Showing posts with label Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye - Journalist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye - Journalist. Show all posts

Friday, June 22, 2012

Alleged Plagiarism: Dike Drags Two UNIPORT Professors To Court

With the dust raised by his suit against the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN), Mr. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, whom he accused of grossly violating his intellectual property rights by extensively plagiarizing his work in two public lectures he (Sanusi) gave at two Nigerian universities still heavy in the air, Victor Dike, a Nigerian-born United States-based academic is in court again.   

























Victor Dike

This time, Dike who is of the School of Engineering & Technology, National University (Sacramento Center) Sacramento, California, has dragged two Nigerian professors, Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle, of the Department of Economics, University of Port Harcourt, to court for plagiarism.   


The suit (No. FHC/PH/CS/154/2012) which was filed on Dike’s behalf by his attorney, Onyinye Obiaju, came up for mention before Justice L. Akanbi of the Federal High Court 1, Port Harcourt, on June 12, 2012.  But Professors Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle were absent in court. Consequently, the court gave an order that the defendants be served with notice of the next hearing date which is November 6, 2012.






































In the statement of claim signed by his counsel, E.U. Chinedum Esq., Prof Dike avers that he is the original author of the article:  Corruption in Nigeria: A New Paradigm for Effective Control” published in the AFRICAN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, and later republished in the NIGERIA ECONOMIC SUMMIT GROUP (NESG) – Economic Indicators (2003) July-September 2003, Volume 9, No.3 (p.32-45), under a new title, “Corruption in Nigeria: Understanding and Managing the Challenges.” This article, he claims, was copied verbatim by the defendants and published as their own work in the JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT VOLUME 6 NO 1, JUNE, 2008, under the heading, “Corruption and Economic Growth: A Survey of Three Institutions In Nigeria,” without properly acknowledging him as the original author.  

Although in a letter entitled “Alleged Case of Plagiarism” dated January 21, 2012, the first defendant (Prof Steve O. Tamuno) on behalf of himself and the second defendant (Prof Needorn Richard Sorle) apologized to Prof Dike for copying his work without properly acknowledging him, the plaintiff was not satisfied with that apology as the defendants had failed to retract the same article from the internet as demanded by him.  Moreover, the plaintiff avers that his credibility has been called to serious question as his articles are no longer regarded highly by readers since their discovery that the very opinions he expressed have also been rendered verbatim ad literatim in the work of another person. Due to this incident, he claims, readers who had held him high esteem before now are beginning to doubt whether he is indeed the author of articles ascribed to him. This has caused him undue embarrassment, pain and stress.







University of Port Harcourt
He is therefore asking the court to declare that Profs Steve O. Tamuno and Needorn Richard Sorle plagiarized his work and breached his copyrights.

He also wants a perpetual injunction restraining the defendants from citing the publication in the JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT (Volume 6 No. 1, JUNE, 2008) entitled “CORRUPTION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH: A SURVEY OF THREE INSTITUTIONS” as their original work.

He is equally asking for an order mandating the defendants to retract immediately the said article from the public and the University of Port Harcourt website.

He also wants the court to mandate the defendants to send him a written apology which must also be published in at least one national newspaper and in addition pay him the sum of N27 million as damages and the cost of the suit.

It will be recalled that on Monday April 23, 2012, a Federal High Court in Abuja, had given orders that the CBN governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, be served with a writ of summons filed by Prof Dike who had alleged that Sanusi had breached his copyright by copying his work without acknowledging him in two convocation lectures he (Sanusi) had given at the Igbinedion University, Okada, and Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University, Bauchi.




Professor Ruqqayatu Rufai,
Nigeria's Education Minister

Commenting on these cases, a Lagos-based public affairs analyst said that since the matters are still in court, he would reserve his comments until rulings are given. He, however, sees what is happening as “a very positive and heartwarming development which would certainly trigger some reactions that would aid the process of sanitizing the nation’s intellectual community. People would now be more careful.  Dike is pursuing these two cases, involving Sanusi and the two UNIPORT professors, because the materials he is alleging were copied from his work can be accessed on the internet; you can then imagine what happens with the countless books that university teachers and many other people are churning out each day, and at every corner of Nigeria for our children and the unsuspecting public to read. It is a sad development. The media should keep these cases in the limelight; I am particularly interested in how they would be resolved. This is a healthy development, with far-reaching implications for the nation’s educational system.” 


RELATED POST

Dike Sues Nigerian CBN Governor Sanusi For Plagiarism



Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Nobel Prize Amounts Reduced

The Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation announced in Stockholm on Monday a 20% reduction in the amounts given to Nobel Prize winners.  Consequently, the 2012 Nobel Prize winners will each go home with 8.0 million Swedish Kronor (equivalent to USD 1.1 million based on the current exchange rate instead of the SEK 10 million or $1.4 million previous winners had received). This is the first time the value of the prize has been reduced since the 63 years it has existed. 

There will also be a drastic reduction in the size and nature of the Nobel Prize annual banquet. In a statement in Stockholm on Monday June 11, 2012 after its meeting, the Nobel Foundation said it regards the measures it is taking as necessary “in order to avoid an undermining of its capital in a long-term perspective.”  
The Foundation's statement is reproduced in full below:
The Nobel Foundation 
Nobelprize.org

---------------------------------
Press Release
June 11, 2012


At its meeting on June 11, 2012, the Board of Directors of the Nobel Foundation set the amount of the 2012 Nobel Prizes at SEK 8.0 million per prize, at today's exchange rate equivalent to USD 1.1 million. This implies a lowering of the prize sum by 20 per cent. The Nobel Foundation regards this as a necessary measure in order to avoid an undermining of its capital in a long-term perspective.

One of the most important tasks of the Nobel Foundation is to safeguard the economic base of the Nobel Prize. The capital left behind by Alfred Nobel must therefore be managed in such a way that it will be possible to award the Nobel Prize in perpetuity, while guaranteeing the independence of the prize-awarding institutions.


















(L-R) Queen Silvia of Sweden, Princess Madeleine
of Sweden, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Prince
 Carl Philip of Sweden and Crown Princess Victoria
of Sweden during the Nobel Foundation Prize 2008
Awards Ceremony at the Concert Hall  on December
10, 2008 in Stockholm, Sweden. ( Source: Pascal Le
Segretain/Getty Images Europe)

The decision to lower the prize sum, from SEK 10.0 to 8.0 million, is related to the assessment that the Board of Directors makes today of the potential for achieving a good inflation-adjusted return on the Nobel Foundation's capital during the next several years. Another part of the picture is that during the past decade, the average return on the Foundation's capital has fallen short of the overall sum of all Nobel Prizes and operating expenses. The costs of the Nobel Foundation's central administration and the Nobel festivities are therefore being reviewed.

"The Nobel Foundation is responsible for ensuring that the prize sum can be maintained at a high level in the long term. We have made the assessment that it is important to implement necessary measures in good time," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.


Professor Wole Soyinka, Nobel Prize Winner 

The various organisations in the Nobel sphere also jointly manage large assets connected to the Nobel Prize as a trademark. This includes not only the Nobel Foundation and the prize-awarding institutions, but also the organisations that disseminate information about the Nobel Prize and the achievements of the Laureates, such as Nobel Media and the Nobel Museum in Stockholm and the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo.

Since the Nobel Foundation's capital must be used primarily to pay for the work of the Nobel committees and the prize sum itself, these information activities are essentially externally financed, for example via grants from central or local government authorities, corporate sponsors, private donors, foundations or philanthropic entities.




Nadine Gordmer, Another Nobel Prize Winner
The same is true of the investment in a Nobel Prize Center on the Blasieholmen peninsula in central Stockholm which was announced earlier. The equity of the Nobel Foundation will not be used either for the building or for the operation of a future Center.

"The Nobel Prize Center will become an important base in our long-term efforts to preserve the stature of the Nobel Prize and disseminate the message of the Nobel Prize to a global audience," says Lars Heikensten, Executive Director of the Nobel Foundation.



           

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

When Work Beckons...


















Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye In Ikeja, Lagos, For An
Assignment  (Press Interview) On March 10, 2012

------------------------






















Another Day At The Office - May 2012

---------------------


When Work Beckons....At Ikeja, March 10, 2012










Saturday, March 10, 2012

Wole Soyinka Celebrated At Major Italian Festival

Honoured With The Key To The City Of Pordenone

Begining on Saturday, March 10, at the Teatro Verdi in Pordenone , there will be a dedication as well as a solo exhibition this year at an international Festival in the Italian city of Pordenone focusing on Nigeria's Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka.




















Wole Soyinka At The 10th Calabash International
Literary Festival In Jamaica On May 30, 2010

Poet and playwright, novelist, essayist, lecturer, Soyinka was the first African to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1986. Celebrated as an independent thinker, with a gift for intense versatile and lucid prose, he has also been a leader for the quest for social justice and for decades has been at the vanguard of efforts to bring democracy and respect for human rights toNigeria and throughout the post-colonial world.
The programme for the festival includes poetry reading, exhibitions, theater adaptations, workshops and runs through March 24,2012 involving the whole town.


Wole Soyinka


Professor Wole Soyinka, who will arrive from Lagos (Nigeria), will stop in Pordenone until Monday evening and will also attend the Sunday morning opening of the exhibition of fellow Nigerian artist and photographer Akintunde Akinleye.
On Monday Soyinka will receive the Seal of the city at city hall attended by local, state and national dignitaries from all over Italy . In anticipation of the august writer's attendance, over 200 school students from throughout the district have studied Soyinka's work in recent months and that will also have the privilege of an exclusive meeting with the distinguished writer

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Tribute to Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

By Femi Fani Kayode

A great and proud warrior. A true son of Africa. The strength and pride of the Igbo race. Tell it not in the north, the south, the east or the west….for how are the mighty fallen.





















Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu Taking The Oath
Of Office As Head Of State Of The New Republic Of
Biafra In May 1967 (Photo: AP)


You stood firm and fought hard for your people when it mattered the most. Nothing else counts. A product of Epsom College, Oxford University and the illustrious and wealthy Ojukwu family from eastern Nigeria. The father of Biafra. What an extraordinary and noble heritage. We knew your father and your father’s father. They also made their mark.
They were also great and powerful men. Yet you were the star that eclipsed all stars in the Nigerian firmament.
Unlike many others who have hailed you only in death, you were man enough to stand up and say ”no more” and ”never again” when your people were faced with genocide. The Igbo fought like great men and lions because they were led by a great man and a lion. We shall continue the fight where you stopped Ikemba.









































The Ikemba, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu

The battle has passed to the next generation. May God bless and protect your precious and gallant soul as you join your ancestors in the great halls of Valhalla.

May God watch over your dear wife Bianca and your beautiful children and may your name never be erased from the annals of Nigerian history. You will live forever.
Rest in peace, great and proud warrior.


Monday, March 5, 2012

Ojukwu: The Legend Lives On

By Chinweizu
Copyright © 2012 by Chinweizu
20 Feb 2012

“Ihe eji echeta ayi, n’elu uwa nke ayi no, bu olu, ayi luru”
“What we are remembered for on this Earth, is the work that we do.”
--Line from a song I heard often in my childhood.

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.


















Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu

Why do we mourn Ojukwu’s death? Why should we keep fresh our memory of him? Let us tell the world, as well as remind ourselves, of the man, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, and of his struggles on our behalf, and let us note some of the brave services he rendered us in a period of more than 60 years; selfless services for which we are indebted to him and should hold him in highest esteem.
Ojukwu lived a life filled with such deeds as legends are made of. Here are some:
Consider the case of the Zulu hero, Shaka. When he was 13, Shaka attacked and killed a black Mamba snake that had killed a prize bull he was guarding. Like Shaka, Ojukwu as a boy exhibited the bravery and protectiveness that would win him fame as an adult.
Ojukwu: Anti-colonial Defender of the Racially Oppressed
In 1944, when he was 11, Ojukwu was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a white British colonial teacher who was humiliating a black woman at King's College in Lagos, an event which generated widespread coverage in local newspapers.
For a schoolboy to fight a teacher is unusual, and requires great courage. For any black person in a colonial society ruled by all-powerful whites, a society which practices racial discrimination, such behavior required extreme provocation or extreme folly. For an 11 year old black schoolboy in such a society to fight a teacher belonging to the master race required extraordinary audacity. And for him to do so in defence of another black person, and not of himself, showed a precocious race consciousness and a meritorious sense of racial solidarity. Marcus Garvey would have been proud of the lad and recognized him as one destined to do great deeds for the black race. Here was a boy to watch. And, when he grew up, Ojukwu did not disappoint such expectations.


Chukwemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu As Head Of State Of
The Republic Of Biafra Inspecting Troops In Biafra
In 1968


After this event, his father, Sir Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, a millionaire businessman and one of the richest men in Nigeria, packed him off to England to an elite boarding school. From there he proceeded to Oxford University. After earning his Master’s Degree in History, he returned to colonial Nigeria in 1956 and joined the colonial administration as a District Officer. After serving a year, he made an extraordinary career move. He resigned and enlisted in the Army in 1957, not as an officer cadet, but as an ordinary soldier. Nevertheless, he rose rapidly from the ranks and in 1964, became a Lieutenant Colonel, and was appointed the Quartermaster General of the Nigerian Army. All this he achieved within 7 years in a peace-time army, not in a wartime army where a high attrition rate accelerates promotions.
Soon thereafter political events pushed Ojukwu into political leadership when the coup of January 1966 led to his appointment as the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria. That was the platform from where he performed the great deeds that have made him famous.
Ojukwu: Hero of Aburi 
The first of these deeds was his brilliant performance in the negotiations at the Conference of Nigeria’s military rulers that was held in Aburi, Ghana, in January1967. Beginning as a minority of one in a Supreme Military Council with eight other members in attendance, he prevailed on the SMC, first to renounce the use of force to resolve the crisis that had brought them to Aburi; and, secondly, to agree on a confederation arrangement for governing the country until a new constitution could be agreed.
Getting his colleagues to agree to the Aburi Accord was Ojukwu’s seminal contribution to Nigeria’s survival and to the security and progress of the entire population of Nigeria. However, the fruits of this fundamental contribution were not to be harvested. When the signatories returned to Nigeria, Gowon and his officials in Lagos refused to implement the terms of the Accord. This deepened the crisis and eventually provoked the secession of Eastern Nigeria and its quest for self-determination as the sovereign state of Biafra.



Late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu With His
 Wife, Bianca

Ojukwu: Founder and War Leader of Biafra
The next great deed that Ojukwu did was to proclaim the sovereign state of Biafra on 30 May 1967. Before the new state could find its feet, Gowon, in repudiation of yet another part of the Aburi Accord, resorted to force and sent the Nigerian army to invade Biafra to bring it back into Nigeria. When the Nigeria-Biafra War began in July 1967, Ojukwu became Biafra’s war leader. He led Biafra in a just war of self defence, a war of resistance to Nigeria’s aggression, a war to defend the Biafran People’s right to self-determination and to protect their very lives. With no resources to speak of, Ojukwu still managed to organize the Biafran people and the Biafran Army to resist the Nigerian invaders for 30 harrowing months until Biafra fell and surrendered in January 1970.
In those 30 months, Ojukwu did two other great deeds. To sustain the struggle, he mobilized the scientific manpower of Biafra into the Science and Technology Group (S&T Group) that achieved great things. Secondly he produced a Blueprint for a just Biafran society.
Ojukwu the war leader of Biafra
Organizer of Science and Technology
Finding itself blockaded by land, sea and air, Biafra had to be self-reliant to survive. Its Science and Technology Group (S&T Group) rose to the challenge and, among other things, conceived and produced a type of air defence dust mine for use against MIG jet fighters. In October 1967, when Biafran troops at the Ugwuoba Bridge, near Awka. fired it horizontally on advancing Nigerian troops, its devastating effect earned it the name Ogbunigwe (mass killer).
[See “Beef Was Right, Ogbunigwe Was An Anti Aircraft Missile (pic)” http://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-803637.0.html#msg9558595

On March 31, 1968, a Biafran army unit ambushed and, using Ogbunigwe, destroyed a 96-vehicle column of Nigerian soldiers. The humiliating Abagana defeat to Nigerian soldiers prompted General Yakubu Gowon to remove Col. Murtala Mohammed as the General Commanding Officer of the Onitsha sector.
--See -Abagana, wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abagana 
In addition, Biafran engineers built airports and roads; designed and built petroleum refineries; designed and built light and heavy equipment. Biafra’s Research and Production (RAP) unit did research on chemical weapons as well as rocket guidance systems. It invented new forms of explosives, and tried new forms of food processing technology. The Biafra coastline was lined with home-made shore batteries and with remote controlled weapons systems and bombs. Under Ojukwu’s leadership, and in less than three years, a Biafra that was being starved by blockade, achieved a great leap forward in black African science and technology.

[see Wikipedia article on Ojukwu]


























Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu Declaring The Republic
In May 1967 (AP)
This achievement remains unique in Black Africa. In their half century of “independence” thus far, no other state in Black Africa has created any Science & Technology organization, let alone one to compare with the one created in Biafra’s 31 months existence. This Biafran achievement remains an inspirational beacon for the Black World in this 21st century. It shows that if Black African states are still not industrialized today, the fault is not in us the people, not in the stars, not in our race, but in our neo-colonialist leaders and their chronic misleadership.
Ojukwu: Proponent of a New Social Order
Even in the midst of war, Ojukwu encouraged the Biafran intelligentsia to investigate and articulate their people’s aspirations for their post-war society. This effort produced a document which Ojukwu presented to the nascent Biafran nation on June 1, 1969 at Ahiara village. It became known as The Ahiara Declaration .The document eloquently and totally rejected the Nigerian social order for its neo-colonialist iniquities and inequities, and outlined the principles on which a radically different and just society would be constructed in Biafra. Ojukwu’s Ahiara Declaration invites comparison with Nyerere’s Arusha Declaration as a blueprint for a just and egalitarian Black African society.
Unfortunately, despite these achievements, the proposed new society was not to be. A Biafran cartoon of the period, captioned “The Truth about the Nigeria-Biafra War”, gave an accurate picture of the war situation: it showed a trio consisting of President Lyndon Johnson of the USA, Prime Minister Harold Wilson of Britain and Premier Alexei Kosygin of the USSR holding Ojukwu immobilized for Nigeria’s Gowon to use as a punching bag. Given that fundamental situation, it was no wonder that Biafra collapsed, after 30 months of fighting a just war. And to save him from almost certain execution by vengeful Nigerian soldiers, Ojukwu’s followers packed him off to exile in Cote d’Ivoire in January 1970, in the expectation that he would live to fight for them another day.
Ojukwu : Champion of Ndi-Igbo Interest
Ojukwu, the war leader of a defeated Biafra, spent 12 years in exile before he was pardoned and allowed to return to Nigeria in 1982. He arrived to a tumultuous hero’s welcome by his people and he plunged into Nigerian politics to champion the struggle for improvement in the hard lot of his defeated people. Alleviating the condition of Ndi-Igbo within Nigeria became his mission until his death in 2011. To do that he joined the NPN, the governing party of that time, and contested for a seat in the Nigerian senate. However, after a vigorous election campaign, he was declared defeated. Undaunted, he continued to be a voice for Ndi-Igbo in Nigerian affairs despite a stint as a political detainee during the Buhari period.
In 1994-1995, at the Abacha Constitutional Conference in Abuja, the Ndi-Igbo contingent, led jointly by Ojukwu and a former Vice President of Nigeria, Dr Alex Ekwueme, introduced and persuaded the Conference to adopt the concept of six geo-political zones in which the 36 states of Nigeria are now aggregated. In 2003, Ojukwu joined the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and became its Presidential candidate in the 2003 and 2007 elections. This was all in a further effort to give Ndi-Igbo a suitable presence in Nigerian politics and to promote the interests of Ndi-Igbo within Nigeria. 
Ojukwu and PRONACO
In the continuing search for a peaceful and better Nigeria, Ojukwu was among the leaders of thought who, in 2005-2006, in consultation with Chief Anthony Enahoro, initiated the Peoples’ National Conference through the platform of the Pro National Conference Organizations (PRONACO) –an alliance of 164 ethnic organizations that believed that a Sovereign National Conference ( SNC) had become imperative for transforming Nigeria and ending its people’s woes. That People’s National Conference, which was a comprehensive revalidation of the Aburi Accord by the ethnic nationalities, produced a Draft People’s Constitution which has been overwhelmingly endorsed across Nigeria as a credible path to a sustainable basis for Nigeria’s survival. As the conference rotated its sittings across various geo-political locations (including Lagos, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Jos and Kano) Ojukwu hosted that conference twice in Enugu, in February and in March 2006.



Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu
Upon the conclusion of the conference, Ojukwu actively mobilized for the informal referendum to which the Draft People’s Constitution was subjected, resulting in its endorsement by various ethnic blocs. As a part of the process for actualizing this written wish of the peoples of Nigeria, Ojukwu volunteered to be one of the plaintiffs, alongside Wole Soyinka, Anthony Enahoro and Bankole Oki, in a lawsuit before the Federal High Court, Lagos, challenging the legitimacy of the 1999 constitution. This is Suit No. FHC/L/CS/558/09. It is still in court till today. The suit is to dismantle the fraudulent and military-imposed constitution of 1999 and make space for a new order.
All of this shows that while Ojukwu contended for a place within the Nigerian political space, by joining the NPN and running for the senate in1983, by participating in Abacha’s Constitutional Conference in 1994-1995, and then by joining APGA and running twice for President on the APGA ticket, he devoted even more energy towards resolving the fundamental distortions that have brought Nigeria to the dark valley where it is languishing.
That, in brief, is an outline of the life and struggles of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.
Ojukwu: Unfinished business
No person dies or leaves office without leaving behind some unfinished business. Hero that he was, Ojukwu is no exception. There is the business of transforming Nigeria, a project which is being ably carried on by his younger PRONACO colleagues. While that project is for the benefit of all Nigerians, there is another unfinished business of his which concerns Ndi-Igbo exclusively. Let me now draw your attention to it.
Ojukwu did not finish the vital business of creating an institutional embodiment of the Ndi-Igbo nation, a paramount cultural-political institution for Ndi-Igbo, their counterpart of what the Ooni of Ife is for the Yoruba; and the Asentehene is for the Ashanti of Ghana; and the Kabaka is for the Baganda of Uganda; the Sultan of Sokoto is for Shariyaland, a.k.a. Nigeria’s Far North or Arewa. Or take the example of what the Dalai Lama institution is for the Tibetans, namely, a central focus of Tibetan cultural identity, a symbolic embodiment of the Tibetan national character. Such are the cultural and non-partisan institutions to which a people all give their allegiance and look to for decisive guidance in their affairs. By joining the NPN and entering partisan politics on his return from exile in 1982, Ojukwu skipped his chance to become the nucleus of a neutral institutional arbiter in the world of Ndi-Igbo.
However, he made a belated attempt to correct his error, but did not succeed. His Eze Igbo Gburugburu title, with its notion of monarchy, was probably in the wrong cultural idiom for Igbo republicanism to accept, and so it never gathered widespread or deep acquiescence.
With Ojukwu’s joining of the ancestors, the task of creating this sorely needed paramount institution, and in some effective and culturally appropriate form, is now left for the next generation of Ndi-Igbo, and especially for the leadership cadres that will emerge among them. And it is for the elders of today to guide them to accomplish that vital task.




Odumegwu-Ojukwu's Remains Carried By Nigerian
Soldiers At A Military Ceremony In Abuja
Ojukwu is physically dead, but for as long as we keep fresh our memories of his deeds, the legend lives on. Let me sum up:
At the age of 11, Ojukwu burst onto the scene as a defender of black people when he physically defended a black African woman from humiliation by a white colonial racist teacher. Then at age 33 he became the warrior defender of all Eastern Nigerians when they came under mass murderous attack by their fellow Nigerians. Then after the collapse of Biafra he settled into the role of political warrior defending Ndi-Igbo in the neocolonial dungeon called Nigeria. By the example of his deeds, the Ojukwu legend will live on wherever people, and black people especially, look for an inspiring role model of selfless defence of the humiliated and oppressed; or for a model of when an injured and defenceless people must say “enough is enough” and embark on a struggle for self determination; or for model leadership for scientific and technological advancement; or for a model of how to obtain a Blueprint for a just and equitable social order.
Ojukwu: The People’s Assessment
Let me end this assessment of Ojukwu’s life by quoting some excerpts from what ordinary Nigerians said of Ojukwu after his death, on a website discussing the seminal Aburi Accord:
“Aburi can again help us avoid another Biafra. MIDDLE BELT people are clearly being pushed & provoked without cause.” 
“Love him or hate him, he was one politician that stole no money- check the records.
Adieu, Lion of the Tribe of Biafra!”
“Ojukwu is gone but his life is full of lessons for us to learn: He stood for the truth, fought for the truth and in truth he died. He saw what others could not see - self determination of his people. It took another 40 years for Nigerians to latch on - clamouring for autonomy.”
“We will miss your courage and hatred for injustice. You gave your all for the emancipation of your people.”
“He was distinct, patriotic and fearless. He was synonymous with justice and equity. He distanced himself from the pandemic corruption that has ravaged prominent politicians of his time.”
“He was able to tell us that you can be rich and principled, you can be rich and honest, you can be rich and be a friend of the poor, you can be rich and be a friend of the needy, you can be rich and sacrifice for humanity, you can be rich and remain modest. The list is endless. Ojukwu used his money to pursue people’s course, while our present day thieves we call rulers use our money to persecute us, can you see the difference?”
“Though you are dead, your fighting spirit is still alive to actualise your dreams, and your children in their generation will immortalise and celebrate you in their new nation.”




Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Head Of State And                                                  Commander-In-Chief Of The Armed Forces, Republic Of Biafra
(codewit)

And to that, permit me to add my voice and say: 
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu!      Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu!
Ikemba Nnewi, Laa n’udo!                    Ikemba Nnewi, Go in peace!
Eze-agha Ndi Biafra                               War chief of Biafra
Dike n’aluru ndi ike adighi ogu                  Champion who fights for those without strength
Onye nchedo ndi an’emegbu emegbu            Protector of the exploited
Onye n’ebulite onodu onye an’eleli eleli      The one who raises the status of the despised
Laa n’udo, Ikemba, Laa n’udo!                    Go in peace, Ikemba, Go in peace!
==================


Friday, January 13, 2012

Rolling Strike Amendment-A Proposal To The Nigerian People

By Chinweizu

It is very good that labor and civil society organizations called this strike and that the Nigerian people have responded splendidly. However, at the end of a week, the need has arisen to change it to a rolling strike (i.e. strike for a few days, rest and go to work a few days and then resume the strike, and repeat indefinitely for as long as it takes for the Federal Government of Nigeria, FGN, to obey the demonstrated will of the people).


























Chinweizu

The FGN can win, and seems to count on winning, simply by hanging tough for a month; by which time hunger would have killed the strike. After all, how many people have stored enough food to last another week? How many can go another week without earning money or taking money from their bank? That is the Achilles heel of this strike. And if it is not eliminated this weekend, the strike will collapse and the anti-people system will triumph and survive. That is a hard fact of life we must accept, and adjust our tactics accordingly.

We must bear in mind that, as Prof. Tam David West, a former Petroleum Minister, and others have exposed on TV, this fuel subsidy thing is simply a racket to fleece the public, a kind of 419. And the FGN seems determined to keep emptying the pockets of the poor millions into the fat bank accounts of a few rich racketeers. If the people want to win, (and why not?) this indefinite strike has to be amended into a rolling strike so it can go on for as long as it takes to achieve the people’s victory.


I urge the strike leaders to take note. This strike should be made truly indefinite by amending it into a rolling strike so it can go on for even a year if the FGN remains hard hearted, anti-people and unreasonable.
The administration would do well to ponder the principle that a government which refuses to submit to the will of the people, its sovereign, is a rebel government and, by its own rebellion, legitimizes and invites upon itself the rebellion of the people.

Chinweizu
Lagos, Nigeria
12 January 2012