Book Review
Oseloka Obaze*
Sunday June 19, 2005
CHUBA OKADIGBO - A COLLECTION OF WRITINGS
Dr. Chuba Okadigbo
(ISBN 978-33586-0-1-X; New Frontier Publishers, Lagos Nigeria, in Association with the Chuba Okadigbo Foundation, 2004, pp. 356; price not stated)
“Chuba Okadigbo will for long be remembered as the Bach of political discourse and sound bites and the Mozart of Nigerian politics.”
Any one who is lucky enough to have family, friends and followers posthumously publish his or her thoughts and writings, must be worth their onions in the minds of such people. Any Nigerian, who accomplishes that feat, must by the same consideration be legendary. And this, it seems, is the fate of Dr. Chuba William Okadigbo.
CHUBA OKADIGBO - A Collection of Writings is 356-page compendium of Dr. Okadigbo’s work which was published posthumously by the Abuja-based foundation that bears his name. The book is divided into six chapters, namely, politics and power in Nigeria; media encounters; ideology for a new Nigeria; political theoretizing; lest we forget; last thoughts; and the epilogue – the meaning of mass action. Embedded in these pages are some of the most unvarnished, if not audacious political thinking that has come out of Nigeria in recent times. Subtitles such as “Quitting Won’t help Nigeria”; “Igbos have Godly Right to Presidency”; From Utopia to Realism” and “Awo: A Creative and Transformative Leader” offers the reader an unfettered insight into the richly endowed and fertile mind of Dr. Okadigbo.
Okadigbo has been called the master of political sagacity – a philosopher king and a wordsmith. This volume is a telling testimony and affirmation of those designations, despite its seemingly hurried and therefore rather poor typesetting finish. The collection epitomizes the saying “never judge a book by its cover” and in this instance, not by its typeset and formatting.
CHUBA
OKADIGBO - A Collection of Writings
is the work of Dr. Okadigbo, in the form of essays, interviews, speeches and
written discourse. The volume also contains remarks and observations of various
people about Okadigbo, his political work and his brand and style of politics.
These commentaries makes the work wholesome, since it offers an insight to the
man, whom the reader encounters and others may assess only by his glitzy
language and writing style. No greater posthumous tribute or testimony can be
paid to any man, than that by Chief Ebenezer Babatope, who in his preface to
this collection noted, “Certainly, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo (Oyi of Oyi) belongs
to the class of great historical figures, who by their contributions and
achievement, left theirs footprints on the sands of time.”
But Okadigbo’s political acumen and pedigree which are wholly manifest in this collection of his writings had been variously acknowledged, and well before his demise. His one time boss, President Shehu Aliyu Shagari of Nigeria had this to say of Okadigbo in his memoirs, 1979-1983, “Beckoned to Serve”: “Dr. Okadigbo has a bent for political concerns…. Though quite chatty and sociable, he has a canny political bruiser… Chuba could read (their) political opponents minds with the discriminating passion which some men reserve for women and horses and Hausa-Fulani for kola nuts…”
Of Chuba Okadigbo, Comfort Obi, the Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Magazine, once wrote, “He plays with English words. When he starts playing with them, he is a good copy for any journalist. Reason: he makes his point without a blink of the eyelids. And he makes them very convincingly. Problem is, you must be alert all the time to stop Okadigbo before he forgets he is not in a lecture room but fielding questions with a journalist…” These testimonies are again repeated in the blurb of CHUBA OKADIGBO - A Collection of Writings as if to persuade the doubting Thomases that Chuba Okadigbo was not only erudite, but had the gift of gab, which served him well in politics - his chosen field of work – and as an academic, political pundit and a master of elocution and sound bites.
In his sixty one years on earth, Chuba Okadigbo authored of many political treatises. His most notable books include, The Middle Point Between Nature And Spirit, Logic for Black Undergraduates, Time For Change, The Mission of the NPN, Conscienism In African Political Philosophy, Tell the Nation, Power and Leadership in Nigeria and Transition to Transition: A Senate Profile. Peter Isiaka, perhaps, offers the best synoptic insight to the man, Chuba Okadigbo and the impetus and inspiration behind his political writings; “He is that kind of person: no airs, no hang ups, simply free. But Dr. Okadigbo has all those intimidating credentials. Dr. Okadigbo discusses politics like a tested general discussing tactics of war…A philosopher, academician, politician author, publisher…..” Okadigbo, surely, understood the natural existence of the intelligence of lazy man, but would not countenance such a disposition in matters of political dialogue, being politically engaged, meant being politically proactive.
Reader of CHUBA OKADIGBO - A Collection of Writings, will readily find embedded in its different sections, reflections and quintessential commentaries and barbs that could only come from Chuba Okadigbo. In his latter days, he was always characterized by some of those in the Executive Branch on Obasanjo’s Administration as “stubborn” and as “a hardliner”. Such characterization did not faze Okadigbo, but spurred him on. In response to such characterization he offered this irreverent quip: “Lies have short legs which give way to reality and truth after sometime. Against falsehood and untruth, I am a hardliner. For progress and action I am a soft-liner. ” (p. 177) After surveying Nigeria’s political topography and the attending ills, Okadigbo gave a summation of his perspective on Nigeria and the psychological problems bedeviling the nation, when he wrote:
Nigeria is a country without heroes, with nobody to look up to. With a bag of complaints about every national leader, with no quotable quote fr0m any quotable person, with no statue to commemorate any leader and with no ideology or coherent body of thought postulated by any national leader. Hence the drift, the continuing drift in hopelessness, if not nothingness. (p. 44)
In perusing OKADIGBO - A Collection of Writings, one would also easily find that Okadigbo was not one, to shy away from making his point or criticizing an opponent, in a spasm of political correctness or to assuage bloated egos. However, when he criticized or contradicted his interlocutors, he always did so without denigrating their efforts, without being obnoxious, but certainly with some panache and unfailingly with an obvious attention to the pertinence and resiliency of history. This did not mean that Okadigbo did not have his Achilles Heels or that he was infallible. An admirer of his, who was also an honest critic, once wrote these lines about Okadigbo and his bittersweet relationship with President Obasanjo:
The late Senate President Chuba Okadigbo was not only an excellent orator or a respected idealist but also a man of steel and principles. Chuba may have had a Ph.D. in Political Science and may have indeed been an astute political strategist, but in lowering his guard thereafter, he betrayed extreme naivety about the Emperor's character flaws and ultimately set himself up for the sucker punch, which was swift in coming. The rest is now history.
CHUBA OKADIGBO - A Collection of Writings is a fitting tribute to a man who many characterized as the whiz kid and “Socrates” of Nigerian politics. Even if one disliked Okadigbo – and there were many that did- you could not help being fascinated by his gift of gab, which extended to his writing style and commentaries. It is noteworthy, that in writing about the tempestuous 2003 presidential elections, which the Buhari-Okadigbo lost to the Obasanjo-Atiku ticket; Okadigbo did so dispassionately and with the dexterity of a butcher, while braying unapologetically at the ruling PDP’s jiggery-pokery and its licentious manipulation of the electoral process. On this particular matter as in his other commentaries; Okadigbo’s analysis of the Nigerian politics is undertaken with the incisiveness and acuity of an eye surgeon and an artillery officer’s fixation with precision. In an article in The Post Express of 17 December 2000, James Okoroma opined, “One thing no one can take away from Okadigbo is his extraordinary intellect and capacity for esoteric reasoning. His very fertile mind and extraordinary reasoning capability have won him admirers both locally and internationally, to the extent that he is seen everywhere as Nigeria’s most popular politician.”
In needs to be said also, that being a political pragmatist, Okadigbo fully appreciated the concept of wielding power, power sharing, separation of powers and leveraging power to the fullest. He also understood too well, the vagaries of Nigerian politics that imposed great vulnerability on even the most astute politician like himself. Ultimately, he displayed a keen understanding that politics was not always a zero-sum-game and this reality was superbly reflected in his political undertakings and writings. But there was also a flip side: Chuba Okadigbo was a happy hedonist who brought his joy for life to his vocation and proved that political polemics should not be rebarbative.
Those in the Okadigbo Foundation, who thought it wise to put this volume together, have bequeathed to Nigeria’s posterity an invaluable asset of worthy political thinking while immortalizing Okadigbo. Credit for this enterprise, must go especially to Mrs. Margery Okadigbo, Mr. Melville Ebo, once Okadigbo’s student and later his political associate, confidant and adviser and James Okoroma, Okadigbo’s publicist and media point man.
As I read through Okadigbo’s book, and having known him for years, I tried to encapsulate his entire persona. It struck me that his personal and political identikit resembled closely that of the proverbial “old soldier” and more specifically, the description of the Second World War British soldier, to wit:
The Strength of the British Soldier lies in his adaptability, in his obstinacy in the face of adversity, and in a sense of humor that enables him to rise above almost unbelievable hardships and difficulties. His weakness is a lack of imagination. Like the rest of mankind he has the vices of his virtue. That is why he will not take his training seriously.
Surely, Okadigbo manifested various human traits, but he certainly did not lack imagination, be it in substance, sense of theatre, intellectual or in sartorial flamboyance. In politics which was hi natural remit, when all things are considered, Chuba Okadigbo will for long be remembered as the Bach of political discourse and sound bites and the Mozart of Nigerian politics. The book is the provenance, assuming one is required.
---------
*Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). Since 1999 he has been on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. He reviews books strictly as a hobby.