell victim in the north in the run up to the civil war was actually engineered by some disgruntled northern politicians and a northern military cabal who felt threatened by the impact of the January 1966 coup (which had led to the emergence of General Aguiyi-Ironsi and a mostly Igbo clique at the head of the Nigerian Government, even though Aguiyi-Ironsi and his clique in the army and civil service had not actually taken part in the coup that precipitated the collapse of Nigeria’s first Republic).
Most ironically, Ojukwu himself was never part of the revolutionary group of majors (led principally by chukwuma kaduna nzeogu and emmanuel ifeajuna), who led the military uprising that overthrew the government of the Nigerian first republic on january 15th 1966. On the contrary, it is on record that, far from supporting the action of the Nzeogu group, Ojukwu initially sat on the fence from the vantage point of his position as Commander of the 5th battalion, an army unit based in Kano! It is also on record that Ojukwu eventually helped Ironsi to foil the revolutionary aims of the authors of the Janury 1966 coup!
Finally, it is a well known fact that as a reward for Ojukwu’s role in blocking Nzeogu’s take over of Northern Nigeria, General Ironsi appointed Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu to the position of military Governor of the Eastern Nigerian region, catapulting him over the head of Lt. Col Hilary Njokwu (who was subsequently held in detention by Ojukwu during the entire duration of the civil war).
Nzeogu himself died in mysterious circumstances in Biafra shortly after the beginning of the civil war, while Emmanuel Ifeajuna was one of those who were tried by a kangaroo court headed by Justice Nkemena and executed on Ojukwu’s orders along with Victor Banjo, Sam Agbam, and Philip Alale on the grounds that they had “conceived of an intention” to overthrow Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu with a view to “procuring” the downfall of Biafra...
Clearly, Ojukwu was NEVER a revolutionary or a sophisticated political thinker, either in the context of Nigeria or within Biafra itself!
It is also obvious that those who now seek to bestow this wholly undeserved accolade on the late Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu are either carried away by sentimentalism or blinded by partisan passion!
From a certain perspective, it is however wholly understandable that Ndigbo should identify emotionally to such a huge extent with the late Ikemba...
During the course of the civil war, it can be estimated that between 80 and 90 per cent of the entire Igbo population bought into the concept of Biafra as an independent Igbo nation.
What is rather difficult to understand however, is that both then and now, most Igbo people refuse steadfastly to attach any degree of blame on Ojukwu for some of the shortcomings in leadership that appear to have prolonged their suffering in the course of the ill-fated Biafran adventure.
True, thousands of innocent Igbo people were maimed, tortured and massacred by rampaging mobs in some northern cities in the run-up to the war. The question that however remains to be answered is : Did the terrible suffering of the Igbo victims of political violence in the north serve as a convenient justification for the implementation of a plan that Ojukwu and his entourage had already formed for the declaration of secession? Was there truly no alternative to Biafra and no hope for national reconciliation at all in Nigeria in the tragic weeks and months that preceded the civil war? Opinions remain divided on the subject!
What is however clear is that the intransigence displayed by Ojukwu (who stubbornly rejected several opportunities for a negotiated settlement of the war) inevitably led to a tragic prolongation of the civil war, with the resultant multitude of avoidable deaths, and the widespread starvation and destruction that was provoked by the length of the war.
Obviously, it was this factor that led an elder statesman like Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to eventually abandon the doomed Biafran adventure and declare himself in favour of the federation of Nigeria.
The warmth with which Dr. Azikiwe was welcomed back into the fold by the entire Nigerian nation and the highly laudable policy of “no victors no vanquished” that was applied by General Yakubu Gowon following the end of the war offered abundant proof at the time that the vast majority of Nigerians were tired of the war and its inevitable cortege of horrors, and that they genuinely aspired to live once more in peace and harmony with their Igbo brothers and sisters.
Unfortunately however, right up till today, the Igbo psyche seems to have been unable to overcome the deep traumatism of the civil war experience...
To this day, (rightly or wrongly), many Igbos continue to feel marginalized and unloved as Nigerian citizens, which is perhaps what explains the emergence of a character like Ralph Uwazuirike and his bizarre project for “the actualisation of Biafra”..... If Ojukwu deserves acceptance as a kind of hero within the context of the lives of Ndigbo, can it be said that his actions following the final collapse of Biafra (when he claimed to have flown to a safe haven in the Ivory Coast in search of imaginary peace negotiations) truly in keeping with the image of a courageous leader?
Whom can Ojukwu be said to have gone to negotiate with in Cote d’Ivoire, especially as he had already handed over power in Biafra to a committee headed by Gen. Philip Effiong, which included elder statesmen like the late Sir Louis Mbanefo?
Would Churchill, Roosevelt or Stalin have flown away in “search of peace” at the hour of collapse of their homelands if their respective countries had been defeated during the Second World War?
The propaganda of the victorious side in the Second World War has consistently depicted Adolf Hitler as some kind of mad man, but mad man or not, Hitler defied his opponents by arranging to take his own life before they could reach him.
In the Nigerian context, it is highly likely that Ojukwu would NOT have been harmed if he had stayed behind to personally participate with his federalist counterparts in the ceremonies to end the Nigerian civil war. Arguably, that would have been the mark of a true leader! Since no harm befell the high ranking representatives of Biafra when they were flown to the federal capital to sign documents marking the end of the war, should Ojukwu not have been with them?
Even at the risk of his own life, should Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu not have chosen to stay behind in Biafra to share the fate of the Igbo men women and children whom he led in the unsuccessful attempt to concretize a Biafran nation?
Strangely enough however, the vast majority of Ndigbo have never seen fit to criticize the leader of Biafra for flying off with his family at the time of Biafra’s final collapse to attend what appears to be a non-existent peace conference in Cote d’Ivoire...
Be that as it may, there is much food for thought in the fact that the heroes Nigeria seems to have fabricated in the post-colonial era tend to be heroes whose aura is mostly limited to a sectional and tribal context.
Contrary to the situation in South Africa for instance (where Nelson Mandela is revered as a hero by virtually ALL the people of South Africa rather than by only the Xhosa tribe), what we have in Nigeria is a situation where Alhaji Ahmadu Bello is considered a hero in Northern Nigeria, while Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s status as a heroic leader is mostly limited to Yorubaland.
Thus, even if we accept that Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu genuinely deserves to be considered a hero, is he actually a hero for ALL of Nigeria? That is the vital question!
* Dr. Ola Balogun is a film maker and musician who currently resides in Lagos |