The reminiscences of David Ejoor...

By Emma Okocha

"Before he enlisted into the army, Nzeogwu told me he was going to South Africa to fight for the liberation of the Blacks ....We spoke Hausa each time he came around. We used to go see the Sarduana through Alhaji Muktar Tahir. When I saw him in 1967 and asked him why he overthrew the government, he said he felt shocked that what he complained about in South Africa was happening in Nigeria.
He was unhappy that Nigerians were losing jobs to Pakistanis and Indians.’’
—John Edozie to Emeka Mamah, Sunday Vanguard Interview, March 28, 1999, Page 3.

"Chukwuma started thinking about military combat and dying in a battlefield somewhere in Southern Africa five years before Nigeria Independence. His readings in the late 50s had turned his focus towards the armed struggles of Southern Africa and his career choice was to prepare him for such conflicts. He understood what his father once told him about his choice, that joining the army was an invitation to early death...The Nzeogwu household had known him to keep his promises and resisted the family pressure to mould and shape his views

and choices; he followed his conscience on the senior class revolt at St John’s, rather than his parents’ desires; he joined the army instead of the police, he remained single, childless rather than become a progenitor....’’
—Nzeogwu, Okeleke: Major C.K Nzeogwu, Ibadan: Spectrum Books, 2003 Page119.

"The campaign period in Western Nigeria proved to be the bloodiest the country ever had; petrol was sometimes poured on opponents who were then set on fire, polling agents and electoral officers were shot. On the evening that Chief S.L Akintola was to make his first broadcast as Premier, a masked gunman entered the broadcasting station, seized the pre-recorded tape of Chief Akintola’s speech and submitted another tape.

Instead of Akintola’s voice, thousands of listeners heard a voice saying: ‘This is the voice, the true voice of the people of Western Nigeria. Akintola, get out, get out and take with you your band of renegades who have lost all sense of shame’. If there was any case for declaring a state of emergency in any region, the state of Western Nigeria in December 1965, was one very good case.

The Prime Minister and the Federal Government appeared not to take notice of what was happening in Western Nigeria. The situation in 1965 was worse than in 1962, when the Federal Government declared a state of emergency.’’
— Osadebay Dennis: Building A Nation, Ibadan:Macmillan Publishers 1978, Page174.

"Apart from these Yoruba officers, Major W. Ademoyega, Captain G.Adeleke, Lt.Oyewole, Lt. F. Olafimihan there were Northerners, close disciples of Nzeogwu who participated in the January 15 uprising. Captain Gibson Jalo, Captain Swanton, Lt. T. Katsina and Lt. John. Kpera [Pse.see The Five Majors, Pages 51 158-158...

Also see Blood On The Niger, New York: Triatlantic Books, Page 216].... it is most likely that the putsch was clearly anti-Igbo. The Majors overthrew a four regional structure that had two Igbo Premiers in the richest two regions of the East and the Midwest.

The main objective of the January 15 revolution was to release Chief Obafemi Awolowo from prison and appoint him the Prime Minister (See also the unpublished Findings on the Jan.15 1966 coup by the late Major Ibanga Ekanem, Provost Marshall, Nigerian Army)

There is a popular documentary on the Nigerian civil war showing presently on You Tube. Originally produced by the National Television Authority, the film featured interviews by some of the former top Nigerian civil war bureaucrats and army commanders on both sides of the civil war. I was elated to hear the voice of General Mohammed Shuwa, the former Commander of the Nigerian First Division, perhaps the most unsung hero of that war. Shuwa saved a lot of Igbos during the pogrom and continued in the same vein during his operations to reach his war objective.

He was the enduring commander of the Nigerian First Division. A Division which had the orders to capture the Biafran capitals of Enugu and Umuahia. To capture the hill top city of Enugu the First division was almost depleted as it battled through the red hot volcanoes of Nsukka, Opi junction, into the slaughter house of the Milkin hills. When the Biafrans evacuated Enugu and moved its capital to Aba and finally to Umuahia, the orders to the commanders of the First Division did not change.

To capture the city of knowledge, the Eastern Railway junction town, the city of the great Government College that gave the world Chinua Achebe, Chris Okigbo, Saro Wiwa, the gritty Division pushed through forests of Ogbunigwe-infested landscape, and through the perilous valleys of the truculent Biafran heartland. When the First Division finally limped into Umuahia, the earthquake casualties on both sides were beyond Carthage. It was time to call off the bluff. A coercive outcome to end the fratricide was the only option, as the two sides had by their intransigent and uncompromising stances ditched the resolution of the conflict through negotiations or diplomacy.

Through those bloody attrition in Biafra, and during the hours the Biafran Expeditionary Forces almost turned the tide of the war, after their entry into the Midwest on the 9th of August 1967, nobody heard of David Ejoor. Which side was he fighting for? There was no report on his field activities.

We therefore appreciate the stand of General Shuwa on You tube . Brigadier Conrad Nwawor, Brigadier S. Ogbemudia, Brigadier Johnson, Chief P.C Asiodu, Damcida, Tayo Akpata, Ojukwu and General Yakubu Gowon. These soldiers and gentlemen made decisions and answered the call as true soldiers.

They can discuss with authority the war in which they were actors. In his recent interview with a local newspaper where he allegedly denigrated the whole Igbos, following the failure of ‘their light Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’ who never made it as the Prime Minister’’.

In the first place Zik was not an Igbo light. He was the African light of the 21st century. He inspired the seminarian Kwame Nkrumah, the Uwalimu Julius Nyerere, K.K. Kaunda, countless Nigerians including Festus Okotie-Eboh, Chief S.J. Mariere the late Governor of the Midwest, James Otobo, Shaka Momodu, Chief Humphrey Omo-Osagie.

As the pioneer Nigerian publisher, Zik appointed Anthony Enahoro the youngest editor of a Nigerian newspaper. Mandela lived with him at his Commercial residence in Yaba, when he returned from Accra to publish the West African Pilot and the rest of the Zik’s chain of papers.

Ejoor was disrespectful of the dead as he failed to see the difference between Major Nzeogwu’s revolution and the subsequent coups that have bedeviled the Nigerian nation. Major Kaduna Nzeogwu was not Igbo, he was the last of the Nigerian Mohicans. His coup saved from obliteration the rebelling Tiv peasants. Restored stability in the streets of the wild west.

Those streets were sentencing hundreds of innocent citizens to their early deaths. And the government of the day was irresponsibly standing by. His coup was unique. He did not come to be President or to make any Igbo one. According to Lateef Jakande in the Comet of January 15, 2000....he acknowledged that the January 15 boys were revolutionaries who were seeking relief to the suffering masses of the west and planned to release from jail the following; Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Jakande, Anthony Enahoro, Chief Onitiri, Chief Omisade etc. Chief Awolowo was going to be handed over the executive powers of the Federal Government. Nzeogwu and his colleagues were heading to South Africa to fight and die for the liberation of the oppressed Blacks in that region.

That is why Tai Solarin the prospective Minister of Education in the Majors’ list did not forget the last of the Mohicans. The good old headmaster did not care if the heavens fell and right then as the guns boomed in 1967, he went forward and immortalised the Nigerian hero by dedicating the street leading to the Mayflower College to the memory of Chukwuma Nzeogwu! Any other doubting Thomases should take a trip and visit Ogun state. Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu has a street to his name.

As for Ejoor’s vituperations against Ojukwu, we have no comments as the general is alive and can respond to him. However, his second stab into the dead scars of General Aguiyi Ironsi and Adekunle Fajuyi is unAfrican.
Contrary to your diatribe, it was General Aguiyi-Ironsi who elevated you and appointed you Military Governor and member Supreme Council.

Two officers from the Midwest who were higher than you in rank were not considered and did not hold it against you. Cols. Conrad Nwawo was commissioned before Independence and is the only living Nigerian officer ever to win the British highest medal of courage...the Victory Cross. R.F Trimnel after the bloodbath of July 29 1966, was the only standing officer second in rank to Brigadier Ogundipe and was tempted by the British to take over after the abdication of the Brigadier. However the late Aboh mullato was not the type. Ejoor told his interviewer that he was senior to everybody but for three other Nigerian officers.

Sir, when will your stories end? Were you senior to Generals Babafemi Ogundipe, Generals Adebayo, Olufemi Olutoye, Brigadier Nwawor, Col. Trimnel, Col Fajuyi, Col. Imo, Col. Phillip Effiong etc?

While we forgive you for your slips, we shall advise that the bitterness of the civil war is gradually becoming a thing of the past. David Ejoor, you cannot slander our history.
For only the lost tribe will allow others to write their history.

Igba Ndu In Igboland

By Alloysius Duru

MAN naturally is a social animal that interacts as well as try to adapt to his environment. However because man's nature is influenced by his desires for survival, dominance and control over his environment, this leads to issues of conflict among them. Such conflicts could attain the dangerous dimension of taking of lives, physical and spiritual injuries or material destruction. This can be at individual or group levels or even to communal proportion. The need therefore for conflict resolution of these prevalent issues, to avoid destructions and mistrust among peoples, and which can be of a permanent basis, to ensure peace and security of lives and properties, gave rise to the concept of Igba ndu in Igboland.


What is Igba Ndu

The concept Igba ndu literarily means to bond life, Igba stands for bond or tie while ndu means life in Igbo language. However the concept of Igba ndu is better understood as a covenant between individuals or groups. The Igbos are predominantly associated with the Igba ndu, however other groups outside their boarders also have their own concept for covenant or oath taking. The Igbos are found in the south eastern and parts of the south-south geopolitical delineation of present day Nigeria and they are a very industrious, energetic, and enterprising people that speak the Igbo language. They are basically skilled in merchandising, and indulge in agriculture and other economic activities. By the nature of their activities and interactions, there is a high level of socio-economic interaction among them and even beyond their boarders, hence such interactions can and most times give room for mutual and peaceful co-existence as well as mistrust and conflict. Hence the need to institute an idea which can help sustain peaceful co-existence of a lasting time led to Igba ndu. This practice emanated not only out of fear of the unknown, especially with the knowledge that man is inherently wicked, hence to check on the wiles of men, covenants or Igba ndu is entered into to help safeguard the life and confidence of the parties that have entered into the agreement. Another reason for the Igba ndu is as a result of man's desire to maintain peace, orderliness and harmonious living among themselves, hence where such is existing there is the need to consolidate such harmony among peoples.

The concept of Igba ndu is tied to the knowledge of the existence of a supreme being or deities who are very powerful as to intervene in the affairs of men when they are invited and thus dispense justice to defaulters who break the covenant entered. For any Igba ndu to be potent, in most cases it is tied to a deity or god. In Igboland, there are many deities that are involved, depending on the people concerned. Prominent deities such as, Igwe ka ala, Amadioha, Ibinokpabi, Ahiajioku etc, are some of the deities called upon to witness such covenants. The parties to the covenant while swearing will pronounce punishments which the gods are to excise on the defaulters.


Types of Igba Ndu


There are different types of Igba Ndu just as we have different types of agreements among peoples. The types of Igba ndu can be known in terms of the number of people involved or the type of agreement entered into. For influence, there is Igba ndu that can exists between two individuals, within a family or between two different neighboring communities. Igba ndu can also exist between an individual and a deity. In Igba ndu issues involved range from love, disputes between individuals or communities, trading or business concerns to agreements with the gods for protection or favour by individuals or groups etc. in undertaking Igba ndu certain people are involved; apart from the people concerned, the gods or deities are invoked, the departed ancestors are also involved, elders especially titled men, native doctors or Oha dibias, as well as chief priest of the community, is dependent on the people type of Igba ndu to be entered.

For instance where there is between lovers, only the two lovers and some times dibia are physically involved but the gods and ancestors are called upon as witnesses. Where the Igba ndu involves family or community a larger group of people mentioned are involved and the gods and the ancestors' role is to witness and dispense justice to defaulters or uphold the one that conforms to the covenant.

The dibias are to prepare the relevant concoction as well as make the necessary pronouncements/incantations that make the covenant potent. The chief priests invoke the gods and ancestors as well as participate in the preparation of necessary materials for the covenant ceremony. In some cases, the parties concerned are to come with their witness. These witnesses will attest to the facts of the covenant if anything should happen afterwards.


Objects needed for Igba Ndu

In understanding the Igba ndu, some items are required; these items are dependent on the type of Igba ndu. Such items as kola nut, palm wine, hot drink, ofo staff, blood, plantain stalk, cockrel, kaolin (nzu), fresh palm frond, snail, yam etc other none material objects and the incantation made by the priest or dibias, which can not be interpreted, it is privy to the dibias only. In the case of two lovers who want to undertake the Igba ndu, both partners can use a kolanut and dip it into their blood and then make a declaration as to their intention as well as what will befall anyone of them that breaks the covenant, they can call on a deity they believed in as witness, including their ancestors and Ala (the goddess of the earth). After which they eat the kolanut. In the event of a land dispute between either individuals or community the Igba ndu is more elaborate as the group concerned will invite witnesses, elders, the chief priest and dibias. In most cases, the covenant is administered in the shrine after the necessary items have been prepared and incantation made to invoke the ancestors and gods to witness it. In this type, the people concerned are to swear not to harm each other in any way either physically or spiritually any one who goes against the covenant the gods and ancestors will dispense justice. In other instance, a hole is dug and plantain stalk used to cross the hole, the people concerned will be made to cross the makeshift bridge, with a declaration that whosoever breaks the covenant will fall into the pit which signifies endless problems


Essence of Igba Ndu in Igboland

The role Igba ndu plays in Igbo society can be best appreciated from the axiom of social control. It is important as it tries to eliminate deep seated hatred and calm frayed nerves especially on issues concerning land disputes, and other communal or individual squabbles. The process of Igba ndu ensures that the parties to a dispute settle such disputes amicably without physical or spiritual attacks on each other.

Igba ndu is also very important as it strengthens the unity that exists between the individuals, groups or communities.

It also plays the role of adjudication as it is the final processes of arbitration in which parties concerned, witnesses, ancestors and the gods are involved in the process of ensuring peaceful coexistence, hence when administered it becomes the final process of peaceful resolution as partied concerned have involved the spiritual world to adjudicate on their behalf.

Thus any default is punished by the gods.

Igba ndu checks the incidence of witch craft or spiritual or physical attacks, then puts a check to the activities of the wicked against the just in the society.

Penalties for default and the process of appeasement

Igba ndu is a serious covenant that carries a very severe punishment on the defaulter. This punishment if not quickly addressed or appeased will result in a family or generational curse or stigma. A defaulter is known when mysterious occurrence begins to affect his life, such as death, infertility, sickness etc. the penalties for a defaulter is an outcome of the covenant entered into as well as the reaction of the deity in which the covenant is administered. In addition to this is the curse, which is also placed on the defaulter. The penalties also defer in terms of the type of Igba ndu entered into. For instance, in the case of two lovers, the penalty for defaulter, where one breaks the covenant and abandons the relationship could be either madness, barrenness, inability to hold down any relationship or even death. Igba ndu where a deity like the Amadioha is involved has a very disastrous penalty for the defaulter. This can either be stricken down by thunder, mysterious illness that defies medical solution etc. the process of appeasement by the defaulter is tedious, this is so as people will not want to associate with such a person for fear of reprisal attack on them from the gods. It is only when a clearance is gotten from the gods through divination on how to appease the deity and also on how to re integrate the person into the society before he or she is allowed access to people. The gods will determine the items for appeasement, which most times are enormous. It is the chief priest of the deity and the dibias that handle such appeasement rites. Also the person will do rites that will allow him access to people (oriko). In some societies, items of appeasement include, cockerel, palmwine, local bull, ram, tortoise, cowry, yam, palm oil etc.

Igba Ndu in contemporary times

The influence of religions has had its impact on the appreciation and promotion of our rich cultural attributes including Igba Ndu.

However, there are some few who still believe in the efficacy and powers of our deities. These few have tenaciously held on to the cultural practice such as the Igba Ndu and other aspects of our cultures that recognize our deities in societal control. Though they are few but yet they have been able to ensure that these practices do not fizzle away into oblivious.


Duru discussed this topic with the National Museum Study Group, Port Harcourt recently

Adiele Afigbo: A tribute

By Obi Nwakanma

I MET Adiele Afigbo, the eminent historian, the first time in 1982 at the Government College, Umuahia. I was in the fifth form and in Simpson. Professor Afigbo had brought his son to school from Nsukka to register him into his freshman class - Form One - and he had been sent to Nile.
I happened to have been, possibly, the first person they met that day on arrival to school, I, returning early from the blocks after preps, and he walking with the young Afigbo down the College drive. He struck up a short discussion with me, and I was apparently in my best manners, and it was all an assurance that his son would have interesting times in Umuahia. I helped take them to the Nile common room, and a brief handshake later, was on my way to other things.

Many years later during the Igbo Studies conference at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, organized by the now late Don Ohadike in April 2003, I again met Adiele Afigbo, who had given a brilliant keynote statement, and introduced myself. He had a clear memory of the “lad” who met him over 20 years thence.

Perhaps that is the true gift of historians - clear memory - and Adiele Eberechukwu Afigbo was the giant among historians in his era. Born in Ihube Okigwe in colonial Eastern Nigeria in November 1937, Afigbo’s path was shaped by the time and events of his society. His promise was spotted early in primary school where he came to the mentorship of the formidable teacher and Methodist missionary, Mr. Iheukwumere from the neigbouring Uzuakoli.

From the Methodist Central School Ihube Okigwe, the young Adiele Afigbo went on to secondary school at St. Augustine’s College, Nkwerre, and among his contemporaries at St. Augustine’s were people like the famous literary critic and scholar, the late Obi Wali whom he also met up with later at the University College, Ibadan into which Afigbo himself was admitted in 1956.

From what we can glean from Adiele Afigbo’s biography, it seems that he came under the considerable influence of certain key figures at both St. Augustine’s Nkwerre and at the University College, Ibadan, whose direction helped ultimately to point him towards his own clear ambitions. At St. Augustine’s, Afigbo came into contact with such people as Mazi F.C. Ogbalu, the famous Igbo cultural nationalist and linguist, who spent his professional career dedicated to the promotion and propagation of Igbo language and culture. F.C. Ogbalu taught Afigbo at Nkwerre.

So also did G.I.C Eneli - an old Umuahian himself and foundational student of the University College Ibadan, who spent his first career after leaving Ibadan in 1953, teaching history at St. Augustine’s Nkwerre. Eneli, one of the finest scholar-athletes of his time would later on in 1957, join the first corp of Nigerian Foreign Service officers when it was established, serving in his last post as Nigeria’s Consular-General in Rome before the civil war and years later, after the Nigerian civil war, would become an entrepreneur and chairman of GICEN. But it is apparent that his influence as a history teacher in his first career bore even more magnificent fruit, for he left a great imprint on Adiele Afigbo, his best student at St. Augustine’s.

In his letter to Dr. Kenneth Dike, then Principal of the University College, Ibadan, in 1955 intimating him of his desire to pursue scholarship in history at Ibadan, the young Afigbo, in brash confidence wrote that if all it required to be admitted into Ibadan was mental or intellectual energy, that he felt himself more than adequately endowed and prepared, especially since he had always come at the top of his peers in the subject of history.

There is no evidence now to show Kenneth Dike’s reaction. But it may say something about Kenneth Dike, doyen of modern Nigerian history, that he gave benefit of the doubt to youthful confidence and apparently showed more than amused interest, for Adiele Afigbo was admitted to the highly elitist University College, Ibadan in 1956, and true to his claim, emerged top of his class in the department of history which included such notable and talented scholars in their own rights, Obaro Ikime and Philip Igbafe.

He graduated ahead of his class in 1964, and was conferred with the first Ph.D of the University of Ibadan in 1964. He was thereafter employed as a young lecturer in the Ibadan history department, and could have settled to a career at Ibadan. But the crisis of 1966 disrupted all that, driving Afigbo, and many other Eastern Nigerian scholars out of Ibadan to the East. It was thus that Adiele Afigbo moved to Nsukka. But in between his scholarly life at Nsukka was the disruption of the war. In Biafra, he was employed in the Directorate for War Propaganda.

The war over, Afigbo settled to an exciting academic life at Nsukka, where he made a great impact. He was head of History and Archeology. He rose to the Deanship of the Humane Letters. He served as Director of the Leon Hansberry Institute of African Studies, and had been seconded from Nsukka as the first Director of Research of the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies. He was also, between 1984 and 1987 Commissioner for Education, and later, for Local Government in the “old” Imo State.

Energy of scholarship

He was also awarded the Nigerian National Order of Merit - Nigeria’s equivalent of the Nobel. Afigbo retired from Nsukka in 1992 and was feted by his peers as a great and humane scholar. It was on account of his significance and the breadth of his work at the University of Nigeria, that Chibuzo Abdulaziz Ude endowed a chair in his honour as Professor of history at Nsukka to continue his work.

Adiele Afigbo’s formal retirement from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, did not prohibit the energy of his scholarship or his quest to distillate the questions of his time and impact them upon a new generation of students.
He was invited to positions at the Abia State University in Uturu, and later at the Ebonyi State University at Abakiliki. Afigbo spent time in 2005 as a senior research fellow at Cambridge, and the pace of his work remained a continual challenge and inspiration to younger scholars.

Indeed it was in acknowledgement of this that the historian Toyin Falola of the University of Texas, Austin, organized a colourful celebration of Adiele Afigbo’s life on the occasion of his 70th birthday at Nsukka in November 2007. Adiele Afigbo died three weeks ago, on the morning of March 10, 2009.



As the Igbo, his kinsmen would say, a great tree fell. Adiele Afigbo was such a giant in the company of the giants of historical scholarship on Africa in the 20th century.

His reconstruction of the history of pre-colonial and colonial Igbo and the surrounding world is without compare, and was a tone clearly set when he gave the prestigious Ahiajoku lectures in 1981 on the topic: “The Age of Innocence: the Igbo and their Neighbours in Pre-Colonial Times.” Afigbo’s conclusions were startling, clear, and daring. Of his many works, Warrant Chiefs in Igbo Land and Ropes of Sand will stand in the pantheon of great books that have come to clarify, with great insight and empathy the pre-colonial and colonial contacts of the Igbo, one of Africa’s most intriguing cultures.

It was a duty and labour borne out of great love that Afigbo spent his life reconstructing their footprints through time in what will now be a timeless account. His work is done. Adiele Afigbo rests with the greatest of our world who have now made their home in immortality. Afigbo is immortal because his work in cold print now lives warmly preserved by time.

Rebranding a ‘Good People and a Great Nation'

By Obi Nwakanma

ASIDE from oil, Nigeria’s other major national exports are bad news and farce. Crime, corruption, instability, disease: signs of human and material decay and trauma. Add Nollywood and the picture would be fairly complete.
Nigeria is an awesome contradiction. It is an enormously rich country but it has one of the world’s highest public manifestations of poverty: unliveable cities; increasingly inhospitable and impolite people driven mad and desperate by lack – mostly the lack of what the poet and novelist, Gabriel Okara, in his great experimental novel, The Voice, would call an “inside”- a soul. For sometimes indeed, what Nigerians suffer is far more poverty of the spirit rather than of the stomach. But let us be clear also, Nigerians live in some of the worst human conditions in the world.

Take urban housing. These are mostly hovels that pass for human habitations; humongous slums which should put any decent nation to shame: Nigerians live in conditions which would be intolerable to any other people elsewhere in the world.

Take this sordid picture of Onitsha floating on the internet. Once the “gift of the lordly Niger,” but now the true picture of catastrophe: it is a picture of these blocks of apartments near Silas Works, besides which is a massive pyramid of sludge and refuse, with pigs scavenging visibly atop it.

This picture situates the condition of the city and of the nation: the decay and destruction and absence of municipal services makes that picture acute: the world sees how Nigerians live in close organic relationship with disease bearing sows. It is the true metaphor of the wilderness encroaching, and the sad part is no one bats an eyelid. It has become too normal to shock.

Nigerians have possibly the ugliest cities in the world. Someone, an American visitor who had once visited Nigeria when she was a student at Harvard, and who came to Nigeria to do doctoral research on the Igbo village life as a model for politically and ecologically sustainable systems based on her readings of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart once described Lagos to me: “it is like looking up and seeing despair, as if everything is crumbling....” She swore never to return to Nigeria.

She was also terribly disappointed that the Edenic image of the Igbo village preserved in Achebean lore had totally disappeared. Not anymore the so-called village democracy; or the distinguished conclave of elders and titled men, or the shrines and the sacred groves or even the calm dignity of people. Ogidi - the model for Umuofia - has not preserved these elements.

Laura is not the only one often disappointed on visiting Nigeria. My mother-in-law swore that she would never, ever visit Nigeria again, following her experience of Lagos. In vain have we, my wife and I, told her that Lagos is not the sum total of Nigeria.

That there are in fact places where the air is cleaner, like my village, although increasingly, the heat from the not too distant gas flaring in Izombe about 80 kilometres away, is also turning its once paradaisal, tropical coolness into something of a hell on earth.

Nigeria shocks anyone who visits it. The shock is numbing until you of course get used to the incessant and contradictory liveliness of the people. But in terms of the visual encounter with its built places, we must face the fact, and tell Dora Akunyili, Nigeria’s minister for information and communication, that Nigeria in its current situation cannot be rebranded because indeed, there is nothing to rebrand. It has far too much ugliness.

It of course has great beauty too. But it is beauty which we are now forced to look at closely in order to see because the ugliness is just too prominent and overwhelming. We must, therefore, look at this Dora Akunyili project of “rebranding Nigeria” for what it actually is: another misguided government programme which shows a thorough failure of imagination.

And that is, above and beyond the issue of corruption, the real problem with Nigeria: a massive failure of the imagination. Great governments are the product of strategic thinking and consent building. Nations depend on an able thinking community with an able, and efficient bureaucratic system to transcribe thinking and instrumentalize it and transform their societies.

Current Nigeria is not the product of high thinking. It is the reflection of mediocre thinking and a mediocre bureaucracy. Dora Akunyili’s farce - and that is exactly what this project to rebrand Nigeria is, a great farce - will not create a representational turn-around for Nigeria where the four horsemen of the apocalypse - war, hunger, pestilence and death - roam freely.

Nigeria, where a drunken corporal on roadblock could shoot anyone to death for failure to “drop” N20, where there is great unemployment; where nothing works – hospitals, refineries, power stations, municipal services and so on and so forth.

To rebrand Nigeria, Dora Akunyili and co will have to go beyond mere slogans. We have been there before: Ethical Revolution, WAI, and the last was the needless profligacy of the “Nigerian Image project” which had been launched also by the Ministry of Information under the Obasanjo administration. None of these will work.

These will all remain futile efforts until Nigeria deals with the fundamental situations that have brought it dishonour among nations. Let me remind us all of a particular axiom: a good product sells itself. In its current situation Nigeria is hardly a hot item of merchandise. No one wants to come to Nigeria. Why?

Well, simply because suffering and ugliness is not exactly great tourist attractions. People come to places to see beauty; to be enriched by art; to hear great music in the open air or in fine musical halls; to visit great galleries and great sites of history; or great, original cultures preserved over time.

They want to encounter great built spaces; beautiful and eclectic cities; go out and sense the night, and feel safe and secure, and smell clean air, eat great food, and encounter fine people who are not beggars, shafts, thieves – whose greatest instincts are welcoming and hospitable; who respect other people and other cultures because they respect themselves; and are not servile or religious fanatics, or ignorant or bigoted.

Ultimately, a nation models and brands itself, not quite in the ways that Dora Akunyili’s rebranding farce proceeds to “re-brand” Nigeria. Let me draw attention to what Nigeria can do to rebrand itself, using the example of India. In the 1960s and 1970s, India had the same image problem as Nigeria currently does.

Its people were dispersed into a diverse diaspora, seeking work across the world, and taking many menial positions in many countries because of great economic and political crisis.

The Indian was accused of everything - dishonesty, making fake drugs and fake everything; cheating and, yes, 419. Indian education was derided. But it had far more going for it than was immediately obvious.

The Indian government invested massively in science and technical education, and research. Today, the Indian Institute of Technology is one of the world’s elite universities, recruiting the finest and training a generation that, with the stimulation of a burgeoned Indian diaspora, launched what today is India’s social, economic and technological miracle.

Today, India is considered among the new great powers of the world - no longer a 419 nation or a nation of fake products and cheats. It did not set apart trying to “re-brand” itself with mere words and fake images. It went to work.

Indeed, in the 1970s, India led the charge for the New International Economic Order through the South-South commission and through the Uruguay round of talks. By the 1980s, according to a RAND report, India’s foreign policy had shifted from the moralistic to the self-interested.

This is a brief summary of course, but there ought to be a lesson there for Nigeria. As we have been told, a tiger does not go about proclaiming its tigritude, it pounces. Serious nations do not go about like Akunyili puppeteering about “rebranding a good people and a great nation.” They go to work.

They rebuild their broken cities. They re-arm their centers of knowledge. They produce value and are not dependent on the goodwill of others. A great nation is self-advertising. Nigeria is not a great nation.

I do not know about being a good people. It is like other nations and other people: what you see is what you get. And what we see currently in Nigeria is not pretty. Dora Akunyili should not waste our time and our resources in this grand deception.

Interview: Want To Regenerate Anioma Culturally And Politically – Uche Honnah

Uche Honnah, newly elected President of the Anioma Association USA – the umbrella organization for all Anioma people in the United States of America is a man on a mission. This real estate investor and efficient organizer spoke with Thetimesofnigeria.com correspondent last week on his plans to build a strong, unified association. He also weighed in on the controversy surrounding the election of an Anioma son, Chief Ralph Uwechue, as head of pan Igbo group, Ohaneze Ndigbo.

TON: Congratulations on your recent election as the National President of Anioma Association, USA. Kindly tell us a little bit about yourself?

Answer: Thank you very much. My name is Uche Honnah and I am from Idumuje Ugboko in Aniocha local government area of Delta State. I am based in Maryland and into real estate investor and appraiser. That is what I do for a living. I have a family which comprises of my wife, two sons and a daughter. One of my son is currently in Nigeria doing his national youth service. My other son is in India studying while my daughter lives here with me.

TON: What is your vision for the Anioma Association?

Answer: As the saying goes, everything starts locally. Before I joined the race for the national president of the association, I did notice that the association was not really progressive. They were not addressing the goals I felt should be address. They were enmeshed in infightings and were losing chapter members as a result. Some people came to me because they knew what I had done with another association called Aniocha progressive union. They felt I will be able to bring some purpose to Anioma national. I thought about it and decided to join the fray. Since I became the president we have been better focused. My goal is to unite our people here in the USA and I think we are making headway. I have travelled to a lot of chapters and spoken to members and I think we are beginning to see the fruits. I was in Nigeria last year to make our people aware of our present here. I spoke a lot of our leaders. Anioma leaders who are captains of industry and our political leaders. I spoke to Col Okwechime, I spoke to the president of Oganihu Anioma, Pat Utomi and other leaders. My goal is to concentrate on bringing economic benefit to our people by exposing to opportunities here in America and elsewhere. Bring people from Nigeria and America together so that we can benefit from interacting with one another. At the same time we want to project our culture. We are a people who are very proud of our culture. These are the things I want to do; regenerate our culture.

TON: How do you intend to actualize these lofty goals of projecting Anioma culture and economic empowerment for your people?

Answer: Let me take the economic part of it first. We have a lot of people in Nigeria who I believe needs to be plugged in the right channel. If you have ideas and you are not aware of people who can help you achieve them they don’t come to fruition. Next year I want to use the forum of Anioma World Economic Summit to bring politicians, captains of industry, - people who want to bring industry to our people because once you bring industry it creates jobs and it helps the development of the area. At the same time, there are people in America who want to sell their goods and services to other parts of the world and are looking for markets. So one of the things we have to do in the Anioma world economic summit is to link the buyers and sellers. We will also use the occasion to showcase Anioma culture and tradition to the world.

TON: How do you intend to reposition the association to become more relevant both in the United States and Nigeria?

Answer: Thank you. That is a very good question. The point is that previous leadership of the association was not able to look into the direction of making it a strong political force. When I was elected I decided there is a need to make Anioma association relevant in the body polity of Nigeria because no matter what we do we have to realize that we come from somewhere and we need to establish our presence there. One of the ways we intend doing it is by more media exposure, become more involved in local issues, raise issues relevant to Anioma people and hold our political leaders accountable. Work with our political leaders as partners. They will also hear from us whenever they go wrong. When do right we will praise them. I hope that they are there for the betterment of our people and part of that is to hold them accountable. We will shout it out when they do good and also shout it out when they do bad.

TON: if you look at similar organizations, they are not just a socio-cultural group but they are also political pressure group. Do you plan to steer the association towards this type of political advocacy back home?

Answer: As an organization, despite the fact that we realize the need to look out for our peoples interest are always are that we are a non-profit organization and there are pitfalls associated with it. So whatever we do, the paramount question is whether our elected officials are working in the interest of our people. So if there comes a time where we realize that our elected officials are not doing the right thing, despite the fact that we are not an all out political organization, we will weigh in on it and make our position known. I believe that one of our primary goals will be to speak up when things are going bad. So they will hear from us.

TON: There has being this lingering issue over the place of Anioma people within the Nigeria political and cultural space. While some see Anioma as Igbo and believes it should be a member of Ohaneze other are vehemently opposed to this idea saying that culturally and politically Anioma has a distinct identity and should remain so saying Anioma should build a strong group that will represent the people’s interest. What is your take on the matter as President of the association?

Answer: My position is based on facts. Facts based on history. One it is a fact that culturally we have a lot in common with the Benin kingdom. That is very obvious because if you look tradition, the succession of the Obiship it is same as in Benin. It is from father to son – hereditary. That is not the same across the Niger. Secondly the mandate for a new Obi or king in our area comes from Benin because of the cultural affinity we have with them. Also you look at the traditional titles such as Iyase; these are not Igbo words. What it alludes to is that there is a place we came from. When you look at places like Ebu and Obamkpa they have different language that’s not even Igbo. You go to Ndokwa area; you discover they don’t have any affinities with Igbo across the Niger. These are facts. So if you put the fact on the ground together, you can say yes we do speak a dialect of Igbo but we are not from across the Niger. What it then tell you is that we are a unique people. We are Anioma. That is what we are. But we have association with people across the Niger because we speak the same language. Whatever people want to interpret is as is left to them but the question you asked is who are we? We are Anioma. That’s what we are and that is indisputable.

TON: An Anioma so is currently president of Ohaneze and some are interpreting it to mean all Anioma are both Igbo and member of the group. Prominent Anioma people have publicly criticized Uwechue on this. As President of Anioma association in the USA what is your position on this?

Answer: First I will like to thank Ambassador Uwechue for his previous service to our people and the country. I believe I am not in a position to criticize him. He has seen fit to take up the position he has taken and why he did that obviously is up to him. But again, there are facts on the ground and the facts remains that we are Anioma people. I can give you an example; the fact that the Americans speak English does not mean they are English. But they speak English. But if an American decides that he or she wants to go and become the Prime Minister of England and the English allow him or her, that’s ok with me. That will not make all Americans English. So I wish Ambassador Uwechue all the best but that does not mean I am Igbo or that all Aniomas are Igbo because we are Anioma people.

TON: So you are in agreement with Col Mike Ukwechime who while reacting to Uwechue’s election as Ohaneze president said, “Anioma is by birth, Ohaneze is by association” meaning uwechue is free to associate with whomever he wants.

Answer: I think there is a lot of wisdom in that. Okwechime is right.

Photo courtesy of Times of Nigeria

In Nicaragua: A poet's odyssey

By Obi Nwakanma

LATE last year, the Mexican poet, Lina Zeron as I understand, asked the organizers of the Nicaragua International Poetry Festival in Granada, to get me to read at this year’s event.I flew straight from a weekend of conferencing at the American Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Chicago to Houston, Texas, and from thence, on a three-hour flight to Managua, Nicaragua to read as a guest poet at the fifth Nicaragua International Poetry Festival from February 14-22, 2009.

As it happened I was on the same Continental Airline’s flight from Houston with some other poets on their way to Nicaragua, though I did not know it at the time: the Palestinian poet and playwright, Nathalie Handal, the American poet Janet MacAdams who teaches poetry at Kenyon College and has been involved with the prestigious Kenyon Reviews, and the intense and mercurial Uruguayan poet and professor at the Texas A & M University, Eduardo Espina, editor of the Hispanic Poetry Review whom I had met first in Medellin last year.

We were received at the airport in Managua by Maria Augusto Montealegre who took us to Granada from Managua that night. One of the most impressive features of Nicaragua is the sense of safety and calm. There was not an overwhelming sense of security; of policemen on the road or military roadblocks. This ease of life had a calming effect, and I could not help but notice it, I from a country, torn apart by violence and a massive situation of insecurity.

In many ways, Nicaragua reminded me of Nigeria: the landscape, even sometimes, the architecture, and the street advertisements. There is something almost very distinct about life here in Nicaragua which felt eerily familiar. In the first place, the calm and hospitality was of the kind of Nigeria in which I grew up in the 1970s; in which people had not been driven much by the fierce, deadly quest for survival. The air in fact felt very familiar.

I left snow drenched Chicago into a warm sunshine and a hot and humid space - a tropical land between two Lakes. Nicaragua indeed has two main lakes, the Lake Nicaragua and the Lake Managua, all of which are vast and spectacular. Modern Nicaraguan history is also defined, much like Nigeria by conflict. It is conflict that has roots also in occupation and colonization.

From Christopher Columbus’s exploration of what became known as the Mosquito Coast, to the Spanish conquests and the settlements by Gil Gonzalez Davila who established two of Nicaragua’s principal cities - Granada and Leon; to the wars with Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba who was later defeated and publicly beheaded on the orders of Pedrarias Davila.

The bloodtide of war swollen by conquest and resettlement has given Nicaragua its distinct political character, and its distinct political divide between the so called Liberals and the Conservatives, two faces of the mask of Nicaraguan politics and identity.

The liberal elite formed around the city of Leon, while Granada, the site of the International Poetry Festival was always the bastion of the conservative elite. It is an intricate history, and I have, like many of my peers, always associated Nicaragua with the Sandinistas and with the Iran-Contra scandal in America in the 1980s.

It was the fare of international news that shaped much of the discourse in Nigerian university Cafes and pubs of the 1980s, of what we knew in part as the character of the international revolutionary resistance.

The roots of the Sandinistas are also quite epic. They took their imaginative leap from the ancestral inspiration of the popular Nicaraguan revolutionary leader Augusto Cesar Sandino who led a rebellion against the United States whom he declared “the colossus of the north” and “enemy of our race!”- the Indo-Hispanic race of Mestisos and Mestizas. In a sense, Sandino was the first Bolivarian revolutionary, long before the Venezuelan Hugo Chavez.

Augusto Sandino grew to be a popular figure for many Latin Americans who felt the overbearing presence, intrusion, and weight of America, whose many interests were at the core of the exploitation of Nicaragua. Sandino guerrilla activities led to the withdrawal of the US Marines after the election of the puppet regime of Juan Bautista Sacasa, and the establishment of the National Guard in 1931.

Sandino was assassinated on the orders of Sacasa in 1934 in an ambush by Anastasio Somoza Garcia, who later deposed the puppet regime of Sacasa and established the Somoza dynasty that ruled Nicaragua until 1979 when the Sandinistas - the Sandinista National Liberation Front - founded by Carlos Fronsesca and Tomas Borge - inspired by the ideals of Sandino, led a rebellion against the Somoza dictatorship and overthrew it.

The fall of the Somozas began with the earthquake that destroyed Managua, the corruption of the Somoza regime, and the alienation of the national elite, including the conservative interests that once supported the regime. The final straw was the regime’s assassination of Pedro Chamorro the popular editor of the powerful newspaper, La Prensa, in January 1979 - much like the letter-bombing of Nigeria’s Dele Giwa in 1986.

There is much in Nicaraguan history that speaks very closely of the experience of Nigeria from 1966 to date right down to the making of local puppet regimes in Nigeria by powerful international interests.

One of the great legacies of the Sandinistas now led by Daniel Ortega, who have since been swept in and out of office, and in again, is the establishment of credible popular elections. True, many old supporters of Daniel Ortega now find grounds to oppose him, but there is without doubt a sense in Nicaragua of freedom and even dignity.


True, in his address of welcome to the poets, the president of the Festival, the poet Francisco de Asis Fernandez, urged participants to keep political chatter or talk out of the festival and keep it poetic, apparently to keep the intricate politics of Nicaragua at bay from the Poetry Festival.

It is still a poor country. But the streets are neat and well paved in Granada, this old, conservative colonial city with its Spanish colonial architecture. Granada is the oldest city in the Americas.

It is the quaint hybrid of the old and new, the mestisage of cultures from the East and West that have come to define its character and mood - a most befitting example being the Al Hambra Hotel by the city square and the Cathedral or Church of La Merced. There is much begging.

There is even a certain meanness to the poverty because of the clear difference between tourists and the inhabitants, yet there is a warmth to the character of the Nicaraguan that was welcoming. It was to these that we, about ninety poets from across the world arrived in Granada.

We stayed in various hotels in the cluster of the vibrant city centre, with its hotels, open air bars and restaurants, and its charm of a large village square.

I stayed at the Hotel La Peragola with some others including my friend the Ugandan poet Juliane Okot P’Bitek, the poet Obediah Smith from the Bahamas, Marko Pogacar from Croatia, Nicaragua’s Silvio Ambroggi, Marta Leon Gonzalez, poet and editor of the culture pages of La Prensa, and her friend, the Mexican poet Zyanya Mariana with whom I got quite close.

Indeed, Obediah (Obie) Smith quickly told me about meeting the Nigerian poet Odia Ofeimun in Cuba last year and being friends with Bolu Rosiji, as students in Tennessee in the 1970s.

This year’s festival is dedicated to the memory of the Nicaraguan poet Alfonso Cortes (1893-1969). It is usually a municipal event: poets read at street corners, at the municipal prisons, open public parks and public squares, galleries, old churches, disused monasteries, university auditorium and libraries.

It was exciting – the mingling of poets, spies, traders, mendicants, and tourists, in this intense space of performance, that saw major international poets from across the world, including Russia’s Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Italy’s Roberto Pasquali and Minarelli, Giaconda Belli and Blanca Castelon from Nicaragua, Frank Chipasula from Malawi, Max Rippon from Guadalupe, and so many more.

Indeed at the inauguration declared open by the Vice President of the Republic, I was given something of a star treatment, reading alongside the American poet Anne Waldman one of those who with Allen Ginsberg founded Naropa, and Nicaragua’s leading poet and former minister, Ernesto Cardenal, who had been nominated for the Nobel prize in 2005. It was an evening to silver buntings.

BOOK REVIEW: A Lady By Birth

How To Revive Nigeria's Dying Dream

By Anthony Akaeze

Alani Akinrinade, retired lieutenant general and former chief of army and defence staff, at a lecture in Osogbo, Osun State laments Nigeria’s wasted opportunities

There are times when the star event at an occasion suddenly turns out to be something different from what was earlier advertised, thereby taking the shine off the main issue. That was the situation in Osogbo, capital of Osun State, March 4. The occasion was the public presentation of a book titled A Lady By Birth, which is a biography of Betty Bakare, an accomplished banker, administrator and public servant who also hails from Osun State.

The atmosphere that day was one of conviviality and merriment, with hundreds of friends, well wishers and family members of the celebrant in a happy mood, because the event also coincided with the 70 birthday anniversary of Bakare.

But many people’s mien at the Women and Children Development Initiative Foundation Centre, WOTCLIF, venue of the book launch, soon began to give way for soul searching and sober reflection once Alani Akinrinade, a retired Lt General and indigene of the state, started presenting a paper entitled Taking Stock of Our Nation. It turned out to be a sad commentary on the state of affairs in Nigeria.

For a start, the retired army general, who was also chairman of the occasion, took time to praise Bakare, whom he had known for a long time. Describing her as a remarkable and formidable woman who has made stellar contributions to Nigeria’s national development, Akinrinade said the book, which chronicles the subject’s life from infancy to adulthood, is a permanent tribute to a woman who has achieved so much in her public career.

Then he delved into what could best be described as a treatise on Nigeria, taking a swipe at Nigeria’s successive leaders for the failure of leadership in the country, for their inability to turn around the fortunes of an unbelievably gifted nation like Nigeria.

In choosing to discuss Nigeria at such an auspicious occasion, Akinrinade informed the audience that “birthdays, particularly of senior citizens, are part of our political and social history” and therefore, “are our window to the past and door to the present.” That afforded the General the ‘licence’ to educate members of the audience about the promise Nigeria once held out, compared to now. “Our nationalists, who fought for the independence of this country, had big dreams for it and its people. They believed in their collective capacity to build a great, united and prosperous country that would truly be the giant of Africa. Forty nine years ago, that dream was almost tangible. We felt it and we could almost touch it,” recalled Akinrinade.

But he added that “the dream and the promises of independence,” soon “turned into a series of national misfortune for the country and its people,” leading to an arrested national development. “Our collective dreams were turned into our collective nightmares,” due to corruption, incompetence and moral bankruptcy. And so, “a country so richly blessed by God finds itself in a state of self induced confusion and apparent helplessness. Its leaders at all levels are thus unable to deploy its unbelievable human and natural endowments to serve the noble end of the common good.” He then asked: “Are we not embarrassed when we see our oil rich nation numbered among some of the poorest countries on earth? We should be embarrassed. We should be ashamed.”

For a proper analysis, the General traced Nigeria’s descent to its current state. Nigeria, he said, has seen a lot and been through a lot in nearly 49 years of independence. “We had nearly twenty-nine years of self styled corrective regimes that corrected and compounded some of our national ills and exacerbated others. Military rule came with the promise of a revolution. If it was a revolution, it was a failed one because it failed to make the nation rediscover itself as a country of laws and not a nation of political jobbers. The problem was that the military rulers pandered to the petty geopolitical, ethnic and religious interests. These interests are often at variance with the needs and interests of the nation.”

Although some people expected that the current democratic dispensation which began in 1999 would usher in a season of hope, growth and development, that, sadly has largely turned out to be a pipe dream as Akinrinade explained: “Some powerful individuals, the so-called political godfathers and their godsons are feeding fat on our collective misery. Ours is a democracy with a difference. Democracy is supposed to be a government of the people by the people and for the people. But ours is a government of the few by the few and for the few.” He said the antics of these political godfathers, godsons and their collaborators, are responsible for the electoral fraud that has characterised Nigeria’s elections in recent times. “The cynical subversion of the people’s will is comprehensive and common place. Two years after the conduct of the 2007 elections, which, so far, are the most disputed in the history of our country, the courts are still enmeshed in deciding who really won and who really lost. Those elections were roundly condemned for failing to meet the basic regional standards for free and fair elections. More than 1,500 suits were instituted to challenge the elections from presidential elections to the elections in the state houses of assembly. Nigeria should lead the rest of black Africa in its democratic journey. Is it not a matter of grave national shame that our country has lost its assumed position and now holds the candle to Ghana and other countries on the continent?,” asked Akinrinade.

Such sad state of things, in Nigeria, he continued, is the reason people like him cannot afford to keep quiet, for to do so would mean to resort to cold complicity: “One thing Nigeria cannot afford at this point in its life is to continue to live a lie. It is for this that some of us refuse to be silent when we see things going wrong. When we see no evil where is evil, hear no evil, where the voice of evil is loud and when we refuse to speak against evil in order to protect our individual, political, economic and other interests, we push our country towards the precipice. Wherever we are gathered and whatever might be the occasion, let us speak truth to power.”

For Nigeria to be great, Nigerians must pause at regular intervals to ponder the future of their country by telling themselves the bitter truth. Akinrinade called on President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to show courage and, among other things, reform the faulty political system that brought him to power. That will be the best way to kickstart Nigeria’s march to greatness, a move that first began with Nigeria’s founding fathers and their succeeding generation of which Bakare is a part of.

Olagunsoye Oyinlola, Osun State governor, who is the brother of Bakare, praised the woman’s qualities. Describing her as “my amiable and darling sister,” Oyinlola said the celebrant has experienced life in its various forms, leading to her reaching the milestone age of 70. “I congratulate Princess Betty Bakare. I’ve had the worthy opportunity of growing up with my sister. She’s an epitome of industry and selflessness…a loving, caring but no nonsense woman who does not suffer fools gladly, someone who dedicated her life to the service of humanity.”

He praised the authors of the book which, apart from shedding light on the hitherto unknown aspect of the subject's life, is the newest addition to the world of literature.

Lekan Ogunyemi, the book reviewer, praised the efforts of the four persons who authored the 150-page book. He said the book captures the “events and circumstances of a lady who can aptly be described as a personification of multiple factors,” and that the work would be “useful as a teaching and reference material by lecturers and practitioners in education, industry, politics, civil service, religion, judiciary and those that are genuinely committed to preventing our society from within and outside entering a state of moral and academic barrenness.”

Other dignitaries who attended the event are Olusola Obada, Osun State deputy governor, Ayo Otegbola, traditional rulers and top government officials from within and outside the state.

The book, which was written by Kayode Adedire, Sunday Odedele, Kayode Akinsola and Akinola Owolabi, was launched by Oyinlola, with the sum of one million naira.