How do I
sum up 23 years in one page? I don't know. How do I describe you? I cannot. Not
in any depth. Not for anybody else - you were my husband, my brother, my
friend, my child. I was your queen, and it was an honour to have served you.
You were
the lion of my history books, the leader of my nation when we faced extinction,
the larger-than-life history come to my life - living, breathing legend. But
unlike the history books, you defied all preconceptions. You made me cry from
laughter with your jokes, many irreverent. You awed me with your wisdom. You
melted my heart with your kindness. Your impeccable manners made Prince
Charming a living reality. Your fearlessness made you the man I dreamt of all
my life and your total lack of seeking public approval before speaking your
mind separated you from mere mortals.
Every
year that I spent with you was an adventure - no two days were the same. With
you, I was finally able to soar on wings wider than the ocean. With you I was
blessed with the best children God in heaven had to give. With you, I learnt to
face the world without fear and learnt daily the things that matter most. Your
disdain for money was novel - sometimes funny, other times quite alarming. It
mattered not a whit to you. Your total dedication to your people - Ndi-Igbo -
was so absolute that really, very little else mattered. You never craved
anybody's praise as long as you believed that you were doing right and even in
the face of utmost danger, you never relented from speaking truth to power - to
you, what after all, was power? It was not that conferred by the gun, nor that
stolen from the ballot box. No. You understood that power transcended all that.
Power is the freedom to be true to yourself and to God, no matter the cost.
It is
freedom from fear. It is freedom from bondage. It is freedom to seek the
wellbeing of your people just because you love them. It is the ability to move
a whole nation without a penny as inducement nor a gun to force them. When an
entire nation can rise up for one person for no other reason than that they
love him and know he is their leader - sans gun, money, official title or any
strange paraphernalia - that is power.
To try to
contain you in words is futile. You span the breadth of human experience - full
of laughter, joy, kindness and sometimes, almost childlike in your ability to
find something good in almost everyone and every situation. You could flare up
at any injustice and in the next instant, sing military songs to the children.
You could analyse a situation with incredible swiftness and accuracy. In any
generation, there can only be one like you. You were that one star. You were a
child of destiny, born for no other time than the one you found yourself in.
Destined to lead your people at the time total extinction was staring us in the
face. There was no one else. You gained nothing from it. You used all the
resources you had just to wage a war of survival. You fought to keep us alive
when we were being slaughtered like rams for no reason. Today, we find
ourselves in the same situation but you are not here. You fought that we might
live. The truth is finally coming out and even those who fought you now
acknowledge that you had no choice. For your faithfulness, God kept you and
brought you home to your people.
You loved
Nigeria. You spent so much of your waking moments devising ways through which
Nigeria could progress to Tai-Two!!! You were the eternal optimist, always
hoping that one day, God will touch His people and give us one Vision and the
diligence to work towards the dream. It never came to pass in your lifetime.
Instead, the disaster you predicted if we continued on the same path has come
home to roost. You always saw so clearly. Your words are indelibly preserved
for this generation to read and learn and perhaps heed and turn. You always
said the dry bones will rise again. But you always hoped we would not become
the dry bones by our actions. Above all, you feared for your own people, crying
out against the relentless oppression that has not ceased since the end of the
war and saddened by the acceptance of this position by your own people. In
death, you have awakened the spirit that we thought had died. Your people are
finally waking up.
At home,
you were the father any child would dream of having. At no point did our
children have to wonder where you were. You were ever at their disposal,
playing with them, teaching them of a bygone era, teaching them of the world
they live in and giving them the total security of knowing you were always present.
In mercy,
God gave me a year to prepare for the inevitable. I could never have survived
an instant departure. In mercy, God ensured that your final week on earth was
spent only with me and that on your last day, you were back to your old self. I
cannot but thank God for the joy of that final day - the jokes, the laughter,
the songs. It was a lifetime packed into a few hours, filled with hope that
many tomorrows would follow and that we would be home for Christmas. You
deceived me. You were so emphatic that we would be going home. I did not know
you meant a different home. The swiftness of your departure remains shocking to
me. You left on the day I least expected. But I cannot fight God. He owns your
life and mine. I know that God called you home because every other time it
seemed you were at death's door, you fought like the lion that God made you and
always prevailed. In my eyes, even death was no match for you. But who can say
'no' to the Almighty God? You walked away with Him, going away with such peace
that I can only bow to God's sovereignty. Your people have remembered. The
warrior of our land has gone. The flags are lowered in your honour. Our hearts
are laden with grief.
But I
will trust that the living God who gave you to me will look after me and our
children. Through my sadness, the memories will always shine bright and
beautiful. Adieu, my love, my husband, my lion, Ikemba, Amuma na Egbe Igwe,
Odenigbo Ngwo. Eze-Igbo Gburugburu, Ibu dike. Chukwu gozie gi, Chukwu debe gi.
Anyi ga afu na omesia.
Bianca is
the widow of late Dim Chukwuemka Odumegwu-Ojukwu
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