Shameless nation and its burial of Adanma Okpara and Victoria Aguiyi-Ironsi. By Okey Anueyiagu, PhD
Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
While many are shouting Igbo marginalization, Igbo this , Igbo that, please ponder on this: It saddens my heart to observe how Mrs. Adanma Okpara, wife of our Hero MI (Dr. Michael Iheonukara Okpara who served as Premier of the former Eastern Region), was buried in Umuahia on Saturday, the 18th of December, 2021. She died at 97 years old.
Remarkably, not a single Governor of the entire South East, or from the former Eastern Region; Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Rivers, Bayelsa showed up at this funeral. Neither did any of them send a representative.
The financial burden of burying this icon was borne by the family and to some extent, Abia and Imo State governments.
Similarly, Mrs. Aguiyi Ironsi was buried in November 2021, and our elected officials snubbed her burial.
The Federal Government through the SGF sent a miserable, miserly, and paltry N5m for the burial of the wife of a former Head of State. They sent no representatives. There was no delegation from Abuja.
I am beyond stunned at our malignity and shambolic behavior in cases of this nature.
What have we become, what happened to our sense of humanity?
To treat our dead heroes with such disdain and disrespect, is tantamount to ignoring the lessons that compel us, the living to demand from humanity honest and appropriate treatment for others; especially when they deserve it. Dr. Okey Anueyiagu is an investor, teacher, author, philanthropist, humanitarian and author of “Biafra: The Horrors of War, The story of a Child Soldier”
