A blast from Nigeria’s colonial past: Obed-Edom C. Azikiwe, Great Zik’s father, with Lord Lugard et al.

February 22, 2019

On this day of another day of FAKE DEMOCRACY EXERCISE that can lead Nigeria to no positive forward motion necessary to arrest its under-development, insecurity AND corruption despite great human & natural resources, I share this very interesting photograph which – at the very least – contains the Great Zik’s father in a historical take that includes Lugard, the father of our manufactured country. May his soul (Zik, Snr, I mean!), and those of of all the men and women who have fought UNSUCCESSFULLY to elevate Nigeria to nationhood and put a distance between her and her backwardness, poverty AND CORRUPTION to a level that would have befitted the fake giant of Africa among all nations – may their souls, continue to enjoy eternal rest in peace; may their offsprings continually receive God’s abundant blessings, mercy and grace.

Image result for images of nnamdi azikiwe

Although the Great Nnamdi Azikiwe, one of the three architects of political Nigeria died over twenty years ago, not much was ever in public space about his parents. Zik, who was born in Zungeru, a major train stop on the Southeast to Northwest (Kaura-Namoda) railroad as well as the headquarters of the British Colonial Government, was the same place of birth of late retired Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu.

Zik’s credential as a nationalist and Pan Africanist are etched in stone, and that he embodied the idea of a united Nigeria – a nation – long before Nigerian politics became ethnocentric, cannot be disputed. Zik spoke Nigeria’s three major languages fluently – Ibo, Hausa and Yoruba, a gift that was given by the older Azikiwe sent him to the grandparents in Eastern Nigeria so that his son would be fluent in his mother tongue. Zik would also discard the Christian ‘Benjamin’ which he substituted with ‘Nnamdi’ while abroad because of racial discrimination he had seen and experienced either in the USA or the UK.

That gift of mastery of the three major languages would serve him well later in politics. While I have no knowledge of his campaigns – if any, in the North – his campaigns in Yoruba’s Southwestern Nigeria where his NCNC – the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons – had support in quite a few major cities, showed his mastery of the language. This blogger also became aware of close his familiarity with many older influential Yoruba during the 1978/79 electioneering campaign.

Long before then, however, Zik had paid homage to his growing up in Yorubaland, including secondary education at the famous MBHS (the Methodist Boys’ High School) by giving Yoruba name to his oldest child. Appropriately named BAMIDELE which indicates a prayer that a child – usually a son in the past; could have changed in younger/”modern” Yoruba’s move away to Pentecostalism – is a male son born away from the real ‘homeland’ of father, with the hope that he would one day return to the homeland with the father.

This is no place nor a proper vessel for a biographical write-up, brief or detailed – on the Great Zik but a necessary introduction to a picture, the main story here, a photograph I’ve saved for almost four years but couldn’t use because I could neither get a source nor the context for it. Although not denying it, I also could not confirm what appears to be a significant claim of the accompanying feature. I’m sure historians must have access to such, this blog nor the blogger can only superficially touch such.

Of course Zik’s fluency in Hausa was guaranteed by his place of birth which, if this country has ever had the slightest chance to grow into nationhood, would have been his state of origin which would only have changed as he moved – and as all Nigerians move – from one place to another. That, though, is a lamentation that seems now permanently destined for the dustbin of history, including even for generations yet unborn despite our differences in culture and what we hold as values: the classic definition of different nationalities, and despite what seems evident that most in Nigeria would like to remain one but in a country run differently from the way it’s presently structured.

To stop writing what has become endlessly repeating myself, it’s adieu to anything Nigerian politics from this blog.

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This blog might have been hastened into existence by a political event of the day as stated clearly in the first posts but it was not conceived to be a political blog as I’ve also stated here numerous times, and as the various offerings have widely demonstrated.

Where I stood politically before the birth of this blog in 2011: someone who would clean up the corruption cesspool, restructuring … which turned the name and person of retired General Buhari which was long before the SW is where I remain politically.

This blog will move on but without Nigeria’s politics, and with an already very wide gulf between Buhari the President and the Buhari who has moved on from the person most of us in the south thought we knew, I will move on FROM WRITING ABOUT NIGERIAN POLITICS. My position on our country’s politics remains constant: a belief in a place that has been ill-served by corrupt, greedy, self-serving & self-dealing, and fraudulent leadership class AT EVERY LEVEL OF GOVERNANCE.

Zik’s father, Obed-Edom Azikiwe “is to the right of Lord Lugard” is the only caption on the photograph and I take it that Azikiwe, Snr must be 1st from Left, Front Row.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2019. 12:01 A.M. [NIGERIAN TIME – GMT + 1]