Obituary: Ikenna Nzimiro
Toyin Falola
Nigeria recently lost another unsung hero of its independence - Ikenna
Nzimiro. The tribute below is from Punch Newspaper, Nigeria. Harry Nwana is an
eyewtiness to the vents of 1949 and the 1950s when Nigerian youth pursued
another route to independence - "A Call to Revolution". Their efforts and
significance is detailed in Tijani, Hakeem I. Britain, Leftists Nationalists
and the Transfer of Power in Nigeria, 1945-1965 (New York/London: Routledge,
2005) - www.routledge-ny.com
The Ikenna Nzimiro I knew: A tribute
Punch Newspaper - Thursday, September 28, 2006 By "The Way"
Harry Nwana
News of the passing on of Prof. Ikenna Nzimiro, a long time friend and
colleague during the difficult struggle for self rule, came to me as a shock.
I first met Ikenna at the 1949 Convention of the National Council of Nigeria
and the Cameroons (NCNC), held at Tom Jones Memorial Hall, Lagos. He
represented the Onitsha branch of the Zikist Movement, and I, Zaria. Zikists
adjudged the conference a fiasco as it failed to meet their left wing
expectations and agenda. The conference however afforded the over thirty
Zikist delegates assembled in Lagos the first and only occasion they needed to
meet formally and approve strategies to strengthen the movement for greater
effectiveness and less dependence on the NCNC.
It was at this informal meeting that Nzimiro distinguished himself as a
powerful debater and vibrant, patriotic freedom fighter of great conviction.
His views were intelligent, and his logic, unassailable. Every Zikist in
attendance acknowledged his leadership potentials which eventually manifested
in the academic domain.
The spirited abhorrence Nzimiro demonstrated against colonial rule, earned him
the total confidence of radical leaders of our era. On the other hand,
imperialists saw him as a communist. He bore this stigma as long as the anti
colonial struggle lasted. Kola Balogun, M.C.K Ajuluchukwu, Tony Enahoro,
Mokwugwo Okoye, Osita Agwuna, Sunday Achara, Tos Benson, Bob Ogbuagu, Peter
Osugo, Nduka Eze and R.B.K Okafor were some of the frontline nationalists in
that struggle at that time.
When Governor General Sir John McPherson finally came down hard on the Zikist
Movement by going after its leaders, Nzimiro led the group of 25 others that
came under the imperial sledge hammer. We were arrested and incarcerated for
sedition. The eventual banning of the Movement while we were in various
prisons drove a death nail into its coffin.
It must have been at about this stage, that Nzimiro decided to change the
course of his life from politics to a more rewarding intellectual pursuit.
For many years, little was heard of this one time placard carrying activist.
Unknown to many of us, at that time, Nzimiro was preparing himself for new
roles which when attained, could be as fulfilling as political militancy. A
life of a scholar, philosopher, teacher and statesman dominated his later
years.
I saw Ikenna again in 1975, fifteen years after Nigerian Independence at the
Presidential Hotel Port Harcourt. He was already a senior lecturer in a
University and generally considered one of the respected members of the
Academic family. He asked me if I was following what damage our leaders were
doing to Nigeria. A sigh of repugnance from me, was good enough response for
him. We never met again.
Nzimiro did not leave anybody in any doubt about where he stood on any matter.
I recall that following our discharge from prison, our luckier colleagues,
led by R.B.K Okafor, organised a modest welcome party for us at the Glover
Memorial Hall. It was the first time that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the patriarch
of Zikism, was to have met Zikist ex-convicts after their ordeal. At that
party, Nzimiro characteristically launched an attack on Zik, accusing him of
neglecting the Zikists, and generally being too mindful of his personal
comfort and safety. He spoke our mind, and it took the courage of Ikenna
Nzimiro to have it voiced publicly.
I cannot remember too many of our colleagues still on their feet and kicking
as Obasanjo and Atiku expose their dirty money deals in public. But whoever
they are, and wherever they may be, may I on their behalf wish our brave
heroic friend Ikenna Nzimiro a blissful eternal rest.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa
Onwudiwe, Ebere
On Transcorp…, A response.
My friend and colleague, Dr. Ugorji Ugorji is right. Monopoly should not be encouraged blindly, and corruption in the formation of Transcorp and in the privatization exercise in Nigeria is vice not virtue. My article (which appeared in my Newswatch column, Monday, 2nd October and distributed in this valuable site) is simply a promotion of the idea of bigness of Transcorp. I believe that in this era of globalization, the country needs this kind of company with transnational capabilities. The article is an endorsement of the vision that led to creation of Transcorp and a statment of its Nigerianization potential. Citizenship in Nigeria remains to this day unnationalized. Big Nigerian companies have the potential to create a common national identity out of the many Nigerian nations with primary loyalty to ethnicity. It is serious misreading to read the article any other way, or to see it as an endorsement of the OBJ administration.
As an economist, I am well aware of the negatives predicted by the theory of monopoly. But let us not settle for impulsive judgments on this. The Dangote group may be dangerous to the health of its competitors, but so is Wal-Mart (!) and, the US and its citizens and residents are hardly worse off in the bargain. Truth is that all developed western economies have had (and still have) their own oligopoly structures (read: “Dangotes”) in different important sectors of their national economies at one point or the other: McDonalds, Microsoft, Exxon, General Motors, AT &T and General Electric to name just a few firms in this mold. These companies run the world to the benefit of their owners and of ordinary Americans. And, not to forget the ubiquitous Wal-mart, and its predecessor, the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the grocery-store chain, that in the 1920s and 1930s dominated the American market. At its climax, A&P owned 80% of the supermarket business in the United States! According to my records, Dangote does not have this reach in any sector of Nigeria’s economy or product line including sugar, rice and cement.
Even the competitors to mega domestic companies can benefit from the size and reach of the mega companies. Levi Strauss was saved from the brink of death by strategic partnership with Wal-Mart. This is a lesson. Another is that to survive, Levi had to accept the corporate values of Wal-Mart including customer focus, inventory management, speed to market. This “globalization” of business values (transnational standards) was also an important point of the Transcorp article that careful readers should recognize. Please recall this sentence in the Transcorp piece: “But more than this, this group of owners and managers operate under a new regime of transnational standards and values that favor meritocracy, transparency and competitiveness.” Bringing Nigeria’s businesses mores to the level of global efficiency is positive integration in my book, and, only huge transnational Nigerian companies are equal to the task.
Whether we like it not, the dominant feature of the world system today is globalization which is characterized by amalgamation, homogenization and the spread of free market capitalism to all the nooks and crannies of the known world. To be competitive, your company necessarily has to be much larger than say, Ugorgi and son, Nig. Ltd. That, not the OBJ administration, is the main point and focus of my article.