Name of book: Nigeria’s Legal Giant – the first federal director of public prosecutions
Authur: Chinedu Obienu and Anna Stone
No of pages: 123
Reviewer: Dikeogu Chukwumerije
Publishers: Anna Stone Publishing United Kingdom
This is a book that announces its purpose from its very title: Nigeria’s legal giant – the first federal director of public prosecutions. Beneath this expansive caption sits the picture of an impressive man in the iconic wear of the legal profession. And beneath this, a name G.C. Nonyelu (QC). There you have it, enough elements on the front cover alone, to generate interest in the inquisitive mind, especially where the object of that inquisition is Nigerian history. For, sadly, this is a nation with too many untold stories.
One such story is what this book sets about telling; the story of a man born in the same year as the Amalgamation, in a place not too far away from here, who successfully made the transition from pre-colonial to post-colonial Nigeria, and over the course of 58 remarkable years left enough footprints in the sands for someone, 45 years after his demise, to think it necessary to immortalize him. For it still remains the closest a man can come, in this mortal world, to immortality– to have his words, his values, his life ensconced in the pages of a book. And when that man happens also to be Igbo, the fact of the documentation of his or her life becomes even worthier of celebration.
For gone are the glory days of Arthur Nwankwo’s Fourth Dimension Publishing, when the documentation of the Igbo man’s perspective on socio-political and cultural issues was given priority. At this unfortunate turn of events in the literary landscape of the South East at this worrying diminution in the importance ascribed by the Igbo Man to Literature, at this his growing tendency to assign more value to what is Material over what is Intellectual, it is important to remember that famous quote of the former British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill,who said: “History will be kind to me for I intend to write it myself”.
It is also pertinent here to recall that popular, but brilliant, pun which succinctly de-constructs the word, ‘History’ into what it actually is, ‘His story’. We do this to remind ourselves of this fact – that if we, as Igbo people, are not to wake up one day to a history of Nigeria that has been so re-written that names like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Mbonu Ojike, Michael Okpara and, indeed, Gilbert Chukwudike Nonyelu, have disappeared completely from its foundational tales, then we must wake up to our responsibility, not just as merchants and traders, but as writers and chroniclers as well.
That is the importance of a book like this. And so we must first thank its authors, Chinedu Obienu and Anna Stone, for this their labour of love. Seeing as its subject matter was a man whose life straddled the UK and Nigeria, it is fitting that his biography is authored by two people, one from the UK and the other from Nigeria, both of whom share a common professional background in the Law. My only pain is that it would appear that there are no great publishing houses left here in the South East to have published this story of one of the Region’s illustrious sons locally. Indeed, it is a sad omen when a people lose the capacity to project their own stories, a sad omen indeed.
But to the book itself! It is written in a descriptive style, accessible to all levels of readers, with restricted forays into that figurative use of language typically characteristic of rigorous works of literature. This is without doubt therefore a book written with a wide audience in mind, a Nigerian audience in particular, with its notorious attention span and troubled reading culture.
So, in 120 fast-paced pages, easily ploughed through by a conscientious reader, we are treated to the synopsis of an engaging life, so engaging that even the most reluctant reader might find himself wishing, from time to time, that the narrative slows down a little to take him deeper, for instance, into the classrooms of the legendary Hope Waddell Institute where G.C Nonyelu was once a student, or into one of the debate sessions at the 1952 Constitutional Conference in London where the learned counsel was an adviser, or into that long year during the Biafran War when G.C Nonyelu was held in detention. Priceless historical moments all!
But what the narrative loses slightly by moving so quickly, it more than makes up in the amount of ground it is able to cover, majestically spanning the decades between the man’s birth and death in a single slim volume. Indeed, it is a testament to the strategic thinking of the authors of this book that they are able to accomplish this without passing over any of the key talking points of their subject’s life.
It is also worthy of note that a highly commendable effort is made, within the constraints of a book of this size, to dive beneath the surface facts of the narrative and interrogate the thoughts and motivations behind some of the subject’s critical choices in life. This is incontrovertible evidence of a book that was approached with a lot of thought, and a subject matter that was well researched and understood, by its authors.
Indeed, this is a book that, in that sense, is very rich in content, especially in the form of vintage pictures from the Nonyelu family archives that bring to life the Nigeria of those times. Surely, the picture of G.C. Nonyelu being administered his oath of office by none other than the legendary Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe is one that any student of history would find tantalising? Or that extraordinary image on Page 17 of the book showing the passenger manifest of the Sibajak, the ship that took G.C Nonyelu from Lagos to the UK to pursue his legal education? To scroll down that list and see names like Obafemi Awolowo and Akintola Williams on the same boat, men who would all come back home to make significant impact on the course of the nation’s future is simply awe inspiring, re-emphasising the fact that G.C Nonyelu was not just a giant, but walked amongst giants as well.
In truth, there is nothing hyperbolic about this statement, for the reality of the man’s story speaks for itself. An outstanding scholar, a successful businessman (so successful he was able to fund his own legal education in the UK, alongside the living expenses of himself and his wife for 4 years), a philanthropist, a Queen’s Counsel, a pioneer member of the Nigerian Bar Association Port Harcourt Branch, the first African President of the Port Harcourt Town Council, a representative in the Eastern House of Assembly, the first Federal Director of Public Prosecutions, a serial litigator and well respected lawyer – the list is endless. And to top it all, a happily married man with a strong and beautiful wife, and 5 lovely children.
It is a fact that jumps out at the reader over and over again, the obvious love G.C Nonyelu had for his children whom he, most uncharacteristically for the typical African parent, encouraged to pursue their artistic inclinations in music and singing. Equally evident is his love for his wife, Emily (or Emilia as he called her), a love that is reminiscent of the great Awo himself who, in his autobiography, famously referred to his own wife as his ‘jewel of inestimable value’. And the similarity does not end there because, just like Awo’s wife did for him when he travelled on the very same boat as G.C. Nonyelu to the UK for legal training, so did Emily, for a whole year, hold sway over the family businesses on behalf of her husband before finally joining him in the UK, and remaining there with him till he was called to the English Bar on the 26th of January, 1948.
And, in fact,it is in G.C Nonyelu’s decision to marry Emily that the attention of the reader is first drawn to the earliest manifestation of a trait that would play a defining role in the man’s legacy, the capacity to act on his convictions even it meant standing alone. For we are told that, in the customary parochialism prevalent even today, the fact that Emily did not come from Amawbia, or any of the surrounding towns and villages, was frowned upon by those around G.C Nonyelu. But the man, certain of what he wanted, and true to his liberalism, stood his ground.
As he would stand his ground 20 years later when the office of the Director of Public Prosecution was stripped of its independence and subjugated under the office of the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice. G.C Nonyelu’s resignation from that office, in protest, on grounds of principle that this act would compromise the administration of Criminal Justice in Nigeria, is an example of integrity in public office that should never be forgotten or allowed to die.
As should the example of G.C Nonyelu’s non-tribalism. Although not expressly stated, it can be surmised from the advisory role he played to the Action Group delegation to the 1952 Constitutional Conference in London that G.C Nonyelu was more drawn to the politics of Awo, with whom he studied Law in the UK, than to that of his own fellow Igbo man and Anambran, Zik.
In the ethno-regionally charged politics of the day, it was an extraordinary act of courage to follow one’s convictions and ideology regardless. In this regard, the book records G.C Nonyelu’s exemplary non-partisanship at the Constitutional Conference of 1952, how this left indelible impressions in the minds of his colleagues, and stood him in good stead to being appointed Federal Director of Public Prosecutions 8 years later.
This objectivity and commitment to liberal and cosmopolitan values was not an act, but flowed genuinely from G.C Nonyelu’s belief that a people that had not substituted tribalism for nationalism, and parochialism for meritocracy, were not ready for nationhood.
He shared these thoughts with other great minds like the Yoruba nationalist, Adegoke Adelabu who wrote to him in 1951 stating that, “The short-sighted gospel of tribal capitalism…must be replaced in due course by a more robust and broader based Nigerian capitalism if we are sincere in our desire for a strong and Unified Nigeria able to take her place among the comity of free nations.”
