Most Igbo men born in the ’80s down grew up with shoulders high, taking pride in their tribe’s glowing tributes. We were told how our fathers survived, with spartan spirit, the vengeful hardship visited upon the tribe by Nigeria troops in the 30-month Biafra war. How they bore the pain of defeat valiantly and rose from the rubble of £20 to become stakeholders in our national economy.
The tribe outlived her adversaries and became the envy of other ethnic nationalities. Many in my generation agreed that our people were of “superior” stock. Some held the view that Igbos are jews not just in character but in ancestry — a splinter of the missing tribe of Israel. It was a conviction borne out of eutopic belief not of genetic reality anyway.
We were raised to have a sense of distinctive approach to life as “unique breeds.” But then a certain Nnamdi Kanu arrived and our claim to tribal superiority was intrinsically challenged and deflated.
Disguising as a freedom fighter, he sermonized those with no social capital into Hitleresque crusaders that demystified the tribe. Today, some young Igbo men turned themselves into terror agents against our people. They frighten the day with arsonism and dread the night with brutesome weapons.
These assailants declare house arrests (nicknamed “sit-at-home”) on the entire region any day they please.
Some young Igbos of productive ages became addicts of methamphetamine crystals (mkpuru mmiri).
Moral decadence reigns supreme.
Some of our current politicians across all cadres are bunch of selfish gluttons who have no interest of the zone. The five leprous fingers (in the words of Dr. Osmund Agbo) that constitute the south east governors forum are far cry from what the likes of Dr. Michael Okpala or Chief Sam Mbakwe were in their respective days. They look away while the zone rots.
And what else proves this degeneration of tribal virtues than the incident of obscene feminine thuggery that occurred last Thursday in Anambra state.
What transpired between former Nigeria beauty queen and wife of Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Barr. Mrs. Bianca Ojukwu and Mrs. Ebele Obiano, the immediate past first lady of Anambra state, at the inauguration ceremony of Professor Charles Soludo where the two supposed model women fought dirty, was a reprehensible show of shame!
Both made mess of their statuses and that of their respective husbands.
We know, as biology bore witness, that in moments of provocation, sympathetic nervous system raises blood pressure and heart rate, constricts blood vessels, and dilates the pupils; that governs the “fight or flight” response. Adrenaline known as emergency hormone surges under the condition.
But it is human to control such response. It is a sign of maturity and emotional intelligence to tame the situation and come out unscathed. Though self-control is hard to apply at this point, but when one remembers that one has reputations to protect, one has to adjust accordingly. It is not cowardice, it rather counts for strength.
These two alpha females were defeated by this physiological mechanism. Anger is not sinful. Failure to manage it is. Like christian theology taught: “be angry but do not sin.” These two women of repute had proved they are not worth the honour their statuses command.
Bianca had built for herself enviable reputation over the years. She, as far back as December 1988, having previously emerged winner at Miss Martini, was crowned Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria, but reigned through most of 1989. She also won the Miss Africa 1989 pageant held in Gambia before representing her country at both Miss World in Hong Kong and Miss Universe in Mexico. She achieved greater success when she won Miss Intercontinental that same year, and was named Miss Congeniality at the now defunct Miss Charm International in Russia where she was also a semi-finalist.
In 2011, Bianca was appointed Senior Special Assistant on Diaspora Affairs by President Goodluck Jonathan; and in 2012 (after the death of her husband) she became Nigeria’s Ambassador to Ghana and later Ambassador to the Kingdom Of Spain. In 2016, she received a master’s degree in International Relations and Diplomacy from Alfonso X el Sabio University in Spain. She is now Nigeria’s permanent representative to the United Nations World Tourism Organization.
Her marriage to the Igbo warlord, Ikemba Nnewi, Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, a political associate of her father Chief Christian Onoh (former Governor of old Anambra state), who was thirty years her senior, was ostensibly because it suites her class and fame. Of that marriage, she reportedly admitted, that while she was happy to have found her husband, she would not encourage her daughter to make similar choice of marital engagement.
Her Excellency Mrs. Ebele Obiano doesn’t need introduction too. She had concluded her office as first Lady in grand style irrespective of public opinion on whether her husband performed below expectations of Ndi Anambra or not. Becoming a first lady through eight parallel years divided into two tenures is still a feat in this age when some political office holders extinguishes their wives’ relevance at the slightest sign of insubordination.
Why I had to reel out their sterling profiles is for us to appreciate the enormity of their altercation. Latin phrase had it that “corruptio optima est pessima” (corruption of the best is the worst).
Temperance is one indispensable virtue anyone who makes claim to leadership must possess. It is not optional. It is a sine qua non. Leaders are defined (and rightly so) by their inate ability to control emotions, tolerate outlier attitudes and restrain themselves from impulsive behaviours.
Meanwhile, nothing was more scandalizing than the sight of many Nigerians hailing Bianca for such public show of juvenile delinquency at 54. She was as guilty as her bushwhacker.
Both the assaulter and assaultee desecrated the hallowed pavilion of the government house and tickled our collective sensibility. “The best revenge” according to Marcus Aurelius “is to be unlike him who performed the injury.”
Such barbarism is typical of Nnamdi Kanu’s ‘zoo’ not of descent Igbo land.
Perhaps, Shakespeare was vindicated in their case. He has always been. “Some, were born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” It feels “those that achieve greatness” values it more and manages it better than those who have it thrust upon them.
Both Dim Ojukwu and Willie Obiano’s renowned fame were disesteemed at the opprobrium.
But more to it is the fact that in this era of proliferation of campaigns for gender equality by feminists, while women activists’ push for 50% automatic slot for women inclusion in politics, the onslaught shows that women are not coming to make any difference.
It was also a harsh reminder to those who clamour for a shift from male chauvinism in political leadership to female-dominated one, as panacea to our political instability, that bad leadership is not native to particular gender.
I had written in this space that proponents of “Not Too Young To Run” Act misbelieved that age has anything to do with one’s disposition to lead well. The same fate awaits all these activists canvassing for a legislation for automatic slots to women.
On the night of that ‘corporate’ slapping show, the female DG of Debt Management Office, was on national television defending the sneering disaster of our external debt and how she still supports FG to borrow more even when our debt to revenue ratio is as high as 76%
No particular gender has monopoly of misgivings, but women are currently overtaking men at competitive speed.
May daylight spare us!
✍Jude Eze.
+2348062494912 (mobile)
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ezejudeogechi@gmail.com
