Onoh: Tribute to a Titan
M. O. ENE
New Jersey, USA
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Christian
Chukwuma Onoh,
Esq., Okaaomee Ngwo, has joined our glorious ancestors,
Ndiichie. Forever may he live! I have found ways to express my condolences
to his son G.B. and Odinaka (Bianca, the Ikembress), but this is also about us.
As we say in Igbo: Ihe a mere anyi! (This thing—whatever death
really is—happened to us.) C.C., as he was fondly called in his younger years,
left super-sized shoes; he was a once-in-a-generation phenomenon. The issue to
address is how to immortalize him. I know: Develop a master plan of Ninth Mile
Corner and rename it “Amaonoh”; a tribute to a titan who fought fearlessly for
his people and shaped the character of generations.
Everything else is embellishment.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009: I read with shock and sorrow about Onoh’s departure on Waawanet, a 10-year-old Internet forum for Enugu and Ebonyi folks. I did not know his health had deteriorated to the point of passing. He was in the news quite recently, notably during the last Igbo Day in Enugu. I made sure I was not reading a regurgitated rancid report. Many in Enugu had not heard, but I was assured by sources close to the family that G.B. was on his way home from the US to make a formal announcement. It has been made; hence, I write.
Anineefungwu, the earth that gives life to sacred trees, is returning to Earth. Okaaomee, the one who delivered as he promised, is gone. The Waawa Warrior has gone to bat from the great beyond. We knew death would some day come. That day has come. For many, this is the end of an entire Enugu era: the age of Onoh. An iroko has fallen; no other tree grew taller. He was a great man. His legend will endure and propel future generations to stand up and claim his vision for popular progression.
In a 1999 piece about Eze Onyeama n’Eke, Okwuluoha Agbaja, I noted that Onoh continued the legacy of a legend:
King Onyeama’s greatness lies mostly in his unapologetic and forceful exposition of Waawa pride, in reaction to what he considered the disrespect of his people by others. The momentum of this unbridled pride was later pushed into pure political arena by Chief Christian Chukwuma (C.C.) Onoh, Aninaefungwu, the Okaaomee of Ngwo, former governor of Anambra State (now Enugu, Anambra and parts of Ebonyi states).
C.C. chose his fight early in life: Waawa natural nationalism. On coming back from Britain, he picked up from where Onyeama had stopped suddenly three decades before. He was bent on restoring the pride, and advancing the cause, of particularly northeast Igbo, those living in that part of Igboland I call “Waawalandia”—from the grasslands of Awka through the hills of Enugu and Nsukka to the farmlands of Abakaliki.
What was the problem? Didn’t a Waawa woman from Nsukka give birth to Great Zik, “Mr. Nigeria Numero Uno”? Didn’t Waawa produce the first Igbo medical doctor, Dr. Simeon Onwu? Didn’t Waawa produce Justice Dadi Onyeama, an eagle of the bench and first Nigerian judge at the World Court, and Supreme Court Justices Anthony Aniagolu, Nnaemeka Agu, and Augustine Nnamani? Though the area boasts of many other prominent personalities, it was not getting a fair shake in emergent Nigeria. Since you thrive where you live, Onoh pitched his tent in and around Enugu.
Onoh reawakened great potentials. In the process, he took up the mantle of Eze Onyeama’s leadership and expanded on it without the trappings of imposed colonial warrant-chiefdom. For this, I consider Onoh a personal hero: a consummate capitalist and rugged republican whose philosophy abhors the pathetic pseudo-monarchical model of governance plaguing Igbo communities today.
I grew up in Coal Camp, a popular part of Enugu. Onoh had law offices by Tinker on Agbani Road. I grew up hearing of “Onoh nwa Ngwuo.” As children, we heard that some spirits built his father’s awe-inspiring hilltop mansion! Later in life, we found out the truth: it was built in a record time in early 1920s when no one believed a Waawa man had funds to erect such an edifice almost overnight. Obviously, like-son-like-father, Chief Gabriel Onoh was ascetically loaded… a very rich man.
Besides his political career and chairmanship of Nigerian Coal Corporation, C. C. Onoh was a regular feature in discussions at all watering holes in Coal Camp, Iva Valley, and other old quarters of Enugu, the Coal City. During the war, he was equally happening as the Administrator of Enugu under the Biafran leadership of General Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, who would eventually become his son-in-law.
Onoh was not afraid of controversies. He first followed the popular politics of Zik in the First Republic, but his postwar politics zeroed in on getting more for Ndiigbo with the hand dealt them by the unfortunate war. Onoh’s call for more Igbo states was misconstrued myopically as his wanting more lands and houses in Enugu… whatever for! The short-sighted and self-defeating propaganda distorted the vision of a great man who saw tomorrow.
Onoh was undeterred. Before and after becoming governor of old Anambra, he pressed on for “Waawa State,” comprising old Enugu, Nsukka, and Abakaliki provinces. It is a crowning of his efforts that we have Enugu and Ebonyi States, while “Adaada” (Nsukka) remains keenly in the works. Ndiigbo now see what Onoh saw many moons ago: more states and more LGAs for even development; they yet took it a step further and created sorry autonomous communities for so-called “traditional rulers.”
Onoh was not coy in breaking ranks with Zik during the Second Republic. His political perseverance paid off in 1983, when he became governor. His politics abhorred pettiness and personal vendetta. He did not rejoice in Jim Nwobodo’s misfortune; on the contrary, he reportedly secured some properties for Jim’s son -- his godson -- from the clutches of military administrator Allison Madueke, then a navy captain. This was the same Nwobodo who commissioned a devastatingly derogatory campaign song in 1983 about Onoh “swallowing” lands and properties.
Before Buhari coup cut short his governorship tenure, Onoh suffered a very tragic loss in November 1983: His daughter Josephine died in a plane crash. It was an immense disaster. I was among the swarm of sympathizers to reach the still-smoldering site of the crash. It was horrible. I could only imagine what Onoh felt, but I know now why an Aro man named his son, “Obinaani”; surely, the soul suffers so much sorrow.
We will never know what Onoh would have done for old Anambra. We know he was disappointed with the excesses of both military and civilian administrators, especially the property-acquisition spree of Coal Camp-born Colonel Robert Akonobi. When Jim Nwobodo wanted Chimaroke Nnamani impeached, Onoh objected and proposed what we now know as the principle of “shiahaluyae”; this means that every elected governor should be allowed a full term to make a mark anywhere in the state without pointless quibbling. When Nnamani’s ebeano politics angled for another term, Onoh turned on him with blistering booklets and critical criticisms. He stopped only recently when Nnamani’s successor, Sullivan Chime, pledged to be his own man.
Onoh was an equal-opportunity critic. During the reign of Godfather Chris Uba and the burning of Anambra, he reportedly asked Anambra people to speak up if they wanted Uba kicked out of Enugu! I bet he would have picked on Governor Chime if things slacked. I am happy that Onoh was reportedly satisfied with progress in Enugu State, that the present administration brought him some measure of joy. He had expressed his satisfaction with Chime. In essence, Onoh will meet Onyeama, Eyo Ita, Ozo Nwodo of Ukehe, Eze Nwaiboko of Abakaliki, Zik, Okpara, Ibiam, Omeruah, and Igwe Elias Aneke Chime (Sullivan’s father) with some good news: It is all good after a century of Coal City, but a lot still needs to be done.…
Onoh will rest easily because his eyes saw the coming of Enugu renaissance. He lived to witness the centenary of Coal City. He lived to bask in the glory of seeing his daughter Bianca emerge as the most beautiful of her era. He lived to see his son follow in his footsteps as chair of Enugu North LGA. He lived to see his last son serve in the House of Assembly. He lived to see his daughter, though she passed on in her prime, striving to better his law degree, as every Igbo parent prays.
Onoh lived to see pan-Igbo understanding of state creation: development, not division. He lived to see Ohanaeze survive turbulent waters of divisiveness. He lived to see the demise of denominational divisions, which he scuttled to marry his sweetheart, Caroline, a Catholic, and still became the Chancellor of Enugu Anglican communion. He will rest peacefully because God crowned his legacy of lifelong labor with stellar successes, even if punctuated by some personal tragedies.
For many of us from Enugu—born, bred or both—Onoh remains a legend, the father of Enugu State, and a hero. He made us to stand and shine and be at ease in the pristine peculiarities of our cultural inheritance. He turned negativities into gas for growth. Beyond taking Waawa nomenclature past geopolitical gerrymandering, he positioned the culture as a symbol of truth in human relations, a symbol of saying “wa” (oh no!) to evil with a straight face, a symbol of being magnanimous even when misconstrued as naďveté, and a symbol of standing up to bullies of all shapes and sizes on issues of popular importance. He made a virtue of saying that something stinks when it actually does, of speaking to power without covering one’s face with a basket.
So how do we best honor C.C., a man who restored virtue to hard work, humility, and honesty? A quick think will go for the state university. I disagree. For Onoh, Enugu State government should zero in on a locality where Onoh left an indelible mark. He was a great believer in suburbia, in living where one thrives. So, as hinted earlier, the state government should transform Ninth Mile Corner into the busiest and best motor vehicular-junction city in all Africa and name it “Amaonoh”: a modern city with a befitting giant statue of Onoh welcoming residents and visitors to the capital of Igbo nation before they descend to the valley core of Coal City, nine short miles down on the foots of Udi Hills. It is already “Onoh’s City” in practice; his stamps of private developmental projects at the sprawling Abuja-Enugu-Lagos junction are indelible.
Onoh is gone, but he lives forever in the chronicles of history Nigeriana. Weeping is a waste; compunction is not creative. This is a celebration of life well-lived; the life of a man who gave his all. If there is any angst, it is that the current crop of politicians and public servants may not roll up their sleeves and try Onoh’s shoes for size.
