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Transcript CNN International interview with Nigeria's President Obasanjo and USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido Nwangwu on Democracy and Security Issues

Zik of Africa: Statesman, Intellectual and Titan of African politics

This tribute-essay by USAfricaonline.com Publisher Chido Nwangwu was first written while he lived in Nigeria in October 1988. It has been updated online, yearly, for the great Dr. Azikiwe's birthday since November 16, 1993 to date, November 16, 2005

Flashback to Monday, January 11, 1960:
The first business session of the Nigerian Senate in Lagos is in progress. It is a full-house impregnated with lofty, patriotic expectations of a new Nigeria. Standing up amid the expectation, Senator Nuhu Bamali said: "I have the honor to propose that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe do take the chair of this House as the president. I am happy that a man who had spent all his life working for the political emancipation of his people and for the independence of this country should be the first to become the president of this..."

The announcement was welcomed with warm, loud applause. Then, with a dignified presidential bearing, and standing tall beyond six feet, Zik, the spearhead of the struggle for Nigeria's political independence, early apostle of pan-Africanism, continued his upward mobility in Nigeria's political history and arena. Nnamdi Azikiwe 'Zik of Africa', was born on November 16, 1904 at Zungeru, northern Nigeria. He lived as the master of crafty political game-plans. He, like Dr. K.O Mbadiwe,  lived as Nigeria's foremost neologist and wordsmith extraordinaire.

Wednesday, October 12, 1988:
In the bowel of the Nsukka hills, a shouting distance from my alma mater, Nigerias first indigenous university, University of Nigeria, is a quiet, but remarkable home, the Onuiyi Haven. I lived briefly, like most first year students at the Zik's flats, whcih was a few minutes walking distance from Azikiwe's Onuiyi Haven. Appropriately, that remarkable stately residence is called Onuiyi. Onuiyi is an Igbo word which ordinarily means the source of a stream.

Indeed, here, a stream of wisdom flows from a sage, the grand master of Nigerian politics; it flows at a finely calibrated tempo and with a disarming subtlety. For many decades, the sages river of wisdom has nourished generations and cultures, academic gurus and village wags, politicos and iron surgeons (soldiers), kings and queens, princes and plebians. In the background, birds chirp away some musical notes. Tree leaves continued to rustle and sway in harmony as if saying "It's another bright day for the Owelle. You're welcome."
About 9:00 a.m., Zik's personal secretary and his trusted aide, Mr. A. Okolo, briefs him about general issues of importance, correspondence, commitments and visitors to the Onuiyi Haven. In almost all public and private ceremonies, he has assisted Dr. Azikiwe.

At 2:48 p.m., Okolo directs this reporter through the second gate. As I walked the staircase with him, thoughts and questions began to form rapidly on my mind like a fresh colony of mushrooms on a beautiful tropical sunrise.
For example, what if Dr. Azikiwe emerged now, what should be the first question? Should I follow my planned interview-plot or apply a flexible, situational tactic and flow with the disposition of the sage?
Although Okolo knew I was coming, I still pondered: Will the titan of African politics grant me just 20 minutes, 10 minutes?
Will he even talk to me? If he did, by any measure in the African continent, it would have been my biggest, most important interview. (Then, I was just in my early twenties serving as Assistant Editor of Platform magazine in Lagos; that's shortly after I left the Nigerian Television Authority as a news and programming presenter).

There were questions I wanted to ask concerning Azikiwe's autobiographical magnum opus he titled, My Odyssey. Remarkably, 25 years after that books release, our brother Gen. Colin Powell's bestseller is similarly titled, My American Journey.

For all serious students of pan-Africanism, African culture and nationalism and United States-Africa-Nigeria relations, Azikiwes books, especially Renascent Africa are vital, a must-read. I read My Odyssey in 1976 at the Bishop Johnson Street residence of my brother, Samson Orji Nwangwu, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

No other secular book at the time I was growing up helped define and shape my intellectual destination and outlook better than Azikiwe's autobiography, My Odyssey. Though this lion of Africa's nationalism is dead, many of us await to see if his staff and children will help fulfil the promise and task he set for himself in London as stated in the 1970 preface to My Odyssey.
In it he stated: "In a subsequent volume, I hope to discuss how I founded the African Continental Bank; my entry into the orbit of Nigerian Politics; my participation in the crusade for the freedom of Nigerian; my stewardship as Premier of Eastern Nigeria; the founding of the University of Nigeria; my tenure as Governor-General of the Federation of Nigeria and then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria."

Azikiwe's colorful and combative entry into the trying times of nationalistic agitation and post-independence partisan politics has been supported and illuminated by his penetrating prolific, and incisive literary power. Azikiwe lived as the better embodiment of Nigeria's and indeed Africa's "philosopher-king" - alongside the likes of Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana and Leopold Senghor of Senegal in the 1960s. Yet, to this day, the followers and foes of the artful Azikiwean political stratagem and craftiness expected Nigeria's most durable political figure still seek to clear a forest of issues obstructing a thorough understanding of events and personalities in the development of Nigeria, especially his relationship with the late nationalists Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Ahmadu Bello and the Zikist Movement.

Contrary to dangerously uninformed, pedestrian revisionism of Nigeria's nationalist struggle by some fellows, that country did not get its independence "on a platter of gold" during Azikiwe's time. For instance, just as recent as Thursday, August 24, 1983 in a widely circulated open-letter to Nigerians, which he titled "History will vindicate the Just," former president Azikiwe reminded the attentive of the struggle to free and build that richly-endowed country of 100 million.
As the grandmaster of Nigeria's politics passed, what manner of governing legacy will those uniformed tin-gods masquerading as leaders and their conniving greedy, gang of buccaneer politicians do in memory of "our father?" The answer, my friends, is blowing in wind.

Regardless, as Nnamdi Azikiwe, principal witness, eminent scholar, key player and insightful chronicler of African and Nigerian history, politics, culture, sociology, arts, enterprise, ethics, journalism and diplomacy passes on (he told anyone who listened that hes not in a hurry to leave this planet), the mans array of accolades and distinctions and a handful of unfulfilled hopes remain a very instructive profile in the world, particularly, within the universe of people of African descent.

I strongly believe that when all the vital indicators and elements of leadership are considered, and a millennial choice worthy of serious consideration and debate is made; a choice which can stand the test of time and serious intellectual assessment, Nnamdi Azikiwe is truly the closest approximation to a philosopher King in Nigeria (like Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana, and Nelson Mandela in South Africa). No other Nigerian is more deserving; and no one has a thread running through the longest duration of the geopolitical history of Nigeria; not within the past 100 years. None. Azikiwe is the one.  He did more to bring Nigerians together, with all of its imperfections and inequities.
The Owelle gave Nigerian nationalism an actual, federalistic impetus more than any other Nigerian. He traversed the key events of Nigeria's history more than any other.
Above all his predecessors and contemporaries, his intellect remained lucid like a thousand candles in a poorly lit room.
Although, he compromised on certain issues many would have preferred he stuck to his guns. He left a few decisive battles he could have fought beyond his ideal vision of things. Which leads me to the question: What if Azikiwe had gone beyond the ought-to in his agenda for Nigeria and his place in history, may be that country's present history could have been different. It's just a thought,  just a may be. But who am I to raise questions regarding the wisdom of our father, our pathfinder, the navigator, the pacesetter?


Imagine the sad, embarrasing turn, the sad news in November 2005 of the burning  of parts of his own home in Onitsha during a violent confrontation between Nigeria's police and the MASSOB are entirely unfortunate and condemnable.

Today November 16, in what could have been his 101st birthday,  may I make this toast to our father, the great and unmatched one. Here, to:

The Zik of Africa, master of crafty political game-plans, member of a thousand learned associations, eminent alumnus of Howard, Michigan State, Pennsylvania, and Lincoln Universities, founder of University of Nigeria, Nsukka (my alma mater), father of generations, inimitable wordsmith of euphonious diction and oratorical elegance, poet and politician, statesman and living legend, I thank for illuminating my mind, our collective mind. Even after 101 years, your lineage and works endure. On this your 101st birth date, I rise, again, to propose a toast that  in another 101 years to come,  that the son of my  now 46 months old son Chido Nwangwu II,  by His grace, Chido Nwangwu III,  will also rise to toast to honor you, Zik of Africa, for the plenitude of roles and assorted inspirations you brought to all of us. They will rise to toast to Zik of Africa, as the man who saw tomorrow. Nna anyi  Owelle, nwa Eze Chima, ndeewo!!!

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