Ojukwu: Nigeria: The Truths Which Are Self-Evident!

 Being the full text of the lecture delivered by Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi, on the occasion of TSM's 2nd Diamond Lecture to mark the fourth anniversary of the magazine on February 22, 1994

*Odumegwu-Ojukwu

Before I say anything, I would wish first of all to congratulate The Sunday Magazine on this occasion of its fourth Anniversary. In particular, I must thank Mrs. Chris Anyanwu and her courageous hand of Pen-Warriors. Madam, permit me, on behalf of those whom I am proud to represent, to say how proud we have been of the various assaults you have launched and waged successfully and the numerous assaults on your establishment which you have withstood with equal success. Madam, we thank you for your availability to those voices who are relentlessly drowned by the clamour of prejudice and the distortions of mischief. Madam we thank you for the truth which your team publishes, for the high journalistic standard which, for four years, your magazine has exemplified. Madam, on behalf of Nigeria, I thank you for ensuring that despite the cacophony of deceit and personal ambition, despite the menace of intolerance and despite the very real antagonism and the meanness of a rabid mob, like Horatio in Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, stood firm and held the Bridge. In holding the Bridge, Nigeria remained conscious of the fact that there are always two sides of the coin. Ladies and Gentlemen, I salute The Sunday Magazine and I recommend the Magazine to all those who wish to keep a balanced viewpoint on Nigerian affairs.

Buhari Is Dead? So, What?

 By Obi Nwakanma

Let me begin here by saying that Mr. Femi Adesina is a very dishonest interlocutor of Nigerian history. I really do wish to emphasize the word “dishonest.” Perhaps a stronger word might even suffice, but I am in no mood for invention. I would like it to be as clear, and as plain as possible, that Adesina, a one-time newspaper editor is bent towards hagiography. Buhari found his Shadwell in Adesina. His memoir of his time as Buhari’s factotum, for whom he spent eight in Aso Rock as Spokesman, Working With Buhari, is an annoying insult on Nigerians. In this book, Adesina launched an EMP on truth in aid of Buhari. 

*Adesina and Buhari 

Nigerians cannot recognize the Buhari in that book, nor fathom the credentials of the writer of that tome full of all kinds of subaltern cliches that no serious writer should now be caught using, e.g. “ straight as an arrow…clean as a whistle” Very elementary use of language.  Too many tired phrases that to me, indicate the stasis in which Adesina lived. But that is not the real point. The real point is that, that book, as much as its subject is a lie. When a book is a lie, it marks its time on the shelf. Eventually, it will end up in the dustbin of history; certainly not among the great chronicles of an era.

Dangerous Times In The Dear Country

 By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

The demons of death are on the loose, arranging mayhem and spreading annihilation all over Nigeria. We walk an ungodly but very familiar Nigerian road littered with shattered bones and broken dreams.

The struggle for political power is all the rage with the ruling party presenting a Muslim-Muslim ticket in a multi-faith country while the main opposition party presents a Northern Fulani Muslim candidate to succeed a Northern Fulani Muslim incumbent after eight years of incumbency. There is the third force rousing the youths into fervid activity such that if the elections are tampered with the EndSARS riots may pale into a child’s play. The dangerous times of Nigeria today cannot but force one to look back in anger at the country’s history on how the land came to this pass.