Ray Ekpu, a former chief executive officer of Newswatch, along with his long time colleagues, Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese and Soji Akinrinade, as well as Ebere Onwudiwe, a professor of  political science, have just published a book on Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the former  Biafran leader who  passed on in November, last year. Ekpu speaks to Anthony Akaeze, assistant editor, on the book and other related issues. Excerpts: 

Newswatch: What motivated you and your friends to write a book on Ojukwu?

Ekpu: It has to do with his role in Nigeria’s history with regard to the civil war. The main documents of the war are in the book. We thought we could deal with those issues by bringing them to the fore so that some of the people who merely read about the war can have those documents. We have there, the declaration of independence by Ojukwu; that’s, his speech at the declaration of the Biafran State on the 30th of May, 1967. We also have the Ahiara Declaration which was the underpinning political existential philosophy of Biafra as seen by Ojukwu.

Then we have Philip Effiong’s speech when he surrendered to Nigeria after Ojukwu left for Ivory Coast on exile. Ojukwu recorded a speech two days before he left; he left the speech behind and the speech was broadcast after he had gone into exile. He also made a speech, a long speech when he was in exile. And then we also have Gowon’s acceptance of surrender by Biafra. And then, on January 15, 1970, Gowon made a major broadcast, which is a broadcast of reconciliation of Nigeria and Biafra. And we also have another speech which Gowon delivered at a conference in the University of Ibadan, and that was the very first time he spoke extensively about Nigeria and the problems that led to the war: the January 1966 coup and others.

Then we have Ojukwu’s big interview which we did in 1992. We published it in two parts in Newswatch but it runs as one subject in the book. It’s the most extensive interview I have seen Ojukwu grant. I think we spent four hours with him, and even though we had done about four or five other interviews with him in the last 20 years, I don’t think that there’s anything more extensive than that whether in terms of talking about Biafra or talking about Nigeria or his relationship with his father and so on. Then we also have articles written by the four of us- Yakubu Mohammed, Dan Agbese, Soji Akinrinade and myself, as well as by Professor Ebere Onwudiwe who served in the Biafran Airforce and wrote his personal account of the war. He was a teenager at the time he joined the Biafran Airforce. Those constitute what you would find in the book.

Newswatch: Is it a commissioned work? Were you paid to do it?

Ekpu: No, no… we just thought we should use the opportunity of his death. There are two reasons why we did it. One, the death of Ojukwu, we believe, marked an era not only in Igboland but in Nigeria because Ojukwu represents the kind of crisis that Nigeria went through to establish itself as a democracy. Just five years after Nigeria’s independence, you had the coup and by some set of fortuitous circumstances, Ojukwu came to the centre of things from being the Governor of Eastern Nigeria to being the Governor General or Head of State of Biafra and that changed the course of Nigerian history. So, for a man like that, he cannot be forgotten in a hurry.

We thought it was important for us to put the war and Ojukwu in proper perspective; proper perspective in quote because people will differ with the perspective and Ojukwu died at a time Nigeria is facing the kind of challenge that it faced in 1966, which drifted into the war. You have people telling people: ‘leave our territory;’ people killing people, which are in a sense, what happened in 1966. Igbos and some other people were killed in some parts of the country and Ojukwu said to them, come back to the East and so on. Now, the Igbo organisation, Ohaneze, is telling Igbos elsewhere to come back to the East. You know, it’s like a replay of what happened in those days and we hope that Nigeria can halt this process. If people from the North are telling people from the South to go back to the South… Infact, the dimension that has been added now is the religious dimension which is really delicate. That of 1966 was merely tribal dimension, arising from the killing of Northern leaders by the Igbo guys who led the coup: Chukwuma Nzeogwu, Emmanuel Ifeajuna and co. Then there was retaliation (coup) on July 29, 1966, in which Igbos were also eliminated and the country drifted and drifted into war.

But this time, there’s a religious dimension added to it which makes it a lot more dangerous, and we thought that the book is coming at a tragically right time for Nigeria because this shouldn’t be happening and all of these are also happening at a time we are just two years away from the centenary of the amalgamation of 1914. In another two years, we would have gone 100 years as a nation combining North and South and yet we seem to be drifting apart when we should have been integrated. I think it’s the wish of all decent Nigerians that, having survived for 98 years and gone through a civil war, we should continue to stay as one. What is happening now is merely a challenge; how we overcome that challenge is for all of us to decide. I’ve heard people say, oh, we can’t remain as one country, we should divide the country. That is not something that I contemplate.

But if Nigerians say, look, we are two different countries, we really can’t work together, let’s meet and agree to go our different ways, it will be a sad day for Nigeria. It will be a sad day because we’ve invested a lot in trying to make Nigeria one.

Newswatch: The book came out not long after Ojukwu’s death. Were there challenges you faced in the course of working on it?

Ekpu: Well, you know, there are always challenges. If you are doing a book, it’s different from just doing a magazine article. The challenge came in cross-checking versions of some of those documents I talked about, versions of speeches made, and the dates and times the speeches were made. We didn’t face any challenge in terms of writing the stuff, giving the calibre of the contributors. We all worked throughout the Christmas holiday.

We accepted the challenge that this book needed to be out at a certain time. We thought also that it will be appropriate to get the book to various parts of the country so Nigerians can begin to think about the country again. It’s not just about Ojukwu but to take in everything that’s going on now and say, what do we do about the country. We fought a civil war. This man who led the Biafran side on the civil war, is dead, the other man who was on the other side, that’s, General Gowon, is alive. Can we find a meeting point so that we don’t have another civil war, whether  tribal or religious war? We don’t need another war of unification. But we need to get the country on the road. If we keep having all these hiccups, violent hiccups, there is no way we can make significant progress,  even with all of the resources that we have — manpower, mineral and what have you. Nigerians are hard working people, very hard working and creative, but, if you have a situation of perpetual instability, you cannot bring out the creativity and that ought to worry us.

Newswatch: Did you imagine yourselves writing the book prior to his death?

Ekpu: No, it didn’t occur to us to think of doing a book on Ojukwu. If it had occurred to us, we could have been working on it since he was hospitalised. But I think, everybody thought, even though he was 78, he could still come out of it. But when the death was announced on November 26, it occurred to us, oh my God, this man is gone.

Newswatch: You had the privilege of interviewing him as a journalist. How would you describe Ojukwu as a person?

Ekpu: We interviewed him several times and it was always a joy, sheer joy to interview Ojukwu, because he didn’t hold anything back. He was a forthright interviewee. Once you met for an interview you can be sure he will open up and he was well spoken. His knowledge had depth and breath, so it was a delight to have a conversation with a man of that nature. We benefited from interviewing him. It was always a good intellectual exchange. He was a truly, well educated man and it showed in his speeches.

The only thing I wish he was able to write is his own version of the book on the war. That would have been his magnum opus. When he brought out Because I am Involved, I was the one who reviewed the book at the public launch. I had thought, before reading the book that oh, this was going to be it, this was his own account of the war but it turned out not to be and I still talked to him a few times that Dim Ojukwu, you have to bring out your own book on the war. But I’ve read in other accounts, I think he also spoke to Newswatch and said he doesn’t want to cause problems for certain people and so on; that’s why he wouldn’t bring out his own account of the war. But I think the country is the poorer for it, he and Gowon should give their own accounts of the war.

Newswatch: Some people would be surprised to see this book at a time they thought you and your three colleagues had gone into retirement; because the news was all over the country that you had all retired. Does it then mean that you just can’t quit writing?

Ekpu: It’s difficult to quit. It’s an addiction I think, for the four of us. It is an addiction and that is why, we had chosen not to do anything else. We merely retired from Newswatch; we didn’t retire from writing or from journalism, and I don’t think it will be a worthwhile sort of life to just retire and say okay, I stay at home and play with my grandson or my grand daughter. I don’t think we have reached that point.

 I think that journalism still needs people of experience, and we are not ready to throw in the towel because intellectual exercise also prolongs your own life as a human being. It’s not just physical exercise, intellectual exercise helps to prolong life. You have to work, to keep yourself going. Make an income, keep your intellect alive, and your body fit. For us, work is a logical necessity.

 Newswatch: And it’s also a way of cementing that bond that has held you four together for long?

Ekpu: Oh, that’s a lifelong partnership. Whether we work here or not, it’s a lifelong partnership. I don’t know where any of us can go without remembering that. Many of us have been together for 40 years or thirty something years, so what more can you want if you have that kind of relationship? You can’t go anywhere else because partnerships are very difficult to sustain, not just in Nigeria but elsewhere and if you have had that kind of partnership that has lasted thirty something, forty years, you can’t wish for more really. We are  brothers, not even friends. We may come from different parts of the country, but we have reached a point that we can’t… we are inseparable. Quadruplets that you cannot separate; that’s what we are.