Newspaper proprietor and member of the defunct Zikist Movement, CHIEF BOB OGBUAGU, who practically put his life on the line in the fight for Nigeria’s Independence, tells Editor, Politics/Features, EMEKA ALEX DURU, and Assistant Politics Editor, DANIEL KANU, the story of the struggle. While recounting the risks, intrigues and betrayals in the exercise, the 89-year-old also speaks on the Civil War, the media profession among other issues.
You were among the people that participated actively in Nigeria’s struggle for Independence. How did it go?
Chief Bob Ogbuagu
That is a very big question in terms of the fact that we didn’t fight for the Nigeria we are seeing today. The background was that, then the British constituted the government that was in place and administered us. Our pre-occupation was to get them out of government because they were running the place as they liked. They brought us the Bible (Christianity) and followed it up with commerce. We had the United African Company (UAC) and John Holt; then education and administration. Whatever they were doing was to meet the agenda of their own people. Their initial song was: God save their Gracious King, until it metamorphosed to Gracious Queen. So our pre-occupation then was to let the interlopers leave our land, so that we could organise our life. There was nothing like going to have a roadmap. Rather, we had one thing in mind; to get Nigeria independent, because it was a period independence fire was raging throughout West Africa and the middle of East Africa. Our methodology was simple. We had no guns or any explosive devices; it was argument against argument. But they had the superior argument because they were in power. So they had the laws.
It was the time the Zikist Movement came out as the off-shoot of the National Council for Nigeria and Cameroon (NCNC). The history of Nigeria’s Independence and political evolution dates back to early 1940s, when the political parties were being organised. We had the NCNC – an all Nigeria party with Herbert Macaulay as the first President-General. Action Group (AG) came much later. At that time, I had just finished from the Methodist College, Uzuakoli, in 1945. For one reason or another, my father, who was a teacher, thought that the best place to send me was the North to stay with his friend and my big uncle. So I started my life in the North. Eventually, I got in contact with the nationalist struggle. It was a matter of the whole of Nigeria with little participation from the North that urged all of us to go in search of what everybody else was seeking then: freedom from the British people. It peaked from 1944 onwards as the flame raged throughout Nigeria, particularly in the South. The British didn’t like it. So they came up with seditious laws with which they clamped anybody who had any courage to say anything against them into jail. I lived in Jos then. I wasn’t satisfied with government service. So I joined John Holt in 1946. Later I joined the Geological Survey Department in 1947. I was restless; I didn’t like what was going on. NCNC held its first convention in Kaduna in 1948. Then we had the Legislative Council, which was rotating between Lagos and Kaduna. So, they were holding their first session in Kaduna and the NCNC also slated its first national convention in Kaduna.
As chairman of the Zikist Movement in Jos, I was drafted as Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe (Zik)’s aide-de-camp (ADC) because we didn’t trust the white man to look after him. That was a turning point. It was then that we said the time had come for us to have a frontal attack with the British. Then we had Saad Zungur from the North, and Kola Balogun as the secretary. The first series of lectures – inflammatory lectures – were to begin in 1948. Of course, in all, we were not abusing anybody. We were just telling the British to go; that we were ripe enough to look after ourselves. Of course, they called that sedition and those who published those articles were also held. They were very serious with us as they vowed to deal with us squarely.
The first series of lectures were delivered in Lagos at Ebute Metta by Osita Agwuna, entitled ‘A call for revolution’. They then descended on us in 1950 and put us into jail, I think, about 56 young people. They so arranged it that the arrests were made simultaneously throughout the country, so that you had no time tell your colleagues what was going on.
The following day, we were all in court. Some had six months, some had nine, depending on the magistrate that handled your case; though they were all British magistrates. I served six months term for possessing seditious documents in Jos. We refused to plead. We agreed that anytime we were held and they asked us of our plea – guilty or not guilty – we should not talk. We kept mute. In my case, the magistrate was an ex-military man. When I refused to respond or make any plea, he said “it was mute of malice” and sentenced me six months. But we went into the detention happily because the whole country was behind us.
I was still running my newspaper. With the co-operation of the warders, my staff would bring me scripts, paper and I would write my editorials. During their visiting hours, they would collect them. One thing about those British people was that they were very kind-hearted. You won’t take that away from them. If you behaved well in prison, then you had some days off. For the six months, I only served about four.
We did not accept violence as an instrument of our struggle. We thought it was a matter of the will – their will and our own will – but ultimately they had the law behind their own will. That, I think, was the crux of the struggle.
But then, our parent political party, the NCNC led by Zik, denied us. It was then that Zik made his famous statement that “he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day”. We were disappointed. People like Nduka Eze, Kola Balogun and other colleagues in the struggle felt very bad. In fact, Professor Ikenna Nzimiro never forgave Zik. But I did. When I came out, my papers were in tatters. I had to find something to do and Zik appointed me the Northern Regional Representative of the Pilot Newspapers, with M.C.K Ajuluchukwu as the Editor. That was how we ignited, sustained the fire, and set the path on the struggle for Independence. It was then the colonial masters knew that we were serious. Obafemi Awolowo came later to form the AG from the Egbe Omo Oduduwa. The Igbo State Union was also very strong. In fact, the Igbo State Union was a government itself as far as we were concerned, with N.C. Obi, an Nnewi trader, as the president-general. Any pronouncement from them was the rule throughout the country. Any day they declared as Igbo Day, there would be no market in Kano, Lagos and throughout the whole country. They were so powerful that, even in the North, they set up a secondary school – something that was unheard of – in the heart of a Muslim region, and one of us was the first Principal.
Some of our colleagues like Herbert Macaulay and Tony Enahoro had two sentences because they were accused of committing something else in Lagos. I think Enahoro served for nine months again. After that, it was clear that a political system has come into the organisation in Nigeria. We had the AG which metamorphosed from the youth movement. H.O. Davies was in charge of the group. The NCNC decided to have a countrywide tour to sensitise people. Macaulay was to lead the tour as president-general. Zik was the secretary-general. They went to two or three areas in the (South) West before going to the North. Unfortunately, it was somewhere in the West that Macaulay died. After making his flowery speech “Beyond the Grave” at the funeral, Zik took over as President-General. When he came to the North, we took him round the North. Trust the Igbo; they were everywhere to receive Zik and his group.
That was not the first time they manifested such act of togetherness. I can recall that the day I came out of prison in Jos, the markets were closed. At the prison’s gate there was a white horse brought to take me home. Ndigbo came out, took me round the town and we went to Rayfield where I addressed them. That was the spirit of Ndigbo then. They believed in what they were doing and there was no question of monetary or any other reward being expected.
It will be good to let you know that the statement from NCNC leadership that we were a pack of irresponsible people fired many of us. Everybody wanted to make a success of his life. Many went abroad to read Law. I stayed back to run my newspaper until it became a daily newspaper. At last, we had to prove NCNC leadership wrong that we were not just pack of irresponsible people; but people who wanted the best for our country and were ready to defend it. We were focused in our struggle because all of us excelled in our different professions, thereby proving them wrong.
Some other things happened in between. In 1960, we had Independence and in 1963 we became a republic.
After the struggle, you eventually achieved Independence. Down the line, are you satisfied with the trend of events?
When we got Independence, Zik said we got it on a platter of gold. It may surprise you that of the 56 of us who went into various jails in the country, I don’t think we are more than four who are still alive today. Some went to prison, others died in prison. So, how can anyone be saying we got it on a platter of gold. How could it be so? That was the dividing line.
The purpose for our Independence was lost and then buried when the army took over. It was army coup that was the issue. Those who planned it could not carry it out. Those who inherited it then put us in this mess that we are today. They had no clue on what to do. We then decided to, sort of, disengage. The people that took over had no idea about nation building. After that, everybody went into his own shell. Nobody seems to be happy with what is going on in Nigeria.
You described the Igbo of the pre-Independence era in glowing terms. At what point did Ndigbo get it wrong in contemporary Nigeria?
This is my own judgement or opinion. After the war, the Igbo psyche disappeared. I am saying this because we were very independent. Ndigbo are enterprising people and they want to be the best in whatever skill they find themselves. They would not envy you and would not want anybody to interfere with their independence. It was not easy before for another tribe to marry an Igbo girl because they were respected and were, so to speak, in a class that it was not just anybody that had the courage to marry them. But over the years, we lost our sense of value. It is like the story of the Cock that told the Fox that what is on its head is not fire but only decoration – the reason the Fox started eating the Cock. Ndigbo were more determined in whatever they were doing then and were supportive of one another. I do not think it is so today.
You were an active participant in the Nigerian Civil War. Looking back, was that war really necessary?
I haven’t written my biography. It’s a thing I want to put in my book, so I won’t tell you now (laughs). I was the first person that the military arrested when Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu came as the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria. I have tried to get the information on why I was arrested. After the war, we all went back to our jobs. I was Secretary of Eastern Nigeria Development Corporation. That was the basis, the background, the strength of Dr. Michael Okpara’s entire administration, because we ran all the plantations and the industries that you heard him being talked about with funds from the Marketing Board. Sir Louis Philippe (LP) Ojukwu was the chairman. I think it was about two weeks or so when Ojukwu took over as the governor; I was sitting in my office when police came and took me away to their headquarters and dumped me there. Though the police commissioner was my neighbour, until he died, he never told me why I was arrested.
You were a journalist and a newspaper administrator. Looking at the industry then and now, would you say the practitioners are right on track, or are there deviations?
Well, my only fear is that when I talk about you people (journalists), you go and write about me. What I have noticed is that reporters in those days were more thorough than what you are doing now. You are carrying gadgets now, but then what they had were notebooks and pens. But they would pursue a case and story to the end. And when you got to the end of it, there was this satisfaction that you had and you would say bravo, you had made it. Then, when they stumbled on a story, there would be joy and they would follow it to the end. That enterprising spirit is not there anymore, perhaps, because a lot of charlatans came into the profession. But it is not a bad story all the way. We didn’t set standards for what you must attain to be what you wanted to be. Now those standards are in place. Now, you cannot, for example, be admitted to Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), until you reach a certain level in educational qualification or have a certain level of exposure. So it has been an evolution, something like a growth.
How was it growing up in your time?
My father was Chief Francis Ogbuagu, one of the earliest educated persons in my area. He encountered the church and then built on it. Then you would start from the church, and if you were bright (brilliant) enough, you would do other examinations. So, my father graduated to become the headmaster of the township school in my village. So he brought us up in certain mould. I mean, he moulded you as he wanted you. Even when I was grown, when I was at Uzuakoli, my father flogged me with his belt because I came back late to the house. The education, which they were communicating, showed that there must be decorum; there must be line of discipline and respect for order. That probably has made me what I am today. Wealth has no meaning to me. It is my name and integrity that matters to me. You dare not interfere with my integrity because I cherish it the most. When they said they were doing kidnapping here, they won’t let us come home; but every weekend I came home and my family was always worried, as they told me they were going to kidnap me. I said: who is going to kidnap me? They finally came and stormed my house. It was a running session between them and my wife. They said they wanted money and my wife asked them which money? She asked them if they gave me any money to keep for them. She told them that I just retired and had no money. They were ransacking and breaking everywhere and I told them I didn’t have any money and that they were wasting their time. They scattered everywhere and left. But before leaving, one of them slapped me and I told him: you will never use that hand with which you slapped me again. I live with my people and I believe they won’t do me any harm because I never did any harm to them. Whatever I have, I have shared with them. The type of education they gave us has kept us with our heads high with integrity till date. I wish we can have that replicated. Then, there will be no question of robbery or kidnapping. What you have will be sufficient for you.
