Your Excellency,
Grace to you and peace from God, our Father.
Please, pardon me for setting all protocols aside and not asking you about the state of affairs at the Nigerian Embassy in Madrid and the royal court of the King of Spain – not the one who just stepped aside like our IBB, Juan Carlos, but his son.
You see, what I want to bring to your kind attention in my letter is so vital to the well-being of Ndigbo that I decided to go straight to the point. Our elders say that a toad does not run in the daytime for nothing, and that when you see a deaf man running from the village into a thick forest, you don’t ask him what he heard, but what he saw.
Your late husband, our very own Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, in conjunction with pioneer national chairman, Chekwas Okorie, envisioned the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as a movement and not just an ordinary political party. At the onset, it was intended that the party would conjure the same defining ‘Phoenix effect’ on the psyche of Ndigbo that Rangers International Football Club aka The Flying Antelope did so well at the end of the civil war: a vehicle for the restoration of their collective identity, pride and heritage.
Your husband ultimately became like Moses, while Peter Obi was his trusted aide-de-camp (ADC) much in the manner of Joshua. And Obi made your husband believe that, just like the Biblical Joshua, he would faithfully and conscientiously take the party to the Promised Land. To seal the covenant, Ikemba, just before he died, called on Anambrarians to grant him what turned out to be a prophetic last wish: return Obi to the Awka Government House! With Obi abandoning APGA in midstream so soon after your husband’s burial, it is understandable that you would accuse him of betrayal and back-stabbing.
However, no matter how painful and personally devastating Obi’s defection to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is, I strongly urge you to find it in your heart to temper justice with mercy. In the first place, I want you to recognise that the relationship between Obi and your late husband wasn’t exactly one-sided or parasitic, as many opportunists are egging you on to believe.
While there can be no gainsaying the obvious fact that Obi leveraged on Ikemba’s larger-than-life image to overcome numerous hurdles placed in his path within and without the party, it is also true that his emergence as the only APGA governor in the nation equally provided a credible platform for your husband to remain politically relevant and not end up as a general without an army.
Besides, it is an open secret that Obi used his enormous goodwill with the Goodluck Jonathan administration to extract approval for your husband to be accorded a state burial. You know very well that as a so-called ‘former rebel leader’, there were many influential persons in and out of government who bitterly opposed such a reprieve. It was plain to see that Obi invested all his time and energy – and even public resources – to ensure that your late husband was accorded a heroic and memorable last hurrah.
Just think of this: Mazi Sam Goomsu Ikoku rebelled against his illustrious father, Dr. Alvan Ikoku, over ‘irreconcilable differences’, and soundly defeated him in an election into the House of Assembly of Eastern Region! Your Excellency, what would you have done if you had found yourself in the shoes of Alvan Ikoku, the first Nigerian to earn a university degree as an external candidate when he bagged a philosophy degree from the University of London in 1928, founder and leader of the United National Independence Party, proprietor of the oldest private college ever built in Africa (Aggrey Memorial College in Arochukwu), one-time president of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) and member of the Legislative Council in Lagos representing the Eastern Region?
If you must be sincere to yourself, wouldn’t the first thought that crossed your agitated mind be that of immediately disowning such a child who has metaphorically exposed the nakedness of his father in the open market square? Of course, that would be the normal human reaction, won’t it? But do you know that although Dr. Ikoku was initially shocked beyond description, he showed his maturity and magnanimity of heart by not just supporting his ‘rebel’ son in words but by also providing funds for his re-election in 1961!
Dwelling too much on whatever setbacks Obi’s defection portends for APGA is no different from taking an erstwhile pregnant woman to a hospital for an abortion after the baby had been delivered. For all you know, his defection might turn out to be a huge blessing in disguise. And taking up arms against the outgoing national chairman of the party, Victor Umeh, isn’t any better.
There’s a more excellent way through which you will stem the declining fortunes of APGA and re-make it into the political Prima Donna in the South East geopolitical zone for starters. I’m going to share my thoughts on that ‘more excellent way’ in the concluding second part of this open letter. Mucho gracias for finding time in your very tight diplomatic and social schedules to read this letter. May the lessons embedded in it not be lost on you.