From Magnus Eze, Enugu

Details have emerged on the relationship between Nigeria’s First Republic Minister of Aviation, Chief Mbazulike Amechi, who died earlier in the week, and the late African statesman and South African president, Dr. Nelson Mandela.

One important detail people did not know about the frontline nationalist, Amechi, was that he played a very crucial role in the life of Madiba, as Mandela was popularly called.

Saturday Sun gathered that Mandela had escaped and taken refuge in Nigeria when the heat of the obnoxious apartheid system was much on the freedom fighters in South Africa in 1963. During that period, he stayed for six months with Amechi at his Ukpor country home, in the present Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra. He also stayed briefly at the foremost nationalist’s Lagos residence. In fact, it was said that it was on Mandela’s return to his country from Nigeria in 1963 that he was arrested and imprisoned for life.

Noting Amechi’s diverse roles in public life, the Ohanaeze Ndigbo in a statement on Tuesday, said that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and the leadership of the defunct National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) considered the Anambra-born Zikist’s home most suitable, perhaps because he and Mandela shared common experiences in colonial pathologies.

“Mandela stayed in Ukpor for about six months. It was on his departure from Lagos in 1963 that the apartheid regime traced him and arrested him on arrival at Johannesburg,” Ohanaeze stated.

Secretary General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo, Ambassador Okey Emuchay, revealed that Azikiwe and Mandela had told him the story of how Chief Mbazulike Amechi helped out during the apartheid struggle.

He, however, like many other people, regretted that the relationship between Madiba and Dara Akunwafor, as Amechi was fondly called, was not captured in the ex-South African leader’s memoirs, Long Road to Freedom.

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Describing the first republic minister as an authentic African patriot of the first order, Emuchay said that he had, as Nigeria’s Consul-General to South Africa in 2013, facilitated Amechi’s participation in Mandela’s burial programmes, with support from the then Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi.

Emuchay recounted: “Dara was in South Africa for the funeral of Madiba. Late veteran journalist, Uche Ezechukwu, called to inform that Madiba stayed with Dara for six months on the directives of Zik of Africa and the highest level of NCNC. I wondered why Madiba did not capture this in his memoirs, Long Road to Freedom. I quickly reached Okwute (Peter Obi), who was the governor of Anambra State.

“He arranged flight tickets for Dara, his son and an aide. I fixed the SA visas and took care of the rest at the Jo’burg end. I received them on arrival and booked Dara in the same hotel I had arranged for former President Olusegun Obasanjo and Chief Emeka Anyaoku. I escorted Dara to the residence of Madiba, which was opposite my own official residence, to sign the condolence book and lay wreaths. He attended the funeral events in Pretoria.”

The ex-envoy, who said that he, thereafter, hosted the elder statesman to a dinner reception at his residence with South African and Nigerian nationals, as well as their friends in attendance, stated that the question on the lips of most people was why Madiba did not feature his relationship with Amechi in his book.

The Ohanaeze scribe said during the visit, Amechi was armed with a letter Mandela wrote him from Robben Island prison where “Madiba sought a favour from Dara for the son of one of the five lawyers that defended him during their case. The son wanted to undertake a masters programme at University of Ibadan. Dara was able to facilitate it.”

He further recalled Mandela’s second visit to Nigeria after his release from prison in 1990 to thank Azikiwe for the assistance rendered to him and his comrades in the struggle.

“It was on departure from Lagos in 1963 that Madiba was arrested on arrival in Johannesburg. They were sentenced to life imprisonment but he was released in 1990. His visit to Zik was the second on his release. He came to say thank you. Both Madiba and Zik told me the story. Zik met him at Government House, Enugu. Just both of them in a room for more than one hour,” Emuchay stated.

Former Deputy Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Prof. Kingsley Moghalu, who corroborated the story in his tribute to Amechi, said he was privileged to have visited the fallen hero in his country home in April 2019, and was “soaked in these and other stories of our national history, including an intimate first hand account as a member of a group of five close associates who, along with the Great Zik, received Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s delegation to Zik to persuade the latter to form a coalition of Zik’s National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) political party and Awo’s Action Group (AG) party to form the national Government after the 1959 elections, and why Zik ultimately instead entered a coalition with the Northern People’s Congress (NPC) to form Nigeria’s post-independence government, with Tafawa Balewa of NPC as Prime Minister and Head of Government and Zik as President and Head of State.”