By Uche Anichukwu
ON May 12, 1962, when Ike Ekweremadu was born in Mpu, Aninri LGA, there were no comets; there were no singing birds; not even the star; not even the wise men, tracing the star; not even the traditional fortunetellers would tell that a great man had arrived. But today his homeland, Nigeria, and indeed the world, have recognised that a man in the person of Ike Ekweremadu is here.
Those were the words with which Prof. Simon Otuanya, described the birth and rise of the Deputy President of the Senate during a public lecture recently delivered by the Senator at his alma mater, the Faculty of Law, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus. It couldn’t have been better said.
Call him an enigma or man of destiny, you won’t be wrong, for Ekweremadu’s life defies estimation. At a time you didn’t give him a chance, when you think he has come to the end of the road, he bounces back like the cat with nine lives or Phoenix, the immortal bird in Greek mythology.
Who could have thought that the little town of Mpu could produce a Senator, let alone a three-term Deputy President of the Nigerian Senate? Given political permutations at about this time in 2014, who believed he would return to the Senate? And given his party’s loss at the polls, who believed he would reemerge as the Deputy President of the Senate. Yet, he returned- not by power, and certainly not by might, but by a combination of grace, destiny, and the popular will of the people.
A rewind to Ekweremadu’s testimony in 2013 during the dedication of a cathedral he built in his community unmasks his success and philosophy. His words: “As a young man growing up, I looked around me, both in my home, my local government, and the greater part of my state, and saw hopelessness. Just finishing from secondary school, I went to church and we were asked to pray and ask God whatever we wished. I said to God, ‘Because of all the challenges I can see around me; if you make me an instrument for addressing these problems and make me successful in life, I will build a church for you’. And from that day, my life changed completely. It has been one progress after the other”. One only needed to visit his constituency and environ to know if his prayer was answered.
Ekweremadu is a bearer of the anointing of God’s grace, no doubt. But it is also true he has profusely oiled the wheels of grace by selflessness, patriotism, kindness, hard work, and commitment to the common good. He surrendered himself early in life as a channel, not a terminus of his blessings. His approach to politics as service, his preoccupation with the collective rather than self, has continued to boost his political staying power.
For instance, when news filtered in, in September 2014, that Rt. Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi had been adopted as the consensus gubernatorial candidate of Enugu PDP at the end of a meeting with the former governor, at the Enugu Government House, I met with Ikeoha at his Abuja residence to articulate our position on the matter. Although he wasn’t a guber candidate himself, one would have ordinarily expected him to frontally oppose the choice, given the political temperament and interests that proposed him. But Ekweremadu described Ugwuanyi as a well-experienced and kind-hearted gentleman capable of reuniting the contending forces and leading the State with the fear of God. So, he said it was needless opposing a good man for the sake of opposition.
Again, in the aftermath of the acutely divisive 2015 presidential and National Assembly elections, the patriot in him reflected in his well-publicised address at the meeting with Enugu West Senatorial District, and later, South East PDP leaders on April 7, 2016.
Although his speech was entitled “On PDP We Stand”, he emphasised: “It needs to be reiterated, however, that the South East PDP and indeed Ndigbo have nothing against General Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd) as a person or against his incoming administration. We will work hand-in-hand with him in line with our regional agenda and the overall development of Nigeria. We will give him all the support to succeed because he was elected as the President of Nigeria, not President of the APC or any section of the country in particular.
“He has the choice to be a statesman by ensuring that no part of this country is discriminated against in the distribution of opportunities and development projects on account of their ethnicity, religion, political affiliation, and region or to do otherwise. But I believe that whatever choices he makes will determine his place in history”.
Furthermore, while fielding questions on Raypower Radio’s Political Platform, recently, he said it was in Nigeria’s interest for Buhari to succeed. He added: “As PDP, we are Nigerians and we love Nigeria as well. We are not going to hinge our return on the failure of the APC. No. Certainly, we want APC to succeed. We would like APC to succeed in the interest of Nigeria. We are going to hinge our return on superior argument, superior vision, and better ideas to run Nigeria if given another opportunity.”
I was with him at a High Level Seminar on “Peace, Security, and Sustainable Development” at the Belgium National Parliament, Brussels, in October 2015. He debunked some false assertions made by some European parliamentarians on insurgency under the current administration.
Ekweremadu told the international audience that the President Buhari Administration was building on the efforts of the previous government and had shown “enormous will and commitment towards ending the twin evils of insurgency and terrorism”. This was in line with PDP’s decision not to play politics with the war against insurgency.
Nevertheless, he does not believe patriotic politicking means keeping quite when things are going wrong. For instance, quoting Albert Camus in the opening pages of his new book, Who Will Love My Country, he writes: “I should be able to love my country and still love justice”. Thus, he once charged PDP faithful to “put the ruling party at the mercy of the truth; confront errors with the truth; stand up for what is right; offer constructive criticisms of the follies and errors of the ruling party; and proffer better ideas for moving the nation forward”. This is what he has also tried to do as an opposition leader.
Although he has often drawn the flak of the ruling party for such good faith criticism, there is nothing Ekweremadu or any PDP leader has said that compares to the unbridled name-calling and vitriolic hauled at former President Jonathan and PDP government by the former opposition! Check out two of the many name-calling and vitriolic Tweets by a former Acting Deputy National Secretary of the APC, now a State Governor: “Weak but wicked, clueless but corrupt, shamelessly incompetent, bold-faced but cowardly, smiley but genocidal” and “Many prayers of the lazy, docile, incompetent, clueless, hopeless, useless leader!”
Ekweremadu’s patriotism also shows in courageous admissions and insights contained in his book, Who Will Love My Country. The book is an honest and patriotic attempt at dissecting the Nigerian Federation and challenges, telling the hard truths with undiluted facts to engender good faith national discourse on the way forward.
Indeed, if the glowing tributes paid to him by eminent Nigerians like General Yakubu Gowon (Rtd), President Muhammadu Buhari, Governors, Ministers, heads of diplomatic missions, first class traditional rulers, and international organisations, members of the academia, corporate Nigeria, labour, civil society, professional organisations, etc who graced his book presentation are anything to go by, then one can say that although no comets or other heavenly elements annouced his birth, Ekweremadu’s good works, patriotic policking, and annointing of grace have continued to announce his presence.
Happy birthday, Ikeoha Ndigbo.
Anichukwu is Special Adviser on Media to the Deputy President of the Senate