Ojukwu: Did they notice his simplicity?

There is something about Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu that many who thronged different parts of the country, nay different parts of the world, faithfully following his numerous funeral processions, seemed to have overlooked. It is something that Nigeria needs desperately now.

Forget the fact that he took a merely symbolic title of ‘Ezeigbo Gburugburu’ (King of all the Igbos), for as Ndigbo would say, ‘Igboenweze’: Ndigbo don’t have kings. Of course we do have pockets of chiefs (many non-hereditary) throughout Igboland, but nothing remotely resembling the Oba, the Sarduana, the Emir, or the Oni. No, it’s not the titles he acquired — no matter how grandiose some of them may sound — that endeared the Ikemba Nnewi to his numerous admirers, and would further endear him to future generations.

Queen Bianca, Ojukwu’s wife — the one person closest to him — was the one who really captured the simplicity of the man. In her tribute, she said this, addressing her late husband: ‘Your disdain for money was novel - sometimes funny, other times quite alarming. It mattered not a whit to you.’

The retired Catholic bishop of Orlu echoed same in his homily at the funeral mass at Ojukwu’s home parish: ‘Here lies a man who had the chance to live a glamorous life, but rather chose to sacrifice his life for his people.’ Indeed, the wealth of Ojukwu’s father was legendary. In the New York Times obituary, Robert D. McFadden had written this of Ojukwu’s privileged background: ‘From modest beginnings, his father, Sir Louis Phillipe Odumegwu Ojukwu, had made fortunes in transportation and real estate, and was Nigeria’s wealthiest entrepreneur when he died in 1966.’

Louis Phillipe made history when he loaned his Rolls Royce to the Queen on her 1956 visit to Nigeria. Unlike his father, Emeka had no need for things like Rolls Royce. So, I suggest we focus on Ojukwu’s simplicity — even though he was not in any way a simple man — for that’s what endeared him to Ndigbo and to his numerous fans throughout the world, despite his disastrous political moves.

In that homily, Bishop Ochiagha called on Nigerians, especially the young, to emulate Ojukwu’s sense of service to the fatherland. For Ojukwu, that was what came first. The retired prelate affirmed that Ojukwu has left a legacy for a new generation of Nigerians who must now see personal sacrifice as a prerequisite for public service: ‘Leadership should be seen as genuine service to the people, not an avenue for accumulating wealth.’

He called for a redefinition of the concept of assets declaration as enshrined in the constitution of Nigeria. Ochiagha advocated that the assets to be declared must now include ‘love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, truthfulness, gentleness and self-control.’ For a start, the prelate suggested that the ‘so-called development should no longer be on the pages of newspapers or television alone, but must be on ground for all eyes to see and acknowledge.’ For instance, instead of telling us on the pages of newspapers that electricity supply has ‘greatly’ improved, the people being served should be the ones pointing out the improvement.

It’s very remarkable that the bishop was saying all these in front of President Goodluck Jonathan, a man who swore to respect, defend and protect the constitution, but has adamantly refused to declare his assets as stipulated by same constitution, thereby running on a deficit of truthfulness.

Ojukwu’s life reminds one of that of Siddhārtha Gautama, popularly known as the Buddha, who, like Ojukwu, was also born into unbelievable opulence. The young Buddha, who was a crown prince, was virtually a prisoner in his father’s palace. One day, goes the legend, he happened to have ventured outside the luxurious confines of the palace, and was shocked by the magnitude of the suffering he saw. He decided there and then to find out the cause of the suffering. He gave himself over to meditation and to a life of asceticism.

In the illumination that followed, he discovered that the cause of suffering is the belief that one cannot be happy without x, y or z. He called it attachment, and all his teaching was centred on how to free oneself from attachments. It was said of the Buddha that one day, when he entered the capital of King Pransanjit, the King who had been a friend of Buddha’s father came out in person to greet him. He attempted to persuade Buddha to give up his life as a wandering beggar and return to the palace. The Buddha reportedly looked the king in the eye and told him to answer truthfully if, for all his outer merriment, his kingdom had brought him a single day of happiness. King Prasanjit was said to have lowered his eyes and was silent. Ojukwu’s disdain for money and material accumulation is similar to Buddha’s renunciation.

Being a fiercely free mind, Ojukwu knew that money and all that usually accompany it could easily imprison one. Indeed it has many people firmly locked in its prisons in Nigeria currently, especially those in public office. Nothing can be a killer of service to the fatherland than the love of money. If in doubt look at Nigeria as it is presently!

Ojukwu wisely freed himself from that, refusing his father’s entreaties, threats and promises, to either join in his vast business empire or to become a high ranking civil servant, both seen as avenues to a life befitting a man of his background. The younger Odumegwu, with his Master of Arts degree from Oxford, chose instead to start off as a lowly Assistant District Officer in Udi in 1955. That was when the young graduate, like the Buddha, first came into direct contact with the poor conditions in which most of his people were living.

Unlike Buddha, Ojukwu’s incurable penchant to be of service to his people was something that manifested at a very early age. The first time he was detained he was barely 11 years old. He had slapped a white man who was maltreating a Nigerian woman in Lagos. Our people say that you know a chick that would grow into a rooster from the day it’s hatched. He meted out similar treatments to some Nigerians whom he perceived as enemies of the people.

As a civil servant, his father was still interfering with his career with his vast influence, determining where he would be sent on transfer, for instance. So he decided to join the military to get away from his father’s influence. It was a decision that earned him banishment from his father’s luxurious household. The father also used his vast influence to make sure his son didn’t enter as a cadet, just to frustrate him out of the military career.

But the younger Ojukwu was clearly determined and instead entered as a lowly private where his duties included sweeping the barracks and cleaning the toilets. But he persevered. Once his British superiors saw his determination, they stopped listening to his father and Ojukwu rose swiftly in ranks, for in the military he found fulfilment in his calling to be of service to his fatherland. He wasn’t a pretender. In no time, he saw destiny thrusting itself upon him.

There’s no doubt that he made disastrous political decisions, but that would be for another day. Were I in the room, I most likely would have disagreed with him on many of the political decisions he took, but I’d not have in any way questioned his honesty and integrity. Suffice it to say that the people who looked up to him as their leader saw his transparent honesty and his selflessness, and so it was very easy for them to follow him, even if some of them might not have had absolute faith in the cause.

When he joined the NPN, ran errands for Abacha, consorted with IBB, or went to meet Buhari and both agreed to work together, it was most likely in the belief that it would eventually serve his Igbo people who are still being marginalized in the country, even as the Nigerian authorities pretended otherwise in their hypocritical honour bestowed on him at death.

The relative sanity we have today in the politics of Anambra state owes a lot to Ojukwu. Ojukwu is probably the only Nigerian who left government much poorer than he was before he went in, having used up most of his father’s vast wealth in the defence of his beleaguered people. In Nigeria today the opposite is the case. The quickest way to become moneyed in Nigeria is to go into politics.

As President Jonathan and many other politicians and civil servants sat in the pews of that church beside Ojukwu’s compound in Nnewi, listening to the prelate extol Ojukwu’s virtues as a servant of the people, one wonders if they heard anything. Would they commit themselves to a selfless service to the people? Would President Jonathan start by publicly declaring his assets, if not as a sign that his much touted ‘rule of law’ posture isn’t a farce, but at least as a mark of respect for the man who, unlike him, was born into opulence but shunned it in favour of genuine service to his fatherland?

Personally, I felt so ashamed that a man of Ojukwu’s calibre should die in a foreign land because there was no good hospital in his fatherland, a land for which he sacrificed all he had, to take care of him in his hour of greatest need. The reason is because those who have been ruling us believe that ‘service’ to the fatherland means stealing as much as they could, and living in scandalous opulence. It’s pathetic! Genuine service goes hand in hand with simplicity.

Ojukwu, who could easily have joined the thieving elites in Nigeria, didn’t. And he died poor, in monetary terms. No wonder his wife found the (in)security that comes with such principled stance sometimes ‘quite alarming.’ But Ojukwu has become the wealthiest in death, setting an example that those who aspire to leadership would do well to emulate, as bishop Ochiagha pointed out. Simplicity is the opposite of vanity. In simplicity there’s genuine courage and genuine bravery, qualities that immensely helped Ojukwu to gallantly lead his people when destiny came calling.

Did our politicians notice Ojukwu’s simplicity?

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* Uchenna Osigwe writes from Quebec, Canada. [email protected].
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