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Just as many citizens looked to start November on a high note news came through that Chief Mbazulike Amaechi, a fighter for our country’s independence, member of the defunct radical Zikist Movement and our country’s first Minister of Aviation had passed on. Suddenly, for many across the land, excitement and hope turned to gloom, especially for those who are aware of what the late icon stood for in life and continuous progressive development of our country.
Mbazulike’s transition at this time was painful, neither because the man loved by many departed nor that he didn’t live to full old age. Rathee, his demise was touching and regretful for the very simple reason that inspite of Chief Mbazulike Amaechi ‘s sacrifices and contributions to national development, his pre-eminence in the country’s political firmament, the nation he loved so much for which he gave his youth and his all, disappointed him in return on many fronts. The leadership in various dispensations showed him great disrespect and of all, the Buhari administration appears to have been the one that gave the nationalist the worst to chew, swallow and digest. It troubled his body and soul to great limits.
This is not insinuating he died from this cause, no but in old age he wasn’t a happy man. He couldn’t believe that he could not get concessions or deference made to his person, given the height he attained and his enormous sacrifices to get Independence for the country. Severally, the old man chased the President to different fora asking for political solution to the quest for secession, to issues associated with arrest, detention and release of Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and then acceptance and better treatment for Ndigbo within a united Nigeria. The thing here is that Mbazulike Amaechi got a hearing but never got one result before he died last week. Failure was the most painful experience for him. It made certain commonplace perspectives very clear to him.
He definitely died a very sad man. Beyond the question of secession and the attendant highhandedness with which the authorities have approached the issue, Mbazulike Amaechi has given interviews where he bemoaned in very clear terms the terrible state of the country today as it has turned out to be currently. We heard him insist the development and achievements so far are far from the vision the founding fathers had at the time of independence. He was emphatic the successive generations of the leadership class that took power from them veered off the vision of a strong, united, progressive country which dreamed about before we got independence.
Mbazulike lamented disunity and marginalization of component parts of what ought to be a federation and ran in the best tenets of federalism. Of course his voice rang out on deterioration of institutions and infrastructure. He was on record to have said that souls of the founding fathers would be turning in their graves if they could see from the great beyond what the succeeding leaders have made of our country despite abundance of natural and human resources. A man that should have been happy he lived very long to see the country he fought grow and make progress rather spent far greater hours of later hours in limbo lost in thoughts.
Should Mbazulike, a man who gave his all that it might be well with his country and her people have been treated the way our government did to him? The answer is capital no. History shows us that countries that progressively grew into nation-states built institutions in human and material terms. From humanistic angle those societies nurtured and celebrated personalities whose life, values, words, activities and political philosophy served and serve as moderating influence, guide, pride of country and philosophy of governance and power management generally.
Many Europeans go to South Africa just to see the grave of late Nelson Mandela. Imagine if his country destroyed the myth surrounding his personality. China has always been a great player in world civilization but none will deny it was Mao Se Tung who gave that society the quantum leap into the centre of modernity. He didn’t have to die before he was celebrated, he was alive, hale and healthy when the next generation took over the reins of power. The change never stopped leaders from drinking from Mao’s rich experiences. Every intervention he made got a hearing and brought results. France till tomorrow revers Charles de Gaulle.
Today there are statues all over that country in his honour.
In Britain, Winston Churchill after his first foray in power was termed stupid and frivolous on account of his indulgences, yet for his excellent acquittals in delicate power situations the society kept him in honour and it was precisely for such treatment he became very useful when during the Second World War, Hitler leading the German army came close to overrunning Great Britain. Today, not only British people but all of us take quotes from Winston Churchill. Imagine if the leadership rubbished him on human distractions. After reading this one person will still quote Winston Churchill in one form or another. How many of us still remember what intellectual giant, Zik of Africa, Tafawa Balewa, erudite and foresighted Chief Obafemi Awolowo and the rest of our heroes stood for, said let alone did for us and by us for the benefit of entire humanity. But we love George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Tragedy of a country.
Mbazulike is dead, it was bound to happen some day, that is the way of all mortals. We only pray to be aged and to have rich humanitarian works to our accounts, this is really the take home. Good thing in the case in question is that Mbazulike came, saw, envisioned and understood the task of his era and discharged the mission adequately. He was a freedom fighter for which reason he was nearly killed. He contested and won election into federal parliament and he served the country as its first minister of aviation. He worked too for the emancipation of the black man. He was concerned about the post-effects of slavery, the challenge of his time which was colonization and mental slavery which followed foreign rule.
Mbazulike as minister was not an armchair public servant, he was not just very idealogical, he was activist in orientation and practical in actions. He went beyond routine prescriptions, a style we recommend for today’s public servants. He had his person fully into liberation fights, for example in colonial struggles in the Southern African region. Perhaps, there would not have been a Nelson Mandela many later came to know if Mbazulike did not aid and abate Mandela’s escape from South Africa when the Apartheid regime had resolved to assassinate him at the introduction of armed struggle in the fight for independence. Mandela was housed by Mbazulike for six months.
When everything ended, Mandela became larger than life but Mbazulike returned to a corner in his village where nobody except his children may have provided little succour. This is our pattern, a very ugly, distasteful style of doing things. Some of us have heard people parrot the John Kennedy quote, a late former president of America’s, “Don’t ask for what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country” without properly situating the context. It would seem from the statement that patriotism just grows from nothing or that it is an inate gifting. No, patriotism flows from what the system offers her citizens, for which they should in turn be ready to pay the supreme sacrifice to keep the enclave well and running.
Despite vestiges of slavery, foundation of America›s state fundamental principles is in welfare. A poor citizen in America will definitely have basic things to survive very well and to execute challenges of parenting. America is the bastion of capitalism but its social security network is second to none of. The country doesn’t just mouth “rule of law”, nobody, government inclusive can wake up and begin to unduly molest a citizen. Not that it doesn’t happen but when it does it is promptly seen for what it is: an abberation that should never be condoned.
This is what Mbazulike envisaged, which he never got till he passed on. It was more truamatising to be alive and see a court quash charges against Nnamdi Kanu and to see the government take the option of branding him security risk rather than releasing him. That decision the told and still tells the stoory of a country of different classes of people. It also signposts high possibility of a country that can be lost. In this midst of these, Mbazulike died. He died a very sad Nigerian. He left not very sure if he was truly a nationalist. The country he fought and sacrificed for gave him the backside when it mattered. At a time he desired to cement his place in the consciousness of his people our leaders pulled off the legs of the platform on which he was standing.
It was inevitable he would fall. He fell off and the fall turned out to be fatal. The man died. Yes, he died. He returned home carrying a big burden. Nobody is sure if in death we and governments will be compassionate enough to restore his memory to some level of decency, beyond vain speeches that often lack soul because they don’t come from the heart. Is it possible we would find courage to even give him a befitting farewell funeral.
What happens to the people he left behind? Are they gainfully employed? Would there be resolve to give them jobs? His memory? What about big issues he engaged with? Secession and political solution. Or would it be a case of Igbophobia and defeat during the Civil War and the desire to beat them to a state of total hopelessness and loss of dignity. May the soul of the departed find rest we denied him in Nigeria. Amen!
