BY TONY EDIKE

ENUGU-AN Industrialist, Chief Onwuka Kalu, Sunday urged the Federal Government to re-name the Port Harcourt International Airport, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu International Airport, saying that it was one of the best ways to immortalize the ex-Biafran leader who passed on in London recently.

Chief Kalu, who contested the gubernatorial election in Abia State during the 2003 general elections on on the platform of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, also called on the Federal Government to place the building of a second Niger Bridge on its top priority list, adding that when completed, the bridge should be named after the deceased former presidential candidate of APGA.

Kalu said that the naming of these two national monuments after Ojukwu would constitute a true testimony of the ‘no victor, no vanquished; policy adopted by the then federal military government at the end of the 30-month Nigeria/Biafra war in 1970.

According to him: “There are many ways to immortalize a man of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s stature. One of the many ways would be to place the building of the second Niger Bridge on the top priority list of the Federal Government and naming the bridge after him.

“My advice is that the Federal Government should name a significant monument such as the Port Harcourt Airport after Ojukwu, who was the governor of the former Eastern region, which Port Harcourt was a major part of.

This will be a true testimony to the ‘no victor, no vanquished’ policy of the Federal Government”.

Kalu further suggested the organisation of an annual lecture in honour of the late Ikemba Nnewi, saying this would afford present and future generations an opportunity to review the events before and during the civil war, as well as draw lessons from the conflict, and learn how to avoid a re-occurrence.

He said: “For example, it would be interesting for students of history and economics to learn how Ndigbo survived the economic genocide which was placed on them by the Federal Government when the Biafran currency was cancelled at the end of the war, and every Igbo family was given only N40 (20 pounds at that time) to start life again”.

He said the feat accomplished by  Biafran scientists, and how they did it despite an international embargo, would also be of great interest to Nigerians and the international community.

He described Ojukwu as a hero who was loved by millions of his people over the noble role he played during the civil war, as well as one who spent much of his adult life seeking for the evolution of a better Nigeria.