Nearly a decade ago, I had the privilege of a most profound experience. I was with a friend who was gravely ill. I knew she was dying, and to make the scenario even testier, she knew it too. Now, that’s one position I pray never to find myself in again; ever. But if you were to be confronted with such a situation, my honest advice will be: don’t pass it up. You’re going to learn valuable lessons that will last you a lifetime. In my own case, I was sorely tempted to scram, but happily, I didn’t.
Nearly a decade ago, I had the privilege of a most profound experience. I was with a friend who was gravely ill. I knew she was dying, and to make the scenario even testier, she knew it too. Now, that’s one position I pray never to find myself in again; ever. But if you were to be confronted with such a situation, my honest advice will be: don’t pass it up. You’re going to learn valuable lessons that will last you a lifetime. In my own case, I was sorely tempted to scram, but happily, I didn’t.
Let’s call my friend Nelly. Nelly was at least five years older than I was. Our strange relationship had developed around the fact that she’d recruited me to mentor her kid brother who was two years my junior in secondary school. She tended to treat me then like an adult that I barely was. On my part, I went to great lengths to earn that confidence. That we hailed from the same community made my task much more arduous.
Nelly was in a relationship with a fellow I considered not exactly deserving of her. I did a masterly job of keeping that opinion to myself. Two years after I graduated from the university, Nelly and Gunky were married. Three beautiful children arrived in quick succession. A midwife/nurse by profession, she quickly progressed in her career. Everything seemed to be looking up for her, but she wasn’t a happy woman. Gunky obviously never really loved her. You don’t bruise and batter someone you love and care for. Abusing her was his highest sport. Because Nelly still loved and respected him, she refused to complain to anyone. But it was just a matter of time before her ordeal became common knowledge. Yet every attempt to intervene proved fruitless.
In the fifteenth year of this tasteless marriage, she was diagnosed with cancer. As fate would arrange it, she was referred to the National Hospital, Abuja. For the eight months she spent in and out of hospital, undergoing all manner of treatment and procedures, my family and I were deeply involved.
One fateful day, I was alone with her in the hospital and she seemed to be her usual chirpy self. She told me about Uzoma, a young man also from our community I liked very much. He had also expressed his desire to marry her. That certainly was news to me. The reason she declined was that dumping Gunky at that point would have cast her as callous and a gold digger. Uzoma was more financially endowed; and having gone out with Gunky for over ten years, she felt compelled to stick with him. A cousin of hers, whose marriage had recently crashed, and who saw no good in Gunky, had encouraged her to follow her heart. She’d spurned that counsel.
This reminiscing must have lasted over thirty minutes. In this period, I neither asked questions nor volunteered any comments. It would have been profane to do so. When a woman in the throes of death is telling you of the options she was presented with while pondering matrimony fifteen years back, it could only mean one thing. She’d made a mistake. Because to all intents and purposes, that union had failed. She could just as well have stated that, if faced once more with a choice between Gunky and Uzoma, she would have gone for Uzoma.
As if to prove her right, a few days after this revelation, when Uzoma got wind of her condition, he sent her N200, 000! I can also confirm that he sent another N240, 000 during the preparation for her funeral.
That was seven years ago, yet the passage of time has not dulled my appreciation of the courage she displayed that day. It takes much more than sincerity to look at the result of one’s decision and declare it an utter failure. If the circumstances were different, she might have better explored her options. But there’s very little to choose between mangled, matrimonial bliss and malignant, metastatic cancer.
A few days ago, when I heard of the demise of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, I was reminded of Nelly and the illustrious company of the brave. In a world of cowards, pretenders and hypocrites, these ones look failure in the eye and call it by its first name. Incidentally, that’s the only way to seize the enormous power failure wields and employ it to chart a new course for a better day.
Forty-five years ago when the nation was adrift, and the survival of Ndigbo severely threatened, Ojukwu let his words ring out loud and clear. There were those of his contemporaries who could and should have remedied the situation. Unfortunately, not endowed with the vision and sagacity of Ojukwu, they dithered and demurred. Even accords, freely entered into, were summarily dumped. It was their actions (or inactions), not Ojukwu’s alleged vaunted ambition, which precipitated Biafra and the thirty-month genocidal war.
It’s over forty years now since that needless, bitter war ended. Ndigbo had been conquered, their champion Ojukwu run off, and the word ‘Biafra’ obliterated from the records. It’s been forty years since the future of Ndigbo was tied to a £20 largesse! Never mind the ‘no victor, no vanquished’ mantra. Slick propaganda has never been our weakness.
Sadly, it would seem that those who have garnered honours and piled up accolades as heroes of that war achieved nothing. Those who’ve been beating their chest and strutting around as ‘fathers of the nation’ would have discovered to their dismay that the war had much more to do with ideas than Ojukwu and Biafra. And it should shock and shame them to acknowledge they actually lost.
For a nation still groping and grasping for definition, any other conclusion would be a monumental fraud. To have gone to war only to institute this shibboleth of greed, corruption and crass materialism, and brazenly declare it a united entity, is a high crime against humanity. And posterity will be harsh towards the sponsors and beneficiaries of that war.
Ojukwu demanded justice, equity and the right to self-determination, and he was dubbed a rebel. Forty five years along, it has become abundantly clear that his antagonists were mere reactionaries. They had neither a blueprint for Nigeria nor the love and zeal to implement it. That’s why we’re still in this pretty pass.
Already, shouts of ‘immortalization’ are rending the air. And you can be certain the authorities will be at their opportunistic best. While they look for battered bridges or incapacitated institutions to name or rename, let me get back to Nelly.
For as long as Gunky remained a brute, reneging on his vow to love and protect, for so long Nelly thought of what it might have been with Uzoma. This is the power of failure. It compels us to consider what was, or what could have been, because what is, isn’t working. And this is a delicate and dangerous state to be in.
For as long as Nigeria isn’t working properly, Biafra will be an issue. Nelly knew there was no future for her and Uzoma. But even that fact couldn’t stop her from thinking about him. Or talking about him on her death bed. Some who knew Biafra and still cherish her are no fools. They are well aware they may never embrace her in this life. So they survive on the blissful memories of the brief life they shared. There are yet others, incurable optimists, who believe in miracles. We ignore this latter group to our peril.
The greatest service we can do to Ojukwu’s memory is to re-work entity Nigeria. We must offer every man, every woman, every boy, every girl, every community and every people a fair chance to survive and thrive. Only this sort of justice can guarantee peace. And mutual respect. It is on this solid ground we can hoist the banner of true patriotism. Only a complete and radical paradigm shift can guarantee the emergence of leaders of vision and conscience; banishing this crop of lascivious charlatans.
Ojukwu has done his bit and paid his dues, fully. We are the ones who now owe him. Very dearly.
OLUGU OLUGU ORJI mnia
[email protected]
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