PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, acknowledged the contributions of the late former Biafran warlord, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu towards the unity of the country describing him as “a rare patriot and humanist.”

Among the several stories that have been written about Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, the piece I found particularly compelling was an archive interview republished after his very unfortunate death on November 26, 2011. Asked how he would like to be remembered, Ojukwu’s reply was poignant: “I would like to be remembered as a statesman; not just as a rebel leader.”

The Chief Judge of Imo State, Hon. Justice Benjamin Njemanze, who spoke in impeccable Owerri dialect, went philosophical in his tribute. He did not say much but went down memory lane. He wondered why some of the people, who betrayed him during the war are today pretending to be aggrieved by his demise. He wished Ojukwu well as he journeys back to his Creator.

Monday, February 27, 2012, started with a strong but not violent wind. This gradually snowballed into an early morning rain that started at about 3.05am in Owerri. The rain became heavier and poured till about 4am.

Names and titles are very symbolic. Names and titles that are ascribed to things and individuals often times go long ways in determining the character and structure that such entities turn out to be. And so it was for late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, defector Igbo leader, General of the People’s Army and leader of Biafra.

There was an event that happened during the Abacha Constitutional Conference of 1994/1995 that many may have forgotten and which nevertheless showed Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu as a compulsive fighter against injustice and oppression.

The death of Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu is a low point for all of us who are gathered here today. As we mourn his passing, we must not be lost on the significance of his immensely active and trail-blazing life. For living a worthy life that positively touched so many in our land, we must, as we mourn, also celebrate his life.

THE birth of the man, known much later as Ikemba in Zungeru (present day Niger State) was a remarkable event. Even more remarkable was the arrival of Sir Louis Phillip Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the then richest man in Nigeria in his Rolls Royce, to take him away to Lagos.

THE demise of Chief Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu may have signalled the beginning of an era, given that the question of who succeeds him as Igbo leader would probably not be answered in a short while.

THE late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu was my maternal uncle. My father’s mother who hails from Nnewi is from his kindred. She was married to Chief Hyacinth Ezennia Ojukwu from Awka Etiti. Dim Emeka Ojukwu, an icon was a dogged fighter of inestimable value.

EXACTLY 430 days after he was flown out in coma to a London Hospital for intensive medication and 91 days after his demise, the remains of late elder statesman and defunct Biafra Republic Leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, was flown back to Nigeria, yesterday, to a rousing reception and ocean of tributes.

GARDEN-City Boy: Strangely, Modibbo Kawu sees poverty as a kind of virtue to be rewarded by the Federal Government. This Islamic Hausa/Fulani Robin Hood might as well ask for compensations for leprosy, river blindness, polio, sleeping sickness, tuberculosis and such other diseases and, most of all, for indolence and almajiri. Already he is asking for the President to reward murderers and criminals.

IN this world, most people are not famous at all. Some people’s fame is ephemeral, some are famous for 5 minutes and are hardly remembered again. Most persons are not remembered at all a year after their corpse is interred. Remembrance becomes enduring only when one’s life’s work has relevance for many future generations.

The 2011 general elections that claimed many of the corps members that participated as adhoc staff, put government on its toes as people intensified the call for the scrapping of the scheme.

It is an irony that Nigeria, the sixth largest exporter of oil, the largest oil producing country in Africa, is also host to over 100 million people living in poverty, according to statistics released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) recently.