It is time to say farewell. Certainly, a time like this must come. No amount of sentiment, no amount of longing, fears, trepidations and anxieties can stop it. Otherwise, instead of this dispiritedness, instead of this bemoaning, the iroko would have been standing still, for everything would have been done to stop it from falling. And what a fall!
Indeed, if it were in the power of man, many would have created a human barrier and stepped on the way to stop the cold hand of death. If it were in the power of man, this deed would have been reversed. If it were in the power of man, our Ide, the pillar, would still be very much around today.
For with humanity, Dr. Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme maintained an unending kinship that stretched beyond the ordinary, a symbiotic conviviality that made him inseparable with the society and the people he loved – love that saw him at times, mock at danger, confront most daunting odds and defy roaring lions. For their sake.
But, like every iron must return to the furnace, it is not in the power of man to interfere in what God, the divine creator, has made his exclusive preserve. For His, it is, to make that eternal call. And when he calls, no man, no matter how powerful, can or will refuse to answer.
For this icon, one of the greatest men that has ever breathed and strode the landscape of Nigeria, nay, the world, a rare gift to humanity, whom at every point, that call came on November 19, 2017.
With that a chapter was closed and a new one began for this sage, who used his life to teach humanity the raison d’etre of God making man the highest of earth’s creature.
Yes, with Ekwueme, humanity learnt that man is not on earth to live, eat grow and die, but on the contrary, must strive to impact his environment positively, always. He must do so by developing his latent instincts to the full and putting all the products therefrom at the disposal of his fellow beings, all in the service of God. That was what he espoused and his life reflected at every turn in his 85 years on earth.
Although not a trained, like Alexander the Great, with whom he shared the same name, Ekwueme, was no less a soldier. He was indeed a soldier’s soldier. For in him were countless and demonstrable evidences of uncommon courage as he fought several battles and wars on different fronts. But unlike the Macedonian General, who earned his title, by going about conquering physical territories, his territory was quite different – the frontiers of humanity and how to enhance it.
Imbued by this special love for people, he had to pick up the gauntlet at the time it mattered most, and fought one of the most ferocious battles, post-independent Nigeria, against the dark forces in the bid to create an atmosphere of a free and democratic society.
At the time his contemporaries and many others were cringing in fear and reclining to their cocoons to escape some palpable unpleasant consequences of confronting the military anti-democratic forces, Ekwueme rose to the occasion by leading other prominent Nigerians to confront the late General Sani Abacha, in his heydays as Nigeria’s most dreaded draconian ruler.
He did this, not minding that the many unpleasant outcomes included threat to personal liberty or even death. But it was all about courage.
Far from being reckless, Ekwueme’s rare bravery in forming and leading the G.34 against the late despot and asking him to give up power, was not because he had no blood in him, but borne out of a more compelling and ennobling need for democracy. For that alone and personal liberty and life itself, were no barriers or at best a secondary consideration. It was his way of re-echoing that epochal declaration of Patrick Henry to Americans – Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death.
He also had another opportunity to press home the point that his uncommon sacrifice was not being driven by the quest to satisfy personal ambitions and goals, but to pursue the greatest good for the greatest number of the society.
After the military was eventually eased out, the lot fell on him once again to organise the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), nurture it and make it one of the most formidable political platforms in the country. But, at the time it was for him to savour the glorious fruit of his labour, he was shoved aside by some more formidable forces, which denied him the opportunity of contesting the presidential election under the same platform and becoming president.
Yet, contrary to expectation, and perhaps scheme of his traducers, he brushed aside the negativity of the obvious conspiracy and climbed to a higher ground.
Indeed, having been a former vice president, stupendous material wealth, tremendous political influence, and the sympathy that trailed his unfair treatment, the natural reaction, were he any other Nigerian, would have seen him breaking away to form another platform. But no, to emphasise that it was not about personal ambition, he again, submitted himself and subsumed his ambition to the democratic ethos of the majority.
Twice, he was given this treatment, and twice he remained resolute and not only made himself available to the party, but continued to avail it of his wealth of experience as the chairman Board of Trustees (BOT) and later, an elder statesman.
How many Nigerians have displayed such a great show of selflessness, resilience, forthrightness and resoluteness to a common cause? How many in politics today, are willing to bury personal ambition in pursuit of common good?
A consummate scholar, philosopher, uncommon philanthropist, versatile professional, author and teacher, this sage, in spite of reaching to the zenith of human expectations, never even assumed a cavalier attitude common to his class, but also hobnobbed with the ordinary folks in the society.
His philanthropic gestures, epitomised Christ’s example of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing, as he used his wealth to lift the downtrodden. Because he would remain always at the background, very few today can associate with building churches, schools, and public-spirited works that enhanced the society. Fewer yet, know about his scholarship foundation, through which he became the bridge through which many indigent persons within his community in Oko, Orumba North Local Government Area, of Anambra State, and beyond, also acquired education and attained great heights themselves.
Always finding solutions rather than being the problem, his six-zonal structure, which he canvassed and gave Nigeria, has become the basis on which a major problem of Nigeria has eventually found solution.
One of the founders and patrons of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the highest decision-making body of the Igbo people, he was the arrowhead of the Mkpoko Igbo, an intellectual and influential body that aggregated the Igbo position to the 1995 National Constitutional Conference, organised by then government of Abacha, where the idea was given its flesh and blood.
Here was a man, who was arrested and thrown into jail in 1984 for his role as the vice president, by a military government, on charges of corruption. But, after rudimental judicial sieve, he was not only pronounced completely blameless and unblemished, but was described as leaving government poorer than he went in.
Yet, even with this and the greater injustice of being made to face this sweltering prison experience as an innocent man, Ekwueme never bore any animosity or misgiving towards anybody. Neither those who jailed him, nor those who conspired to deny him a well-deserved position of Nigerian president and others who hurt him in many other ways, he never uttered as much as one foul word in retaliation. What more could this mean than living life as God designed it?
That Ekwueme emptied himself to the full, stretched himself to the limit and gave his all to a nation and a people he loved so much to the last, cannot be debated.
What remains to be seen is how much of his exemplary life, will form the golden standard we must look up to whenever the shrouding serpents which have infested our land strike our feet.
Farewell, Ide.
- Prof. Nebo (CON) was the immediate past Minister of Power.
