This script titled: IN IBUSA THE KING GOES HOME TO ETERNITY SITTING – Tribute To One Of The Greatest Sons Ibusa is penned down by a University Don, Nwanwkwo Tony Okoboshi Nwaezeigwe, PhD, DD Institute Of African Studies/ Department Of History & International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria ( Director, Nigerian Civil War & Genocide Research Network / Genocide African International, Odogwu Of Ibusa Clan, Delta State, Nigeria.
Let us read his painstaking tribute:
” In Ibusa the King goes home to eternity sitting in majesty. He sits majestically on his throne as he had always done.
He does not go to the revered land of our Ancestors—the unseen but inevitable land where every one of us must go one day placed flat on his back facing sky like the ordinary citizen. He goes home sitting in dignity, the sign of his exalted position in our land.
His whitened frame reminding us of the purity of the life he lived, the purity of the Spirit of our Ancestors that guided the exalted life he lived and, the purity of the life we the living are enjoined to live.
In the olden days before the emergence of the Whiteman he never travelled home alone; for the King does not walk solo. Such journey was customarily accompanied with a retinue of aids both living and dead. Thank God for the civilization of the Whiteman.
Today I solemnly pay my unreserved customary homage to one of the greatest sons Ibusa has ever sired in the Modern Age—Obi (Prof) Patrick Chike Onwuachi, Obi-Nze, Oza ji Ani-Igbuzo, formerly Professor of Anthropology at Howard University, USA, formerly Director-General, Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), formerly President-General, Ibusa Community Development Union (ICDU); an enigmatic Pan Africanist and African-American Civil Rights Activist of the 1950s and 1960s, the intellectual match-box that ignited the FESTAC ‘77 Cultural Conflagration in Black Africa, the proud scion of Ogwo lineage—the customary custodians of our dissolved monarchy whose exiled kinsmen now live with up-beat resignation to fate in the Petite Ville of Ejeme-Aniogo, the Obuzo Ibusa never had, the pride of Whiteman’s knowledge and intellectual colossus both in life and death; the proud Ogbuu—cult warrior of Igbuzo Obodo Dike-Ogu—the land of warriors, Isu Mba Ogu—the Isu Clan of Warriors, Ndi Isu fu Ogu Ju Nni—the Isu Clan who saw war and refused to eat until victory was achieved; the whirlwind of Ekumeku Resistance of our forefathers against the British invaders; the land of the large-hearted, of principled, fearless and energetic warriors of the Modern Age—a people famed for their unrivalled accommodation of strangers in their midst; a land where strangers chose to be buried on their death rather than be taken to their ancestral hometowns; yet not without the inclusive character of an all encompassing society caked and iced diligently with the good, the bad and the ugly, for as the our people say, “Ani a di a di ma ngwele adihoa”—no land exists without the presence of the lizard.
Today I pay my undiluted customary homage to you as a proud son would do to his Benevolent Guardian Ancestors which you have turned out to be.
The news of the cessation of your heart-beat had come to me with a thunderous shock to which I wept profusely without someone to comfort me.
The three-day action-packed festive mood of celebration penultimate your final exit saw me actively in my high-point of performance as Odogwu-Igbuzo—the Field General of Ibusa Traditional Armed Forces, yet right deep in my heart I was down-cast.
I imagined what would become of your ever boisterous traditional compound after your exit from Mother-Earth, for beyond your throng of proud and energetic lionesses there was no glimpse of a lion of your kind around and readily prepared to step into your warrior shoes.
Today my fears are not only manifest but compounded; for whenever I passed through your imposing and once boisterous compound, once regarded as a royal haven to most of us and saw the high state of its desolation I wept with unimaginable profusion in my heart.
Most often I tried to keep my face off the compound whenever I drove past, but it was impossible to do so.
For how would I so quickly forget the very compound where I once ran to for intellectual refuge, for the sumptuous mastery of a ‘connubiality’ of ancient and modern science of knowledge, and where I had the privilege of meeting those who ordinarily I should not have met on my own?
For once I began to imagine what would become of me after my exit from this Mother-Earth in the same sense and, began to fathom the vanity of the life we live today; the vanity of all we labour ceaselessly to accumulate in knowledge and wealth; the vanity of the mansions we build; of the cars we drive; of the food we eat; and of the beauty of the women around us.
And here I find myself in total agreement with the words of the Biblical Preacher in the Book of Ecclesiastes that “Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all [is] vanity.”
The words of the Preacher, son of King David soberly bring me to the later words of Arthur James Balfour that: “The energies of our system will decay, the glory of the sun will be dimmed, and the earth, tideless and inert, will no longer tolerate the race which has for a moment disturbed its solitude; man will go down into the pit, and all his thoughts will perish.”
So as I mourn and celebrate your exit as well I wittingly reflect on my inevitable time of exit as ordained by my Creator of which no man can alter.
For in the solemn words of our people, “Ubosi onye kwa mmadu ka o kwa onwea”— a man celebrates his death the very day he celebrates someone’s death.
If your uterine sons and daughters do not believe you are alive and living where you are presently, I, your proud god-son Odogwu Nwankwo Tony Okoboshi Nwaezeigwe do.
For I strongly believe in the efficacy of our Benevolent Ancestors, as do the proud and devout adherents of the Roman Catholic Christian Faith to their Saints and Blessed Ones, believing as the Igbo literary icon Chinua Achebe rightly put it, that “the land of the living was not far removed from the domain of the ancestors.” Your occasional appearances to me in dreams confirm this thesis of our pristine cosmology.
I salute you today remembering those days of your long and tireless hours of theatrical tutorials and display of your consummate knowledge and intelligence in Whiteman’s science of understanding combined with your deep-seethed proud attachment to our forefathers’ time-honoured and tested customs and tradition, which were often laced with occasional melodramatic jokes— such that possess the ability to trip-off an angry housewife towards the bosom of her waiting husband; your characteristic verbose grammatical innuendos in the manner of the Great Zik of Africa that often reminded us of your tortuous journey to the land of George Washington, of Abraham Lincoln and Booker T. Washington in search of the Golden fleece; occasions which were readily graced with the sumptuous presence of your popular and exclusively distilled Mkpokiti Mystical Gin with its mystically infused bundle of tied medicinal roots we knew not how it came about, all pointing to the unexplored mysteries of our Ancestors.
You were there for me always notwithstanding our momentary disagreements on trivial issues; you stood solidly by me at the most inauspicious and trying periods of my initiation into the Ogbuu Warrior Cult of Our Great Land all through to the ultimate throne of Odogwu-Igbuzo; your support for my maternal Uncle—Ikwelle Paul Onochie the Okpala-Isi of Ikwelle Warrior Royal Family of Ibusa and customary custodian of Ikenga-Oha Igbuzo as the authentic Ikwelle of Ibusa legally and customarily installed according to the customs and tradition of our land was immovable.
Even your enemies both within your immediate family circle and the wide Ibusa acknowledge your striking insurmountable qualities as a dedicated and patriotic son of Ibusa.
But they loathed you just for no other reason than their disparaging inert primitive jealousy painted in odious and uncanny colours of inbred clannish antagonism.
Like some of my opponents would often confront me to say, “Odogwu we know you are a good man, principled and better qualified for the title, but the manner with which you went after the title was what we did not like.”
But the fundamental question which such people could not answer is, how best could I have ascended the throne of Odogwu-Igbuzo except by the fulsome support of my people—my immediate Traditional Constituency—the Great Anyalaobum Sub-Clan of Ibusa, the Umu-Ishite Nwe Ani customarius par excellence, the hereditary custodians of the Ikwelle-Warrior kingship, of the IKenga-Oha Warrior Cult Deity, of Ogbuu Warrior Cult Society, of Ifejioku-Oha Igbuzo, of the original title to Ani-Igbuzo—Ani Ishite na Ikenga currently located at their traditional Nkata land; the original custodians of Odogwu-Igbuzo title; those who have the customary right to Uge-Mmanya in common with the rights of the Okpala nwe Mbana; the sole right to drink with the left hand in public gathering as with human skulls in olden days—exclusive then to the Great Warrior Class of our land—those who had returned victorious from wars armed with the booty of human heads; the land of Odogwu Okwugbea—the liberator of Isu Mba Ogu from the Political Tenancy of the Great Benin Empire; those who would sing and dance to the ecstatic martial sound of their Okanga-Warrior drums proudly uttering: “Onye si anyi a gana, anyi a gaa?”—who dare said we should not pass through; we have passed.
I was called to assume the onerous role of Odogwu-Igbuzo by my people at a time I had no steady job—having been dismissed as a Lecturer at the Department of History and International Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka by the fiat of the Head of State and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria General Abdulsalami Abubakar.
I had no wife at the time, even as I continue searching—having been separated from my wife penultimate our eventual divorce.
I had no personal house of my own. Yet my own people invited me from the midst of those who had money by definition of wealth to assume the task of defending their ancestral and time-honoured legacy.
They supported me with a collective oath never to abandon me in the struggle; they spent their money, sacrificed their time, and risked their individual lives and collective reputation just to make me stand firmly as the Odogwu they would be proud of.
When my opponents in Ibusa came after me, they stood firm for me.
When the Police came after me they stood by me unshakably. And when it became a matter of the court of law they all chested out.
I could remember the first day of my seclusion in the initiation process when the Nigeria Police arrested me.
Immediately the entire Anyalaobum women mobilized and trooped to Ibusa Police Station and warned the Divisional Police Officer in-charge that they had not come to demand for my release but that they had come only to warn him that on no account should I be made to sleep in the Police Station or any other roof outside my father’s house under my condition.
I was immediately asked to sit under the shady tree in the Police Station, and by evening asked to go home and continue with my initiation process.
The big question here is why can’t I be willing to sacrifice the much I can for these people called my people, and then extend the same spirit of sacrifice to my town, and then the nation called Nigeria, for it is the same umbilical cord which links me to Anyalaobum that links to Ibusa and thence the nation?
Today even in my present trials the great majority of my people and in general the good majority of Isu Mba Ogu still maintain their implicit confidence in me; not because I am wealthy, for money I have none; not because I am the most educated, because by the high standard of intellectualism in Ibusa I stand at the base level.
But I am acceptable to my people because of what I am and choose to remain as a person.
Those who oppose me today and wish I was already dead could only be found among the class of people with the pedigree of publicly defined con-men gangsterism—those who believe my opposition to criminal pursuit of vainglorious wealth as an obstacle to their continued orgy of defamation of the character of Ibusa as the land of internet-fraudsters.
Among this group could also be found those hankering to become Odogwu-Igbuzo while I am still alive. But who can overturn what God has ordained?—that I will live to a very ripe old age.
This is the fundamental reason I celebrate Obi (Prof) Patrick Chike Onwuachi today, much in the same way I would celebrate the likes of Chief Lawrence Ashikodi—Aka Okwute Otaba-Igbuzo, Dr. John Asikabulu Anaza—Owelle-Igbuzo, Chief Willy Ukadike Ikolodo—the fulsome Uwolo-Igbuzo and the most radical father of all—Chief Patrick Okolie—Oshia Adu Nwaokuku Ogwu, Ochuba-Dike Osha—Igbuzo.
These were men who rose to prominence in Ibusa not on account of their wealth, intellectual knowledge, or political attainments, but on their tested unquestionable characteristic principle, inert patriotism, selfless dedication of what they are and have, and undaunted willingness to sacrifice their reputations to the progress of their town.
I am therefore under no constraint to pay my unreserved homage to one of the best brains Ibusa ever had in an era when intellectualism was regarded as a wrestling trophy from the proverbial land of the spirits.
Obi Igwe! Obi Igwe!! Obi Igwe!!! Obi Nze Agu! Obi Nze Agu!! Obi Nze Agu!!! Oza Ji Ani Ogbuu Ikalika! Oza Ji Ani Ogbuu Ikalika!! Oza Ji Ani Ogbuu Ikalika!!! Okpala-Onwuachi Agana Omogwu! Okpala-Onwuachi Agana Omogwu!! Okpala-Onwuachi Agana Omogwu!!!
I salute you with great and unrestricted humility, with sublime reverence without the least equivocation, and with the consciousness of your life of unimaginable inspiration, the trado-intellectual mentorship I was privileged to acquire from you, and the greatest of all, your mandamus to continue in the struggle for the emancipation of our people from a leadership characterized by reckless debauchery and pitiless oppression of the masses.
Continue to play your noble and exalted role as one of our notable Benevolent Ancestors as do those before you. At the appropriate time as designed by no man but God Almighty we will be with you”.
