Jonathan Lead Dignatories To Achebe';s Burial

President Goodluck Jonathan and his Ghanaian counterpart, President John Mahama, Thursday led an assemblage of personalities to Ogidi, Anambra State, to bid goodbye to one of Africa’s foremost authors, late Prof. Chinua Achebe, whose remains were interred in the town.

Achebe died on March 21 in Boston, the United States at the age of 82.
His remains were lowered into the ground at about 4:30pm at his Ikenga Ogidi country home.

Besides Jonathan and Mahama, other mourners at the funeral included representatives of various presidents and heads of government in Africa and across the world, members of the diplomatic missions in Nigeria as well as Governors Theodore Orji (Abia), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Rochas Okorocha (Imo), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Sullivan Chime (Enugu) and Martin Elechi of (Ebonyi).

Others included Second Republic Vice-President, Dr. Alex Ekwueme; Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala; Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Prof. Viola Onwuliri; and Rev. Canon Andrew Wheeler who represented the Archbishop of Canterbury.

House of Representatives Deputy Speaker, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, led the National Assembly delegation to the funeral, which was also witnessed by a former Commonwealth Secretary General, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, and traditional rulers from the South-east.

Earlier in the day, Jonathan had arrived in Ogidi in a Nigerian Air Force helicopter marked NAF573 at about 11:30 am in company with his Ghanaian counterpart, amidst tight security, at St. Philips’ Anglican Church for the service that preceded the funeral.

The president told the mourners at the church service, presided over by the Anglican Bishop of Aba, Most Rev. Ikechi Nwosu, who represented the Primate of Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Archbishop Nicholas Okoh, that he had come to appreciate God for creating somebody like Achebe in Ogidi, the heart of Igboland.

He used the occasion to urge Nigerians to work with other stakeholders,  irrespective of their status to work on the nation’s tarnished value system as a mark of honour to the  late Achebe who succinctly reflected this in his literary works.

He said he and Mahama would rebuild the Ogidi Primary School, which the deceased attended, and name it after him.

Describing the  late  Achebe as a  great philosopher, Jonathan said: " In 1983, Achebe wrote the "Trouble with Nigeria and told us that there is nothing wrong with the air  we breath in Nigeria, nothing wrong with our soil, nor the water we drink, or is there anything  wrong with our forest. The problem is with the political leadership.

"Achebe depicted Nigeria as a cesspool of corruption and misrule. Public servants helped themselves freely on the nation's wealth. Elections were blatantly rigged, even as  subsequent national census was outrageously stage-managed.

"Judges and magistrates were manipulated by the politicians in power. Politicians themselves were pawns of foreign business interests. The social malaise in Nigerian society was political corruption. The structure of Nigeria was such that there was an inbuilt power struggle among the ethnic groups and those who were in power wanted to remain in power and the simplest and easiest way to retain it was to appeal to tribal sentiments.

"That time, may be only about 40 per cent of the present  political office holders were relevant then and most of them were not even born by 1958 when Achebe wrote Things Fall Apart. "I read the Things Fall Apart in 1972, when I was in the secondary school. One thing about the book is the title itself. Achebe made references to our colonial history and  clash of culture.

But he emphasised that the colonialists put a knife in the things that held us together, which is our own value system. Achebe is simply saying that we have lost our value system and we had  fallen apart.

"And for those of us who by the grace of God and the will of Nigerians are holding political offices today, we should ask ourselves, have we changed from that?”

The President, therefore, urged politicians to work with business moguls, the religious leaders as well as other class of Nigerians to ensure that those legacies which had created the rots in the system are changed in honour of the late Achebe and for the good of future children.

"And one thing for those of you who have read these  books that I would like to appreciate Achebe for, is that he was critical about our elections, but one thing he appreciated was that the 2011 elections recorded some significant improvements. 

"If we can fix our electoral process and we politicians believe that this is our country, we do not have any other country than Nigeria,  we will work together, so that we can have a country that our grandchildren will write that there is a country."
Mahama, on his part, described Achebe as a man he greatly admired, and an icon of African literature who shaped his formative years in literature through his epic writings, especially “Things Fall Apart”.

He said Achebe would be remembered as a writer, a visionary and a politician who made it possible for so many young Africans to also fulfil their destinies.

Onwuliri had earlier presented books of tributes from about 25 countries in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa where her ministry opened condolence registers to enable people pay tributes to the deceased.

The president, she said, acknowledged that Achebe did so much to present Nigeria’s image positively before the world, adding that he was a special person who made a great difference in the world around him.

“Achebe was a Diaspora Nigerian par excellence who showed the world that you can go to a village school in Ogidi and become a star. We can’t throw away our educational system, but we should join hands to make it better,” she added.

Anyaoku in his brief remark said Achebe did much through his writings to boost the confidence of Africans in their cultures.

According to him, through the themes of his books, he let the world realise that Africans had cultures and traditions before the advent of the colonialists, which had stood the test of time.

In his sermon titled: “Prof. Chinua Achebe: A parable to the Nigerian nation,” drawn from the book of Mathew 13:3 and 34, Nwosu said Achebe had through his writings shown that life from the beginning to the end was a parable.

“Are we really burying Achebe? If we lower him to the grave now, what happens to Things Fall Apart and his other books, including There Was a Country? There are really people that can’t be buried,” he said.

“Achebe is not canvassing for votes to be governor or president. But look at the crowd from far and near. If the Lord had made a leader, nothing will change it,” he added.

The Anambra State Governor, Mr. Peter Obi, who described the late Achebe as a great African that lived, thanked Jonathan for showing rare leadership in the country, stressing that if it were before, a sitting president would not bother to attend Achebe’s funeral because he rejected national honours’ offer.

He assured the president that the love he had shown Igbos is like depositing in a bank account and that the bank would have enough money to pay on the day of withdrawal.

One of the late author’s children, Ikechi, who spoke on behalf of the family, thanked the president, the governors and others who shared in the family’s grief following the passage of Achebe.

He specifically thanked Jonathan for being the first person to send his condolences to the family after the death of their father and for attending the funeral.

He also expressed gratitude to Obi, whom he said took the burial as a personal assignment, as he recalled Obi's visit to the family in Boston soon after Achebe died as well as the many late night meetings with him to prepare for the burial.