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His generosity ironically seemed to have gone more to other Nigerian children
other than his won. In 1990, he donated the set of buildings adjacent to his
Onuiyi residence in Nsukka to the University of Nigeria. The building
consisted of 20 storey buildings, each
consisting of three floors; 12 bungalows' and appurtenances and two surrounding
parcels of land covering a total of 1.3 hectares and 6037.4 square metres. The
buildings which have served as student hostels since they were put up are
capable of accommodating about 6,000 students. Yet, it was said that Zik
hardly gave
materials things to his children, apart from a good education. His insistence
is that they should fend for themselves. That's the vintage Zik enigma,
Nigeria's spirit-man.
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The Spirit-Man: Zik's persona is enigmatic, full of complex
layers that are
almost impossible to peel away completely to get at the real man
FOR MANY OF THOSE who lived in colonial Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe was a super-man
sent especially to free them from alien rule. Unable to
understand Zik's persona, fables were woven around him. A story has it that as
a child, Zik saw an old woman carrying a heavy load. Moved with pity, he
offered to help her. On reaching her home in the forest, the old woman who was
in fact a
spirit, asked Zik what she could do for him. Zik requested for wisdom and
power. The woman obliged. She cut Zik into bits and boiled the flesh in a big
pot. Later, she magically brought him back to life. On her request, Zik
killed the woman to prevent her from performing the same feat for
others. That explains his legendary source of wisdom and power over his fellow
man.
Another has it that with the magical gift from the old woman of the forest, Zik
managed to extricate Nigeria out of a deadly situation. Ages ago, the Atlantic
Ocean was inhabited by a wicked mermaid who caused the water to overflow its
banks perennially to drown thousands of Nigerians. For a
long time, the people of Lagos prayed for a redeemer. None came. When Zik
learnt of their predicament, he went into the ocean and challenged the wicked
mermaid to a contest. First, Zik changed into a spirit, entered a bottle and
then came out. Then he dared the mermaid to do the same. The mermaid quickly
changed into a spirit and entered the bottle. But before it could come out,
Zik corked the bottle and took it away. Since then the Bar Beach has been
given less trouble. The moral of the fable was that if Nigerians annoyed the
politician too frequently, he could release the mermaid to torment Lagosians
again. Could if be that he had actually released the
mermaid to cause the recent flooding of parts of Victoria Island?
A figure representing the mami-wata mermaid of the
Igbo- and Ibibio-speaking people of West Africa.
Even if these myths evoke laughter there is a sense in which even those close
to Zik helped to elevate him to legendary proportions. With years, however,
the man became situated more and more in an earthly context.
To Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Ikemba
Nnewi, Zik was the indefatigable fighter for freedom and equality. As he later
saw him up close:
"At independence, he cut a rather tragic figure. He was to met the symbol of a
Nigeria that would have been but was not." As leader of secessionist Biafra, the former warlord disagreed with the
Owelle's politics of compromise which Ojukwu believed,
left the Igbo naked.
Adeniran Ogunsanya who grew from just in admirer as a boy in King's College,
Lagos, when he used to sneak out to listen to public lectures delivered by Zik,
to a political associate saw the late elderstatesman as an embodiment of
"all the virtues
a man of the people can have." He listed these to include Zik's respect for the opinion of others, charisma
and uncompromising nationalism.
He cited an occasion when he, Ogunsanya presided over a meeting in which the
Owelle was in attendance. According to him, he was overwhelmed by admiration
when Zik, with the greatest humility called out and
said:
"Mr Chairman, can I have your permission to say one or two things?" Ogunsanya reflected:
"Can you imagine Zik saying 'Mr Chairman' to a little boy like me?"
Even those who were opposed to Zik politically spoke of him with awe and in
superlatives. As an opponent, Kingsley
Mbadiwe wrote that Zik was like a god when the colonialists were administering
Nigeria.
"His orders," according to Mbadiwe,
"were feared by everybody, including the police." On his person, Mbadiwe noted that Zik had what he described as
"a varied nature. But he was more patient than myself, perhaps accountable by
age difference,
but his patience can be overtaxed and when he wants to fight, he fights like a
wounded lion." According to Mbadiwe, Zik had a messianic outlook like Mahatma Gandhi of India
in certain respects. But unlike Gandhi who said he was the light and the way,
Zik only showed the light
for people to find the way.
Despite the mythic heights to which he was raised, Zik was nothing if not
pragmatic, always conscious of his limits and ever eager to extract all that
was possible from that limited horizon. Even though his nationalist endeavours
contributed immeasurably to Nigeria's independence, he knew how to make the
best out of his loss of the
prime ministership to Abubakar Tafawa Balewa in 1959. During his swearing-in as
governor-general in November 1960, Zik quoted Douglas Malloch rather tellingly:
"If you can't be a sun, be a star." As he saw it:
"My stiffest earthly assignment is ended and my major
life's work is done. My country is now free and I have been honoured to be its
first indigenous head of state. What more could one desire in life?"
Much more if the opportunity availed itself. Thus in 1979, he made for the
hustings again when he saw that the post of first executive president of
Nigeria
ought just to be within his reach. He failed. He tried again in 1983 and
failed again - more disastrously. So incensed was he with what he saw as the
barefaced rigging of the 1983 elections by the ruling party that literally
swore, quoting Proverbs (11:21) to express his faith that surely,
"the wicked shall not go
unpunished." Three months later, the military struck, throwing many of the architects of
Zik's defeat into detention and forcing others into self-exile for 10 years.
Zik's capacity to forgive was also legendary. In 1989 when the hoax over his
purported death made rounds thus giving him the distinction of one of the very
rare
persons to read of his own obituary while yet alive, he readily forgave R.B.K.
Okafor and Mbadiwe, the pair who played major roles in selling his
"death" story to the media.
Even as a public man, his private life was shrouded in mystery. He married
Flora Ogboegbunam in
1936 when he was 32 years. Between them, they had one daughter and three sons.
Chukwuma, his first son, is a diplomat, while Chukwuemeka is a businessman.
Not much is known about Zik's children.
Apart from the occasional appearance at state occasions with her husband as
president, Lady Flora was hardly seen in
public and less even known of her. From 1966 when Zik stopped being Nigeria's
president to 1983 when she died, Lady Flora could have passed for cypher in the
consciousness of Nigerians. And although Zik later re-married Uche and had
more children by her, what sort of father he was did not enter into the
conscious of his compatriots.
Zik himself hardly wrote or said anything about family life, and certainly not
his own. There was no sign that he was close to his kids, especially those of
his late wife. After his death May 11, only his half sister, Obiageli Ifejika,
made one or so utterances concerning his burial, Zik's first
son arrived four days after his father's death.
Reported by Jaiyeola Ajasa in TheWeek May 27, 1996.
