Spitting on Akanu Ibiam's Grave

UBA AHAM

ubaaham@yahoo.com

Late Sir (Dr.) Francis Akanu Ibiam, governor of old eastern region of Nigeria from 1960 to 1966, was a man of many parts. Ibiam was a notable medical practitioner and a firstclass monarch in Igbo land. Above all, he was a dedicated peacemaker (one-time President of World Council of Churches). The elder statesman peacefully joined his ancestors at age of 89 on July 1, 1995.

But rather that the soul of this icon resting in peace, Ibiam may currently be grinding his teeth in his royal grave. This is because of the festering feud amongst members of his household.

At the centre of the rift is the control of the estates of the deceased Ezeogo Unwana (monarch of Unwana Kingdom) across Nigeria and overseas. Some of the estates in contention are said to be located in the Independence Layout area of Enugu, Victoria Island, Lagos, Asokoro, Abuja, as well as in Canada.

Unfortunately, the estate war of the Ibiams has been a subject of litigation since 1999. The late elder statesman was noted to have had three biological children, including Aka, Aluu (currently the Regent of Unwana) and Tolulope Tasie (nee Ibiam), a Port Harcourt-based medical doctor. The three are, understandably, heirs to the estates of  Ibiam, but there is a fourth claimant to the former governor’s property: Chigozie. Although Chigozie answers the name of Ibiam, the Ibiam siblings insist that his surname is Ekpiken.

But this notwithstanding, Chigozie is no stranger to the household of Ibiam. Indeed, Ibiam, in the course of his missionary activities across eastern region during the Nigeria civil war (1966 and 1970), picked up Chigozie from a refugee camp in Afikpo, presently in Ebonyi State. Pathetically, Chigozie’s biological mother died after he was born, and all his relations equally died at the camp, a situation that moved Ibiam to rescue the hapless child. And Chigozie, since then, lived under the care of Ibiam until his death. So, in the ongoing festering rift in the family of the former, Chigozie claims adoption. But the three other Ibiam siblings insist that Chigozie is not one of them.

The war in late Ibiam’s family escalated when Aka (Ibiam’s first son) applied for letters of administration in respect of the management of the estates, but Chigozie, claiming to a member of the household, put in a caveat to the issuance of such letters to Aka at the Probate Registry, Enugu. As Ibiam’s adopted son, Chigozie insists on being  both an administrator and beneficiary of his estates like the other children.

Aka, an engineer, subsequently dragged Chigozie to an  Enugu high court, presided over by B. C. Nosike, asking among other things for an order discharging Chigozie’s caveat and directing the Probate Registry to process and issue him the letters of administration. Aka, also, sought a declaration of the court that he is entitled to be issued the letters, being a direct heir to the estate of the deceased elder statesman. Aka, in the suit numbered E/626/99, averred that Chigozie had been his truck driver and not an adopted son of his late father.

The court eventually awarded judgment to Chigozie, affirming him as Ibiam’s adopted son. The court equally ordered that Chigozie be involved in the application for letters of administration of the estates. Not satisfied with the verdict, Aka swiftly applied to the court for stay of execution of the judgment, but his application was struck out, and Chigozie was subsequently granted letters of administration of Ibiam’s estates.

But that did not end the feud over late Ibiam’s property. Rather, the high court judgment aggravated it. Right now, the legal battle over the estates has shifted to the appellate court sitting in Enugu. And Aka is challenging the lower court’s affirmation of Chigozie as one of Ibiam’s children.

In the appeal court suit, numbered CA/E/151M/2006, Aka, through E. E. J. Okereke, his counsel, argues that the judgment was given in favor of Chigozie in disregard of glaring legal slips in his purported adoption process.

Although the judge had, in his judgment, observed that Chigozie’s Adoption Certificate Order was not included in the records tendered in court by the Welfare Department in Enugu, he (the judge) curiously went ahead to affirm him as a duly adopted son of Ibiam in his judgment. Aka’s suit, therefore, contends that failure to produce the certificate of adoption of Chigozie meant that he was never adopted by Ibiam as a son, but that Ibiam merely fostered him.

Aka further contended that Ibiam, as at the time of the said adoption, was a widower and did not, according to relevant provisions of the law, qualify for the making of the application to adopt any son. The adoption law, however, prescribes that a couple, not a widow or widower, is qualified to adopt a child, and Olayinka, Ibiam’s wife, died at the age of 68 in 1974. The contention of Aka’s suit, therefore, is that by 1976 when Chigozie’s purported adoption order was allegedly processed by the Probate Registry, Ibiam was already widowed and, as such, ineligible for such an exercise.

Still, in another ground of appeal, Aka avers that for adoption to be effective, the child must be continuously in the care and possession of the adoptive parent for three consecutive months. This condition, he contends, was not met by late Ibiam, as, according to him, he (Ibiam), for reasons best known to him, gave out Chigozie to one of his sisters called Nne Ugo, for upkeep right from when he (Ibiam) picked him (Chigozie) up, and never stayed for such a duration of time with him continuously.

Part of the submission of the lower court was that Chigozie was, in the course of his sojourning with the Ibiams, publicly accepted as a son of Ibiam through the traditional ceremony of "Ibi Isiugwu" and "Ipu Ogo," but Aka counters that the said customary law of Isiugwu was not pleaded in the statement of defence and properly admitted and proved in accordance with the law, a situation which, he argues, invalidates the conclusions the judge arrived at on the issue of custom of the community.

Expectedly, Chigozie has, through his counsel, C.O Ike of Enechionyia & Associates, joined issues with Aka, asking the appellate court to uphold the judgment of the lower court. In the main, Chigozie’s contention is that Aka is estoped from denying his adoption by Ibiam, whom he lived with for over 25 years. Chigozie further argues that, assuming that his adoption process was incomplete because of the missing adoption certificate, ‘there is sufficient acts of part performance to establish adoption." He insists that his adoption was proved both under native law and custom of Unwana Afikpo community and that there was substantial compliance with the Adoption Law of Eastern Nigeria Cap 6 1956 which bill was incidentally signed into law by Ibiam as Governor of Eastern Nigeria.

For now, there seems to be no end to the 13-year-old estate feud of the Ibiams. This is because of the fruitless intervention of the surviving associates of late Ibiam and the World Council of Churches amongst others.

Unless there is a successful intervention to broker peace between the warring parties, the battle ground may soon shift to the Supreme Court after the appeal court verdict. Already, each of the opposing parties vows to move up to the apex court if he loses in the appeal. So, the battle continues.

But the point here is that late Akanu Ibiam does not deserve this shame his children are inflicting on his grave. An avowed peaceful and upright man, his children should have been thinking of concrete actions towards immortalizing him, rather than fighting over his meager property.

It is, therefore, necessary at this juncture to call on the Conference of Governors of Southeast states, as presently constituted, to intervene in the simmering feud threatening to tear the family of their deceased one time colleague to shreds. If for no other reason, the fact that Ibiam was a true Igbo man, a Nigerian par excellence and, importantly, a peace lover, should move the governors to quickly restore peace to his family.

Enough of this macabre dance! The Ibiams must be stopped from further spitting on the grave of this humane and good man.

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Uba Aham is an Enugu-Nigeria based veteran journalist.