By Ikechukwu Amaechi
On December 2, 2024, Nigerians will converge at the main auditorium of the National Universities Commission for the public presentation of Senator Chris Anyanwu’s autobiography, Bold Leap.
To be sure, this is her third book. She wrote
the first, The Law Makers, Federal Republic of Nigeria, while she was NTA
correspondent at the National Assembly in the Second Republic. The second, The
Days of Terror, came after her release from General Sani Abacha’s gulag
in 1998.
But Bold Leap is significantly different and, no doubt, will stir up the hornets’ nest for the very reason that she pulled no punches in the 612-page tome.
An autobiography can be tricky because of the
tendency of the author to remember only what is convenient, which most times
creates the faux pas of presenting
opinions as facts. But Bold Leap is refreshingly different
because the author remembered everything, and left out no details no matter how
inconvenient. That makes the book truly “an inspirational story of a woman of
exceptional talent and indomitable spirit.”
Born on October 28, 1951, nine years before
Nigeria’s independence, the frightening life trajectory of C-Gal, as she was
fondly called, encapsulates Nigeria’s story. Like many other Igbo children her
age, the years of innocence and comfort of her upper middle class family were
brusquely shattered in the late 1960s when Nigeria decelerated to the Hobbesian
state of nature, and life suddenly became “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short.”
Her
father, Hon. Nicholas Diala Ukah, popularly called N.D. Ukah, who started off
as a primary school teacher after passing the First School Leaving Certificate
Examination with distinction quickly climbed the academic ladder, culminating
in a University of London degree in British Economic History.
In the late 1940s, he joined the National
Council of Nigeria and Cameroons (NCNC), and just as he did in academia, he
also rose rapidly in politics – first Council Chairman for Mbaise District
Council and in 1959, he won election to represent Owerri North-East Federal
constituency in the House of Representatives.
Then the fratricidal war broke and her blissful
world vanished. She was already at the reputable Owerri Girls Secondary School,
comely and elegant, with the world at her feet, when the mayhem ensued.
Even when the guns were silenced, nothing was
ever the same again. She and her younger sisters lived in the bush for nearly a
month to escape Nigerian soldiers who were going from door to door in search of
girls to take away as war booty.
When eventually school resumed, the world as the
hitherto starry-eyed girls knew it had changed. “Draw the line. The civil war
brought an end to life as it used to be. It was the end of innocence in my
generation and the beginning of the harsh realities that began as overt and
covert retribution for the secession of Biafra, retributions and realities
which have persisted decades after the war till today,” she wrote.
But little did she realize that the worst was
yet to come – the ultimate tragedy. Her father was arrested and taken to a
detention camp in Port Harcourt where he was starved and brutalised for three
months by the Nigerian Army for no reason other than that he was a member of
the Federal House of Representatives.
“The ill-treatment at the camp obviously took a
heavy toll on his health. He was looking very thin, unwell and quiet… During
the detention, he developed kidney problem,” Chris wrote.
She recalled going to see him on his death bed
at the Emekuku Hospital and still remembers his plea. “With tubes in his nose
and mouth, all he could tell me was to go home and take care of my siblings. I
have obeyed that injunction ever since.”
She had no choice. Her father was only 51 years
when he died in August 1971, leaving behind 13 children, the eldest was Chris
who was only 20 years and a widow, a fulltime housewife without any source of
income.
“My dad’s death automatically turned me into head
of the family working hand in hand with my mom,” she further stated.
Chris Anyanwu said she was told by “a former
Inspector General of Police that the camp where they kept and starved my father
and other leaders arrested at the end of the war was managed by Chief A.K.
Horsfall, a Rivers State man who later became head of the National Intelligence
Service.”
After supervising the liquidation of her
innocent father, the same forces seized his properties in Port Harcourt and not
even the pitiable condition of their late friend’s widow could convince them to
let go even when she came begging.
Chris Anyanwu writes about these gross
injustices without bitterness. And the perspicacious former President Olusegun
Obasanjo, her mate at Jos Prisons, applauds: “Chris was able to render
otherwise tear-inducing details in a manner that removed the sting from the
bitter experience to allow the reader enjoy accounts of unfair experiences
without the revulsion that such stories ordinarily should have elicited.”
But, come to think of it, why should she be
bitter when, despite all odds, she is a real “walking miracle” whose life has
been so blessed and full of richness?
Bold Leap is a breath-taking chronicle of her
enthralling life experiences. Obasanjo said if he was to propose an alternative
title for the book, he would have called it “Triumph
of Courage.” This is an incredible story of a woman with a never-say-die
spirit.
Hers is a charmed life. She became an idol at
the NTA where she was National Assembly, Diplomatic and OPEC correspondent.
About eight years into her phenomenal career, she went to her home state of Imo
to serve as Commissioner for Information. She later became the publisher and
Editor-in-Chief of The Sunday Magazine (TSM), a weekly newsmagazine. Today,
she owns a chain of radio stations – Hot FM.
Not even the three-year incarceration on the
trumped-up charge of “accessory after the fact of treason” at Kirikiri, Jos,
Gombe and Kaduna Prisons could break her spirit. Before Abacha suddenly dropped
dead on June 8, 1998, the government had castrated her economically but there
is no killing the beetle. Like the phoenix, she rose from the ashes of despair.
Bold Leap is the life story of a phenomenal
go-getter, who plunged headlong into the murky waters of Nigerian politics and
came out triumphant, serving two terms as a senator. In the Senate she scored treble
firsts – first senator to be elected on the platform of a small regional party
(APGA), first female elected to the Senate from Imo State and first senator
from the State to be re-elected. In her first term she served as vice chairman
of the Senate Committee for Defence and Army and in her second term she was the
chairman, Committee on Navy.
The account of her political odyssey in Imo
State will generate enough heat in the coming days, no doubt. But the book is a
treasure-trove on Nigerian politics.
“Everything is bought. You buy votes to be
nominated. You buy votes to be elected to office. And then you must pay to
defend yourself from frivolous court cases and bad judgments. It is an
all-round corrupting, wearying and spirit-crushing experience,” she explains.
Bold Leap is the story of the grit of a young
woman who rather than allowing the tragedy of her father’s untimely death
derail her, soldiered on, first by acquiring solid education from choice U.S.
universities and coming back home to build a fairytale career in journalism.
The book chronicles major socio-economic and
political developments in the country in the last four decades and the major
players. Chris Anyanwu had a relationship with most, if not all of them, which
makes her one of the most consequential Nigerian journalists, ever.
But the book is not only about Chris Anyanwu and
her incredible exploits in journalism and politics. It is also about Nigeria.
She hinted that in a short note she sent to me: “Appendix 1 – 2, etc. is a
goldmine. I would like you to go through and possibly ask: what is it about?
Why?”
The two appendixes dealt with the lingering
National Question. On February 22, 1994, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Odumegwu,
Ikemba Nnewi, delivered the second TSM
Diamond Lecture – “Nigeria: The
truths which are self-evident.”
Ever charismatic, Ojukwu brought the roof down,
literally. In the March 6, 1994 edition of TSM, Chris Anyanwu wrote: “As he
spoke, many cried. Young people, old people, they all had tears in their eyes.
I see this picture of Chuba Okadigbo raising his horse whip in the air, his
face overtaken by excitement and in the foreground a vastness of people hanging
both hands in the air.”
What did Ojukwu say? “Nigeria is sick. It is our
duty, each and everyone one of us, to help cure it.”
According to the Ikemba Nnewi, the country was
sick because “the sovereign people of Nigeria have never succeeded in designing
for themselves their own society.” The implication he further elucidated was
that, “Nigeria cannot be a nation unless its fundamental law is articulated and
is accepted by Nigerians for universal application.”
It is pertinent to quote Ojukwu’s speech in some
detail: “For those who enjoy the executive control of Nigeria, for those who
enjoy almost exclusively the resources of this country, the term ‘One Nigeria’ is like music to their
ears. They love it, they want it to remain forever and if it is necessary to
maintain One Nigeria by force, they would do so. If it became necessary to hold
their partners in the Nigerian enterprise hostage, indeed captive in the
corporation, all the better. For fear of being misunderstood or misrepresented,
let me repeat. One Nigeria is a good idea but my objection lies in the idea
that One Nigeria cannot and must not be questioned.”
Thirty years thence, Nigeria is still at the
crossroads. By including Ojukwu’s speech in the Bold Leap, Senator Chris
Anyanwu is simply pointing Nigerians to where the rain started beating them, a
proof of her continuing service to fatherland. It is one book that Nigerians
who seek knowledge must read!
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