I do not know how to gain access to, and stand aloft the grave of late Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Ikemba of Nnewi, the Biafran proponent and warlord and let his resting soul have a little bite of my tongue.
How could he have worked so hard, as every aspiring emotional thief does, to penetrate the then fortress of erstwhile Governor of Anambra State, Chief C.C. Onoh, brave the elements, step on agitated toes of protective parents who rued the idea of their fragile tenderling getting even an infatuated glimpse of a man old enough to be her father’s elder sibling, moreso being entangled with him in a wedlock that would eternally leave sored and broken hearts, yet he never gave a thought to what fate would befall her after he had got her if he returned to the land of no return, to his ancestors.
Odumegwu Ojukwu ignored all the pleas. We even heard Onoh made recommendations of the finest babes that the whole of Eastern Nigeria could muster to his political ally and brother, yet the agitator for the emancipation of Ndi Igbo declared that he would declare a third civil war (in the eastern region only) where anyone who stood between him and his coveted ‘lolo; then Bianca Onoh, would be gored
The two ‘love-birds’ kept Nigerians turning and tossing on their beds, and till the Ikemba breathed his last, Nigerians never stopped having insomnia over why Bianca would make this ‘fatal’ choice for a soulmate when there were eligible young men all over the world, men whose intellectual clout could be reckoned with anywhere (in case it was the Ikemba’s intelligence that beclouded her senses), and men whose material wealth in terms of earthly fortunes, spoke loud of the ensemble of worldly acquisitions anywhere in the world.
Wherever ‘Biafra’ was mentioned, Bianca became a subject that outweighed the man Ojukwu, himself. Ojukwu became the man who birthed Biafra and ‘ruined’ Bianca! He won her heart, no one could say for sure what trick this ‘old soldier” used, but the argument about whether it was his wealth never scaled ‘second reading in any parliament of public opinion, because the saying that Onoh had “wealth that was stinking enough to keep his daughter sniffing for life!” won the argument.
It wasn’t money, if it were, Bianca would have looked elsewhere. That she could love Ojukwu enough to want to give up her substance for a marital bliss with him was an argument that people sustained with gasping breath. What else would anyone say? That Ojukwu used “charm from Otokoto, Nkisi or other shrines?”
For as long as the controversial conjugal bliss lasted before death did them apart, speculations were rife that Bianca had entered one chance (a ride by conmen) and the beauty queen was oblivious of the world, the close to fifty-something age difference between them didn’t matter, she created and concentrated on her fantasy Island, where everything centred on her fantastic national icon, and between them, they seered three lovely children. She worked hard and tirelessly to ensure her marriage worked, she had to tell the world that she saw something in the ‘Old soldier’ that made her take this terrible risk.
While the romance was on, there were wives of the Ikemba who never ever wanted the press to refer to them as ex-wives and they had grown up children between them and the Ikemba. Infact, at a point, everyone wondered if Bianca wouldn’t be the least in age with Ojukwu’s children. Many of them were, or are, public figures as far as their father’s fame and fortune could sustain it. Bianca, while Ojukwu lived, was the major domo, the matriarch of Ojukwu’s dynasty, and….did she think it would last forever?
Never! Not sooner than the man died that all hell let loose! He had not even been interred to rest with his ancestors when the many sons and daughters of the Ikemba rose in their full might and standing, fuming with the air of off shoots of a warrior, they confiscated every pin and heir loom that belonged to their father, even those that they never had an inkling on how he acquired, and they are making the “ I told you faces” at Bianca, and I wonder if she would now remember her late father, then Governor of Ananbra state, and wishing she had hearkened to his plea that she shouldn’t roll in the hay with Ojukwu?
Though now a Nigerian Diplomat with all the trappings of the office, Bianca Ojukwu now answers to the whims and caprices of Ojukwu’s children and the law enforcement agents/agencies, she now keeps appointments with the law, standing under cross-examination and telling the court the histories behind most of Ojukwu’s wealth and how she was partner in the acquisition of most of the latter day worldly goods. The onus is on her, a former governor’s daughter, a beauty queen of repute, a diplomat, to also prove that she is one of Ojukwu’s wives! She’s bearing witness before the world, telling us why she deserves to have title over her own property!
This is while the Ojukwu off shoots enjoy their liberty over the meat in the storehouse!
It is irksome, particularly when this continues to happen to women every time. It is worrisome that legally made wills, or testaments do not have any meaning to humanity, even to the law, any more. If Ojukwu made a will wouldn’t the administrators just interpret and adjudicate on it without having to subject this ‘poor’ woman to the ordeals of several, unending cross-examinations?
Moreover, why is it she and her children that would have to vacate a property while litigation lasts, while others are at liberty to do what they wish while the matter is still in court?
For crying out loud, is Bianca asking for every property that Ojukwu ever acquired in his lifetime; did she not know he had seered children by other women before she was born? I wouldn’t expect her to be so self-centred and egoistic; she should also respect the rights and privileges of the man’s other family! And for God’s sake, she should stop saying ‘I am his only legal wife! ‘That’s alien to Africa and would she also say her children are the Ikembas only legitimate children? No way!
And the law, on its parts, should be seen not to be pandering to the interest of one side to the detriment of the other. The law is not a respecter of persons! While the stature and position of Bianca Ojukwu may not so much attract the sympathy of women’s human rights activists, it should however attract the sympathy of all right –thinking persons, who know that a labourer is entitled to his or her wages! She has worked, served, nursed and nurtured her family, even the man who she laid down her womanhood for, she is entitled to her gratuity!! The Ojukwus and the judiciary as a whole should end this show of shame and let every family member go to their tents! They should equitably share the ‘gala’ and the ‘booze”. And this public debacle also got me thinking: If Biafra had worked under Ojukwu, what would we all be doing at his demise? Fighting over our inheritance with his children?
