General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who passed away earlier on Saturday 26 November 2011 after a long illness, is one of the greatest Igbo of all time... Okaa Omee. He was 78.

In May 1966, at the age of 32, General Odumegwu-Ojukwu was thrust, centrally, in the politics of his people as the leader of the Biafran resistance to the Nigeria state’s premeditated genocide against the Igbo people.

During the course of 44 harrowing months, Nigeria murdered 3.1 million Igbo, or one-quarter of this nation’s population, in this foundational genocide of post(European)conquest Africa. General Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s leadership, throughout this catastrophe, was focused, selfless, stellar.

Three urgent goals that Igbo intellectuals will effectuate, in his memory, are: (1) contribute, robustly, to continue to inform the entire world of the nature and extent of the genocide (2) ensure that all those who planned/ordered/murdered the Igbo during the genocide are brought to justice (thankfully, the crime of genocide has no statute of limitations in international law) and (3) the restoration of Igbo sovereignty.

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* Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe is the author of ‘Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature’ (Dakar and Reading: African Renaissance, 2011).
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