I first met Russia-educated Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma (AI-KO) in 2002 when I went to an Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo event in the Enugu residence of retired Justice Eze Ozobu. He had just emerged as the President-General of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation. I was pleasantly surprised to see a young Abiriba man involved in the affairs of Ohanaeze. Usually, it was the elderly ones such as retired Commodore Okoh Ebitu Ukiwe, Prof Anya O. Anya, Dr Mang Egwuronu and a few others that mingled with the leadership of the group. On getting acquainted, Agbeze and I immediately became friends. We later went to the residence of his uncle, Dr Egwuronu, a Russia-trained pharmacist and avid historian. They come from a prominent Abiriba family.
Not long after, Agbeze moved to Lagos and became a protégé of retired Admiral Ndubuisi Kanu, a passionate Igbo leader, NADECO chieftain and former Military Administrator of Lagos and Imo States (1976–1979). Unfortunately, we lost Admiral Kanu, one of the best of humans, to COVID-19 in February 2022. Agbeze, building on his experience under Ozobu, took charge of the Ndi Igbo Lagos secretariat in Admiral Kanu’s plaza on Kofo Abayomi Street, Victoria Island. It was in these vantage positions that Agbeze was primely positioned to write about events and people that have shaped the Igbo umbrella organisation into what it has become today. The book: Ohanaeze at 50 – the Burden of Memory, the Politics of Relevance is both a critical biographical presentation and the meditation of a deep, authoritative insider.
If you want to read this seminal work, don’t be in a hurry. Every one of the 577 pages is an excursion into the inner sanctums of organised Igbo history, struggles and steady growth despite all the odds deliberately and sinisterly placed on their paths by colonial Britain and their post-independence Nigerian vassal state establishment. You will learn how Ohanaeze was born in 1976, just after the Igbo nation came out of its worst nightmare experience of a gang-up war, foisted on its people as a result of living in a country with other groups with which they shared very little in common. Ohanaeze grew from the ashes of the defunct Igbo State Union, which towered above other pre-independence ethnic unions so much that it was blamed for the perceived domineering attitude of Ndi Igbo. This appeared to plant a common resolve to cut the Igbo nation “down to size” during the war.
As a result, Ohanaeze adopted the principle of treading with caution (ako na uche), and this has put it out more as a toothless bulldog. AI-KO’s book analyses how Ohanaeze manoeuvred through the politics of 1979 to the return of the military, which seemed to pointedly target the Igbo nation’s economic recovery and full political reintegration. This has continued long after the military vacated power. Chapters 5 to 7 focus on the internal storms that threatened the organisation’s existence, funding challenges, internal betrayals and selfish pursuits by those who came to ride it to achieve personal goals. Because of its largely conservative nature and the need not to overly irritate the state, Ohanaeze over the years became a cult of the elderly, mostly the victims of the Biafra War. They lost grip of the youths, who became radicalised due to the continued Igbo marginalisation from regime to regime.
Renewed separatist agitations pushed critical power into the hands of radical groups like Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), who began to see Ohanaeze as part of their Nigerian problems that must be overcome. AI-KO’s book tells the story partially like an eyewitness and in part like a reporter with privileged access to the main figures and records of an organisation that was revived and modelled when he was a mere boy. The tone is more of a poetic, narrative meditation than haranguing criticism or protective apologia. AI-KO’s smooth, big but gentle baritone voice is reflected on the pages of this book. It is so readable; no surprise from a seasoned, active writer.
There is no easy life for an organisation like Ohanaeze advocating for a fiercely independent, republican-minded people like Ndi Igbo, whose situation has been complicated by the hostile attitudes of the Nigerian state and their ethnic rivals. One good thing that must be said for it is its ability to bring Igbo-speaking parts of Rivers State and Delta State into their right place in the Igbo mainstream, offering them opportunities to lead the organisation. The Igbo identity crisis among some non-South East Igbo groups remains strong but not as it used to be in years past. Igbo unity is benefiting from the impetus of the internet and social media, as more and more non-South Eastern influencers have embraced Igbo unity evangelism.
Also, Ohanaeze has succeeded in quenching the fires lit by the Eze Ndi Igbo craze, which has often raised tensions outside Igboland and even outside Nigeria. In truth, Eze Ndi Igbo is not an Igbo cultural heritage. It was borrowed from Hausa culture by some misguided elements. Ndi Igbo operate with unions and elect officials, not “kings” in other people’s cultural domains. Recent experiences are forcing its proponents to comply with Ohanaeze’s abrogation of the practice.
One area that Ohanaeze cannot lead from the front is the question of the possibility of the Igbo nation outside Nigeria. With Islamic jihadists knocking on doors, Ohanaeze has absolutely failed to speak out strongly against killings in Igboland by armed Fulani groups. Ohanaeze never said anything when the regimes of Muhammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu primitively loaded their governments with their ethnic elements and thus marginalised Ndi Igbo in contravention of the constitution. Perhaps such matters are best left for the radical arms of the Igbo nation to do the needful.
Congrats, Chief Agbeze Ireke Kalu Onuma (Utuagba-Igwo II of Abiriba). Well done!
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