Ojukwu and His Traducers

Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu

By Valentine Obienyem
There is one thing one cannot take away from Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Ezeigbo Gburugburu – his passion for his people and his deep-rooted concern for their well being. One thing which many have come to associate with Ojukwu is his ability to speak for his people whenever he perceives danger lurking around them. Read his history and you will be surprised at countless events in his life, some of which you and I know, will prove this assertion. As I write, let me remind the reader that I am Ojukwu’s biographer. I am one of those that worship him because our own heritage and ideals of honour and service to one’s people are so closely bound and formed on his example that people like us feel injured in finding any flaw in his character. We can go to war when lesser mortals lose sense of respect for the icon. I am off to war now!
A few days ago, Dim Chukwuemka Odumegwu-Ojukwu warned Nigerians to respect the Constitution of the land to avoid conflict and strife. He spoke against the rumour that the Court of Appeal wanted to favour Mr. Andy Uba in his quest to be declared what I did not know. Ojukwu did not say anything untoward or a should be considered contemptuous or subjudicial, but simply warned on the dangers of disobeying the Constitution or the subordinate court going contrary to the judgement of the Supreme Court. What do we call this, judicial patriotism if you like. The Ojukwu we know might not be concerned with Peter Obi continuing or not, but that the person to govern Anambra State is not imposed on them even by the courts under whatever guise – not even through the persuasiveness of money.
It is still mind-boggling that Professor Ilochi Okafor replied the next day in the form of an advertorial. I broke down when I saw his reply. I have the greatest respect for Ilochi Okafor; he did well as the Vice Chancellor of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University. But compared to Ojukwu, who is he to sit in judgment on what Ojukwu said or did not say? Let all the town criers we have in Igboland draw this into his ears. After Ilochi Okafor, some rascals under the aegis of the PDP elders came up with an advertisement where they put their sanities to question by pouring invectives on the great one. Soon after that, one group or the other under different funny names joined hands to look Ojukwu at the face and even point at that face mellowed with wisdom. One writer appropriately referred to them as “little demons without respect for the holy water.” They are what they were called, for the bravado to attack the representative of Igbo heritage; to attack him is to hit the Igbo man to the marrow. I read all the attacks and defenses and felt angry, that true Igbo sons, that sucked their mothers’ breast can, even with all the teas in China, agree to pelt foul words on our common heritage. I restrained myself from joining issues with them, while waiting for the judgement of the Court of Appeal, which happily came on Friday, November 13. But in all this, I recognises that great men like him are meant to take action while the likes of Ilochi will speak about the action.
Have you asked yourself why some of Andy’s supporters went to court with masquerades, dance groups and cooling vans stocked with drinks ready to celebrate before the judgement was adjourned? Have you wondered why within the spate of one week, we witnessed all manner of characters writing on Andy Uba’s case? I loved to listen to them as hacks, but the sight of them as objective commentators was unendurable. We saw the Elendus, the Uchem Obis, the Adindus and many more. Even those of them that studied law in its pettiest and most prosaic details pretended as if they did not understand the simple Supreme Court judgement saying that the 2007 election ought not to have taken place. I was particularly amused by their histrionics, amazed by the contradictory legal principles they were vainly propagating, confused by their digression from what the Supreme Court actually said, and appalled by their ungracious scurrility. I honestly pitied Ilochi Okafor for reducing himself to allying with those antipodal to him in mind and character in the name of defending the indefensible.
Now that the judgement has been given, I cannot waste my time battling with anybody’s error nor will I attempt to bring a cure to anybody’s ignorance, but to appeal to all those who were attempting to ridicule Ojukwu to think about their actions and words.
Ojukwu is a man without cant. He is not one that wastes his saliva on superfluities. I cannot say I am aware of what he heard or saw to make him issue a strong warning against disrespect for the Constitution. What, however, is instructive is what Mr. Ezeani Achusim wrote on the INTERNET a few minutes after the Court of Appeal’s judgement, Ezeani: “As more news on the Justices ruling become available, we will endeavour to give reasons why the Appeal Court ruled against Andy Uba. One reason: Ikemba. None of the Justices wants to be responsible for or witness another war.”
Ojukwu did not call for war, but warned us against taking decisions that will lead to war. I do not understand why some people took him up on this. You should know at all times that a group, like an animal, whenever it feels itself threatened in his dearest possessions or its life, will defend itself by any available means, if possible by argument or law and then, if these prove inadequate, by any force it can command. Consequently, a state in like instances is justified in going to war to defend itself. Rather than offer advice against such things that will push people to war as Ojukwu did, some hired Igbo people thinking they are now man enough started throwing darts at him, denouncing him with hyperbole.
What the likes of Elendu, Uchem Obi and Adindu did has once again brought to the fore the poverty of analysis we suffer in this country. The spontaneity of their analyses must have made some people resolve not to trust newspaper analyses any longer. They have proved that nowhere are the prejudices of analysts likely to mislead the people as when he seeks to determine issues he does not believe in but paid to canvass. His vision will be further blurred if he approaches the problem with a thesis to prove – as, for example, that election ought not to have take place means being declared a passive Governor waiting for his tenure to start running. This is the common fault of suborned analyses in this country; perhaps they are the hard necessities of all suborned analyses elsewhere. We miss in such analyses – though we have no right to expect– the calm appraisal of a philosopher or the subtle wisdom of an Ojukwu.
Elendu and co and all those that sought to discredit Ojukwu’s position no doubt acted out of external influence. It is sad when some lawyers try to confuse people by use of esoteric legal terms as when they allow one legal principle or the other to fall over one another in contradictory confusion in the name of making a point. Besides some entrenched principles, law is simply common sense in action. A man paid to do a particular job is a slave because he is subject to the gratification he has received. This is the type of life Spinoza described in his Classic Book iv “Of Human Bondage. ” The earlier we can free ourselves from this bondage and become in some measure agents of positive change in the society, the better for you and I.
Our society is fast turning into what one cannot describe. We must continue to detest a situation where some bands of renegades because of a few wads which they have no scruples in parading in an offensive manner are daily attracting the indignation of the rest of us and the scorn of all serious minds.
We have some institutions that other Nigerians revere and Ojukwu is certainly one of them. The panic that followed his warning may have attracted the indignation of little demons, but the message in this is reassuring: at least we still have somebody who can redirect the flow of thoughts or chain the attention of the entire country when he speaks. The demystification of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu should perhaps wait till we get to the next world: not in this world.

Obienyem is Ikemba Ojukwu’s biographer.