As Oyibo Chukwu, the Labour Party candidate for the Enugu East senatorial zone assassinated three days before the election, will be buried this weekend, two of his friends honour him below.
Owelle The Lion
By Bart Nnaji
When Senator Edward Kennedy breathed his last in 2009, Americans mourned the exit of someone every person agreed was truly the Lion of the Senate. Ted Kennedy was in the Senate for almost 47 years. He officially represented the state of Massachusetts, where I lived for decades while working as Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering and Director of the Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, but in reality, Senator Kennedy represented a large spectrum of the American population.
Despite coming from a very privileged background, he stood for decades in solidarity with the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and the minorities. He stood, in one word, for inclusion, diversity, and equity. Kennedy fought relentlessly for social justice. He was the brain and force behind the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act of 1986.
When Oyibo Chukwu approached me late last year and expressed interest in going to the Senate by contesting in the 2023 general election on the Labour Party platform, I had no hesitation in endorsing his ambition. I saw in him Nigeria’s version of Edward Kennedy. He was good-looking. He was charismatic. He was articulate. He was eloquent. He was informed and farsighted. More than anything else, Owelle Victor Oyibo Chukwu had an incurable passion for social justice.
A social crusader in the finest tradition, his sense of justice led him to national politics early in life. Thus he became a member of the Justice Anthony Aniagolu-led Constituent Assembly in Abuja in 1988 when he was only 30 years old. He was the administrator of Nkanu West LGA from 1994 to 1996. At less than 34, he had become the National Auditor of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) which went on to win the famous June 12 1993 presidential election that was to be annulled by the Ibrahim Babangida administration. A great believer that politics should be an avenue to serve the people, rather than a few privileged people lording it over the people, Oyibo became the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Secretary in Enugu State with the dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1999. But with time his interest began to wane in PDP’s brand.
Oyibo worked hard with people like Enechi Onyia (SAN) to challenge the status quo in Enugu State to enthrone a new and humane social order. Not enamoured of material acquisitions, most of the cases he handled were public interest ones. In other words, he handled the cases pro bono, free of charge. During the military regime when some generals did some bizarre things, Oyibo was in the forefront to challenge them vigorously, an example being the closure of a critical section of the ever-busy Enugu—Abakaliki Expressway by the 82 Division of the Nigerian Army. Oyibo was all over the place against the military authorities—in the media, in the streets, and, of course, in the courts.
Owelle Oyibo Victor Chukwu was the Lion of the Senate Nigeria never had. May the Good Lord welcome him in paradise.
*Professor Nnaji, CON, NNOM, FAS, was Minister of Power and is now Chairman of Geometric Power Group.
Tribute to Owelle Oyibo Chukwu
By C. Don Adinuba
Oyibo Victor Chukwu, Owelle of Nkanu, had a presence. He could not enter a place or leave without people noticing that a man of stature visited, even when he did not utter a word. He was robust in the true sense of the word – in physique, in pulchritude, in rhetoric, and in self-assuredness.
Oyibo’s traditional sobriquet or title of Owelle was fitting. He had so much in common with The Great Zik of Africa who, more than any person in living memory, popularised this traditional title. Even the peteri, or the free-flowing gown worn mostly on ceremonial occasions by titled men in the Southeast and South-south geopolitical zones of the country, looked resplendent on him as it did The Great Zik.
At the conferment of the highly prestigious title of Aka Ji Oku Ndi Igbo on Professor Bart Nnaji, CON, NNONM, FAS, then-the Special Presidential Adviser on Power and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Power, by the Eze Nri at Agukwu Nri in Anaocha Local Government Area of Anambra State in February 2011, Oyibo almost stole the show with his spectacular looks. He wore an immaculate white peteri, an immaculate white traditional dress on top, a pair of white socks, a pair of bespoke white ceremonial shoes, a special ceremonial cap often associated with high chiefs in and around Onitsha, and held a fancy fan with an unmistakable aristocratic panache. He kept a royal mien throughout and walked with measured steps. Most people thought he was the person being honoured rather than being a member of the large Nnaji delegation which comprised, among others, a former Inspector General of Police, Ogbonnia Onovo, and a former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Group General Manager, Chief David Ogbodo.
Oyibo was an Nnaji follower through and through. Three days before his cowardly assassination, he walked into Nnaji’s residence in GRA Enugu with his dedicated personal assistant, Sunday Igwesi, and spoke glowingly about his PA; Sunday was going to be killed and incinerated with him in their Sienna van at Amechi Awkunanaw, Enugu South Local Government Area. I would have gone to my room to sleep because I was travelling back to Lagos the following day very early but I had to wait for him in the living room downstairs. He came at about midnight, straight from a campaign tour, thoroughly exhausted. He just had to come because he had told Nnaji he would visit him, however late. Nnaji, he said repeatedly, was not a person he could disappoint over any issue, no matter how infinitesimal. Little did I know that it was the last time I would see Oyibo alive when I left him, Sunday, Nnaji and Chima Atu who was running successfully for a House of Representatives seat in the living room.
Oyibo and I enjoyed a special relationship. We used to argue, disagree, and agree on sundry issues, and we delighted in the strong but cultured debates. He was a lively conversationalist and a clever debater, quite knowledgeable. Still, he always deferred to me as “my nna m ochie”. His aged mother hails from Oraukwu, and Oyibo was eminently proud of his Anambra roots. I am still to reconcile myself to the cold reality of his passing, all the more so the manner of his death.
Requiescat in pace, my dear friend and great nwadiana.
C. Don Adinuba was Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment, Anambra State (2017-22).