Minister of state for foreign affairs Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu has paid tribute to her late husband Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu on the 13th anniversary of his death.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu led the Igbo in the Nigerian civil war of 1967 to 1970. Aged 78, he died in London on November 26, 2011.
Bianca said on social media on Tuesday that the day a partner dies is one that every woman dreads.
“This has got to be every woman’s nightmare,” she wrote. “The day you lose your better half. The day you have to tell your children that the man they were privileged to call ‘Dad’ is gone forever.
“On this day 26 November in 2011, this was my call to make. Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, General of the People’s Army had gone the way of all mortals, on another exile , but this time, one from which there would be no return.
“Through the years, Through the furnace, iron is transformed into steel. It is God, Father of the Fatherless and the Strength of the widow who sustains. It was a funeral ceremony that witnessed an assemblage of African leaders, Nigeria’s leaders both past and present, Religious leaders, global icons and international press.”
Bianca quoted Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s bosom friend, the British novelist Frederick Forsyth, who spoke at the funeral.
She quoted him as saying: “You can bury a man, You can bury a body but you cannot bury a legend. And for the people what was once Eastern Nigeria, my friend, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu has become a legend. Why? It is because back then, after the horrors of the slaughters of the summer of 1966, it would have been so easy for him, as military Governor of the East to have withdrawn and left you all to your fate. He was rich, he had his father’s great fortune, yet he stayed. He stayed to represent you, to speak your cause, to negotiate on your behalf, and when that failed,…to fight with you.
“That is why he remains Ikemba Ndi Igbo. The voice of his people. So, I, who was his friend, say this to you… when you speak of him, Speak Softly… when you write of him, Carve his name with pride.”
