Abiodun Awolaja writes on the transition, last Saturday, of former Biafran warlord and presidential aspirant, Chief Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, and possible lessons for the nation.There were (hypocritical') ohno!s when his death wasannounced, but a member of the House of Representatives, Kehinde Odeneye, chose to say what many Nigerians felt: that his death was no shock, as he had been ill for quite some time.Ezeigbo, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Biafran warlord turned Nigerian presidential aspirant, joined his illustrious ancestors on Saturday, November 26, in a London hospital, aged 78. As President Goodluck Jonathan noted, his place in Nigerian history is assured. He was the fiery soldier who led the Igbo nation through its darkest hour yet between 1967 and 1970, but the late Shehu Musa Yar'Adua, former Chief of General Staff, Supreme Headquarters, considered him merely an 'Oxford talker'' in the Nigerian Army. Ojukwu held a Master's degree in history when most officers had only the good old school certificate. Was Shehu jealous of Emeka, as the late warlord was fondly called by his admirers, including Journalist Fredrick Forsyth who authored a book by that name, or was he making an incisive statement' This may not be a profitable line of discourse.The late Igbo leader may have been an Oxford talker, but he talked sense. Valid sense. He ordered the death of perceived opponents, an action for which he was never forgiven (Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Victor Banjo and co).He certainly did not speak like former House of Representatives member, Patrick Obahiagbon, whose grammar would certainly have disturbed him on his sick bed, even with former Miss Nigeria, Lady Bianca's enduring passionate touch. Mercifully, Obahiagbon spoke only after the man of war and dialogue had gone. Hear him: 'The invitation to the Celestial Lodge of the soul personality of the irrefrangible and sui generis Ikemba himself'Dim Odumegwo Ojukwu'brings again to focal hiceps and biceps the ephemerality of life. Beyond the state of lachrymoseism, his celestial ascension has, and would, continue to righteously bestir.'I do hope, however, that we take immutable cognition of the fact that the fundamental issues which Ikemba confronted have now even coagulated and ossified into Gorgon Medusa. For Nigeria to progress, we must apotheosise our centripetal proclivities above our centrifugal excrescence. All hail Ikemba.'' Meaning'In view of the fact that he led the nation into a ruinous civil war, from which it is still yet to recover, was Ojukwu really the nation's hero as claimed by the country's political elite, or is he strictly an Igbo hero, the Igbo nation's most powerful voice after Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the beloved hero of Biafra, the nation which would have been the first truly Black independent nation if it had succeeded' The question may be profitably answered by considering whether the evils he protested---ethnic jingoism and genocide, unbalanced federalism, among others---are still with the nation, 41 years on. Sadly, most Nigerians would answer the question in the affirmative.The nation has most evidently refused,in Obahiagbon's terms, to apotheosise its centripetal proclivities above its centrifugal excrescence. Like Obahiagbon, the nation appears to be still in search of meaning.Former Ogun State governor, Chief Segun Osoba, perhaps provided the prism from which most Nigerians are wont to see the late departed hero and illustrious son of Africa. Though he lamented the passing of the military strongman, Osoba took solace in the fact that he died as a Nigerian rather than a separatist ethnic leader. 'He was always passionate about any cause; he was passionate about Nigeria. He fled the country at a point but returned to die a Nigerian.''But what really is the value of dying as a Nigerian'With Boko Haram still on its dangerous mission, the Oodua Peoples Congress looking at Nigeria with a bad eye and lurking in the shadows, the Niger Delta militants still holding to their grouse, and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra still speaking strictly in terms of a separate nation, perhaps dying as a Nigerian is a controversial question.Senate President David Mark chose to speak of the late soldier's forceful and irresistible personality: ' No matter how much you love or hate him, Ojukwu was a man who loved his people and was ever prepared to lay down his life for them to have a better living.''The country's maiden coup, the January 15, 1966 coup, was tagged an Igbo coup because of the preponderance of Igbo officers in its planning and execution, but not many would remember that it was largely owing to the efforts of the then Lt-Col Ojukwu, who supported the General Officer Commanding of the Armed Forces, that the coup suffered a downward slide in the North, where it had initially recorded considerable success, with the chief mutineer, Kaduna Nzeogwu, himself a disputed hero, firmly in control of Kaduna.Ojukwu on the civil war: 'I regret the disabilities of the war. The overall pattern was honest. It was a choice, it was whether to become a slave of the Hausas at the time, or to do what we did. And up till tomorrow, whenever I'm given the opportunity to choose between slavery and...of course, I'll reject slavery.''And so Ojukwu's death raises the abiding question on the real value of the Nigerian hero, or the even the wisdom of dying for the nation's cause, as we learn, to speak in recent terms, from the story of the likes of Gani Fawehinmi, Beko Ransome Kuti, Baguada Kaltho, Anthony Enahoro, etc, all of who died for a nation that would not change, that continues to remain dangerously on the precipice of an implosion (a la Boko Haram, fuel subsidy war), and that continues to inspire its own contradiction through an ethnically unbalanced National Assembly, a thoroughly unpatriotic police, a non-fiscal federalism, and a generally sick leadership.A former presidential aspirant, Ojukwu made untiring efforts to maintain the country's unity since his return from exile, and the fruits of his efforts appropriately mirror its future. This, perhaps, is not the time for casual mourning. The labour of our heroes past, boasts the Nigerian national anthem, shall never be in vain.
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