On Ojukwu, it takes stupidity of some to appreciate reasonableness of the rest….

On Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, it takes the stupidity of some to appreciate the reasonableness of the rest of us.

Emeka Ojukwu is the Eagle that will ever perch on a befitting iroko
By Ken OkorieSpecial & Exclusive commentary for USAfricaonline.com
During the closing weeks of December 2010, news of Dim  Emeka Ojukwu’s failing health has filled the media circuits.  Variously known as Ikemba Nnewi (Symbol of Nnewi Strength), Eze-Igbo Gburugburu (Leader of all Igbo), Dike di Ora MMa Ndi-Igbo (the Gallant Beloved of Ndi-Igbo), General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu was the Head of State and General of the Peoples’ Army of the Republic of Biafra, which broke away from Nigeria on May 30, 1967 but forced back in January 1970 after a protracted 30-month long war that claimed almost 2 million Biafran lives.  He was born to perhaps Africa’s richest family of his time and equipped with uncommon Oxford education and sophistication few Africans could boast.
The mantle of leadership was thrust upon him at 31 when he was appointed Military Governor of the Eastern Group of Provinces in January 1966  as a consequence of Nigeria’s first military coups d’état.  Thereafter, a pogrom was unleashed against Nigerians of Eastern origin in other parts of Nigeria by Northern elements in the Army.  The crisis worsened in months and culminated in the declaration of an independent sovereign state of Biafra.  Thus Ojukwu became Head of an independent Republic at age 33 and thereby the symbol of resolve and hope for a desperate people confronted with genocide.   The young, eloquent army officer gave Biafrans the gallantry of Napoleon, the leadership of Churchill, and the combined oratory of Demosthenes and Theodore Roosevelt.  This is how Emeka Ojuwku became engrained in the consciousness of every Igbo, every Biafran, every Nigerian.
The sentiment since his latest health challenge has been overwhelmingly prayerful and compassionate toward the man who gave so much of himself for the good of his people and is  widely shared by Nigerians of varied ethnic heritage.
The reason is simple:  Ojukwu gave Nigeria something no other leader ever has.  He taught Nigeria  courage in the face of brutal injustice, and gave Biafrans resolve and hope that mere martial force could not dispel.   When a man is so decidedly driven not by self but by what is good for his people and fair for all Nigerians it is a fact difficult to disagree with.  It is also truth that faithfully does not melt away regardless the efforts to cloud or degrade it.
It should, also not surprise anyone that there are creatures of lilliputian intellect, who spew all manner of garbage against the same Emaka Ojukwu.  Take the example of John Unegbu, a pitiful character who on Thursday, December 23, 2010 wrote of the Ikemba in an Internet chat room of Nigerians: “Death is something natural, and nobody should lose sleep because when the nature makes it call it will not be reversed. Ikemba has gone to pay his final homage to Britain, where he attended his… before joining the Nigeria army, later declare Biafra, ran away came back sold out. This month alone the nature is beckoning him and he must answer that call. When he gets there — into the world of reality he will see his ego, betrayal of his people, his crime and mistakes.”
How sad it otherwise would seem, except that every flock must have its black sheep.  The John Unegbus of the world are not the problem, for we simply need to understand the purpose they too serve.  That is easy when we recognize that someone had to be Judas in order for destined salvation of mankind to be fulfilled. Rather, the problem it is the rest of us, especially Ndi-Igbo of Nigeria who have become so unforgivingly empty both in our values and our essence.  Hence I restate a favorite expression I coined some years back:  It takes the stupidity of some of us to appreciate the reasonableness of the rest of us.
I place the real problem on the mass of the Igbo flock because we have become either very ungrateful or short-sighted.   I believe that Ikemba’s courage, dedication and selflessness for the safety, good and well being of  Biafrans (in particular the Igbo component) is comparable only to the sacrifices of Ghandi, Martin Luther King, and  Mandela.  Biafrans were the target of policies deliberately designed for our extinction.  That is the only meaning conveyed by the expression “deep the Koran in the Atlantic”. That was the only explanation for a war strategy that used deliberately and indiscriminately bombed and strafed schools, churches, hospitals and markets.
That was the motivation for a policy that massively starved men, women and children alike to disease and death. That was the logical rationale for the post-war federal government policy to severely and perpetually impoverish every former Biafran with only Twenty Pounds even after the shooting war was over and regardless how much wealth they had accumulated in Nigerian banks before the war.  That explains the policy that declared the property of Ndi-Igbo in other parts of Nigeria “abandoned” even though they had been forced to flee home from other parts of Nigeria where they were harpooned and massacred.  These are few of the actions and policies against which Emeka Ojukwu stood and sacrificed all that he was, all that he had, and all that he could.   But because we are selfish, indisciplined and short-sighted, Biafrans forgot so quickly; Ndi-Igbo in particular remained hugely ungrateful, conveniently fishing for faults in his decisions.
Like any human, Emeka Ojukwu made mistakes in his time, but they were mistakes of the head, not of the heart. That much he has acknowledged.  His inglorious entry into partisan post-war Nigerian politics was not to self-aggrandize or gratify but a strategy to test and confirm the federal policies that granted him personal pardon, and amnesty to all who fought on the Biafran side of the Nigerian civil war between June 1967 and January 1970.  That much he has also personally explained.  Nonetheless there are those who will accept neither his acknowledgements nor his explanations.  There will continue to be Monday morning quarterbacks blindly second-guessing and condemning the actions of a 33-year old leader, who was overwhelmed by prevailing burdens, circumstances and factors details of which they either have no clue and have not bothered to understand.  But such is the unfairness of life!
Like the masses, I pray that Ikemba will again emerge triumphant from his current health challenges.  Such victorious outcome would be a befitting consolation to all who share in goodwill toward him.  It will also be the befitting reminder to those who were first disappointed that he survived the war of genocide in which two million Biafrans perished.   Perhaps more importantly, It might also  be a soothing lesson for the John Unegbus.  Either way, Emeka Ojukwu is irreversibly who he is, and what he is. His mark on the Nigerian landscape is forever indelible, no matter how much his detractors struggle to muddy up his image.
However, one thing that bothers me most in all of this is the real circumstances of Ndi-Igbo in Nigeria, which will become oh-so evident the day Emeka Ojukwu departs the scene like every ordinary mortal.  it will be a day of sombre opening of the mass of eyes and minds that have remained steel-shut since the end of the Nigerian civil war in January 1970.  It will be a day of reckoning.  I  foresee a tough, long, cold winter for Ndi-Igbo in a Nigeria that, 40 years after the war, still cares not one bit that we too contributed to the founding and building of the country.  All that anyone doubting needs is to look at how the allocation of the  nation’s resources and opportunities are systematically and invariably skewed against Ndi-Igbo.
And so Nid-Igbo, if you have ears, this is the time.  If any of us must cry or feel sorry, it should be for ourselves, not for Ikemba, for the man has done more than any other  has or can for our people.

His legacy is such that, when his days are over, none will escape the realization that Emeka Ojukwu’s was an impact unlike any in our time; a life about whom any of us can only be grateful to have been touched.  As to the John Unegbus of the flock, do you ever ask yourself what you will be remembered for?  The saying that one never truly values what one has until he loses it  is so true!   And so the soaring Eagle will forever find a befitting Iroko tree on which to perch, however cloudy or rough Nigeria’s weather turns.  That is the Emeka Ojukwu I ever will cherish.
•Okorie, attorney at law, is a columnist and editorial board member of Houston-based USAfrica and USAfricaonline.com

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USAfricaonline.com | Ojukwu Interview | by Chido Nwangwu, exclusive July, 1999 interview with Ikemba Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. www.usafricaonline.com/ojukwuchido.html