History: Nigerian Politics

                                      Letters to My Grandfathers

In 2000, the year that the world was suppose to come to an end especially in the West, remember the predictions of Y2K computer systems malfunction, I went back to the United Nations o Nigeria for my paternal grandfather’s burial. I had left five years prior to the United States and joined an ever increasing Nigerian community that was more reticent about the situation back home despite the reality that they were going to be migrants abroad for many many years. General Abacha had evicted Interim President Dr. Ernest Shonekon after getting the back pass from the former criminal in charge General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida. My Mbaise grand dad had died at the very timely age of 80. I got to know him from the prism of holiday visits on Easter and Christmas celebrations when the entire family traveled from Port-Harcourt to Imo State. Okenze Ugochukwu Thomas Akwada was a traditional title holder in Igbo land and his death was definitely the end of a chapter for me because my Igbo and Ijaw grandparents were all dead and a generation shift was in motion.

            Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege to encounter my maternal grandfather Mr. Alaibe Ogan who worked in the educational sectors of eastern Nigeria. He passed away before I was born but his lasting legacy was education, tolerant and enlightenment. He took his children from Okrika a subset of the Ijaw kingdom and worked as a principal/teacher in the present day Abia state. My mother and her siblings grew up partly in Aba and Umuahia cities and with time spoke fluent Igbo. As a civil servant Mr. Ogan was able to send out his first son Mr. Ashley Ogan to England to further his education. Thus my uncle missed the pivotal event of our young country, the Nigerian and Biafran civil war that killed approximately 2.5million southerners. A genocidal history that the United Nations of Nigeria, the African Union, and the international community is struggling to come to grips with in contemporary times.

            On the other hand Okenze Akwada, Ikoro as the village community affectionately christened him struggled to survive with his children. He struggled in poverty for most of his young life, including during the Nigerian and Biafran civil war. However, his first son, my father volunteered to defend the Bright of Biafra homeland from the genocidal onslaught of the Nigerian forces. This decision would in turn save his life because he got some basic training and was not one of the conscripted soldiers who did not have a chance against the better trained and equipped, British and Russian supported Nigerian troops. The Niger Deltans or Brifrans became the sacrificial lamb for the capitalist and communist ideologues that amazingly had a common interest in their marginalization.

            In spite of this history my paternal grandfather and my lineage survived and granddad ended up with a total of four wives before he died. But wait a minute he was not married to all four women at the same time. He was involved with my grandmother and had to marry his late brother’s wife in line with the prevailing culture. Though the union produced an offspring (my dear uncle) it did not last for too long. My Grandfather remained a rowing stone and married a third wife after the death of my grandmother and a fourth wife after the death of his third wife.

During some of our Christmas festivities my grandfather always had a cantankerous circus like atmosphere with his third wife who was about the age of his younger children. However his young wife would be pregnant when we returned for the Easter holidays. I have hypothesized over the years that my grandfather’s third wife died as a result of the inherent stressors within the family. Dealing with the six children from my grandmother, her own six children, and negotiating other family dynamics was ultimately fatal for my step grand mother who died too young.

Despite the shortcomings of Mr. Ugochukwu Thomas Akwada, I would always admire him because of the way strangers spoke about his integrity. Some people just identified me by saying that is Ikoro’s (his nickname) grandson. My grandfather was infamous in our community for speaking truth to power, challenging the status quo, and maintaining an independence from the two kings in our locality. He was a simple man who understood that his legacy was not based on monetary gains and self aggrandizement. People heaped encomiums on him for his principles and not for his material wealth. I would take my granddaddy’s principles over most of the current crop of grandfathers we have in the African continent especially those in charge of nations.

            In Zimbabwe for instance we have in President Robert Mugabe our granddaddy (maybe great grandfather) of despots. Mr. Mugabe has publicly declared that he would die in power than relinquish it to the next generation. Once a national hero Papa Mugabe chose to force masses of black Africans into exile, place them in abject poverty, and expose his people to diseases such as cholera. In neighboring South Africa, President Jacob Zuma is engaged in multiple wife diplomacy instead of digging in to improve the condition of millions. Who speaks for the hundreds of African immigrants who have been massacred in South Africa due to xenophobic antics and did anyone get prosecuted? How can our continental prophet and music maestro Mr. Lucky Dube be nonchalantly murdered in cold blood on the streets of Johannesburg? Most Pan-Africanist had envisioned Phillip singing and running around the opening stadium of the FIFA world cup competition.

            Sadly these situations with our modern-day grandfathers are not limited to the southern African region. In Uganda President Yoweri Museveni has occupied power for approximately 25years but keeps on reinventing himself. While grandpa Museveni is busy taking over from Snoop Dog or more aptly D’banj in the rap music game, the discourse in Uganda is concentrated on the sexuality of political activists. The pressing issue is not redistribution of wealth, political corruption, self sufficiency in agriculture, and the Lord Resistant Army who are still in the business of kidnapping and displacing innocent communities in the eastern and central African regions.

                

General Obasanjo, Danjuma, Babangida, and Abacha are major catalyst for the corruption, violence, and instability that is prevalent in the United Nations of Nigeria. The great Pan-Africanist Sir Peter Tosh sang about “everyone asking for peace but no one is asking for justice.” Dr. Jonathan President of Nigeria and Mr. Adoke Attorney General and Minister of Justice we the people are requesting for justice that is indeed over due. These men are now grandfathers and should account for their misdeeds. Let us apply the same vigor that the government is using to dismantle the Niger Delta militants to bring these generals and others to justice. We are presented with the current mess in the country because of the governments that these generals presided over for nearly fifty years. 

            However in the western side of the continent we are not faring any better with our grandfathers either. For example, in Nigeria one of our supposed elder statesman Alhaji Adamu Ciroma the former criminal in charge of the Nigerian Central Bank, Minister of Industries, Agriculture, and Finance is leading a sectarian assault on our ever evaporating national unity. This former government official, who is a pivotal member of the Northern Military Industrial Complex (NMIC), believes the absurdity that only individuals from the north and other so-called elites that have the blessing of the north should be Presidents of the United Nations of Nigeria. At his old age Mr. Ciroma and his cohorts are still fighting the battle of northern Nigeria hegemony and trying to make the rest of the country their imperial colonies.  

           

               

Nnamdi Frank Akwada, MSW, BA, Community Activist
Masters of Social Work (2010)
University of Maryland Baltimore
Health Specialization
Management and Community Organization/Clinical Concentration
University Student Government Association
Chief of Public Relations, 2009-2010
Social Work Community Outreach Service-
Maryland Community Fellow Intern 2009-2010
Bachelors in Criminology and Criminal Justice (2001)
University of Maryland College Park