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Education

schoolboyNG — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 00:08:54 CDT

Why Candidates Perform Poorly
By:Michael Daniels M.K. Okoronkwo

Beside student’s inadequate preparation for WAEC, poor communication and quantitative skill, inability to understand exam questions, poor grammatical structures and illegible handwriting among others which Chief Nnaemeka Olisah, acting Chairman of Nigeria Exam Council (NEC) highlighted as the reason students fail WAEC, I want to state convincingly that what leads to the poor preparation which is one umbrella that covers the rest of the short comings of students in doing well in WAEC is the lethal economy of the country and mal-administration by the powers that be. About 90% of Nigerian candidates are willing to enter into WAEC’s Guinness book of record under favorable economy and positive thinking and working government.

What Do I mean? The majority of the so-called (WAEC) candidates who enter (into the exam) rushed to the exam hall from their respective businesses—market, tailoring shop, hair dressing and barbing salon, street marketing ,carpentry, mason, etc, the business from which they eke out a living. I may not yet be understood .That most candidates even the undergraduates do not study again, is a common knowledge, but something prompted to it. Three quarter of students are self-sponsored or contribute about 70% of their educational outgoings. And to make sure they pay school fees, buy books they could afford, have clothing to put on and gari to sieve at the end of the day, they stop school for days or weeks and abandoned their books for the money. Even after work, due to much stress during the business hour, they could not read their books but sleep off and wake up the next morning to continue the daily routine. It is during exam you may see them flipping over the pages of their class notes and try helplessly to gather what the lecturer had taught—you can see that many of them don’t have text books and some who have do not have a reading atmosphere. There is a friend of mine, by September he would be graduating out of the university. But it is unfortunate to say, his bookshelf could not boast of 20 text books, his handouts and pamphlet inclusive; there is nothing foreign to his lecturer’s course text books. It is not his fault! He is the all and all as far as his education is concern. Beside being a student, he is also a tailor. You may know what it means: one leg in the school and the other on the sewing machine: he has little or no time to read.

With the finger, you can easily count those students in Nigeria who cares for nothing else except for day to break for them to go to school. How their school fees are paid is what they don’t know except that they receive a phone call telling them that their school fees have been paid, and at most they should go to the school bursar and collect their receipt? At home, they have standby home library and attending angels where they retire to for research and who take care of their domestic cores, respectively. Their own biz is to read.

No doubt, with the former, reading is with a divergent mind. Worries of what to eat after or how to put other things together stealthily steal away their concentration and understanding power and leave them only with gazing over their book(s) and entering the exam hall in impromptu. This is exactly the route of the malaise we see in the educational sector among students. Simply, the sky rocketing of examination impasse we see in school exams today is traceable to economically ill-equipped of Nigerians. With a harmonized and even distributed national economy, education will be ripped of this menace that is predominant in WAEC and tertiary institutions.

Another major threat to student’s success (in WAEC and other exams or to the entire education in Nigeria) is power failure. The harm this sector has caused to education is unfathomable. A Bible injunction says (I paraphrase) Saul has killed one thousand and David ten thousand. And another verse says “…what the palmerworm had left, the locust had eaten. (Joel, 1: 4) This is exactly what the power sector had done to education; the little percentage of education Nigerian bad economy had spared, has been voraciously gulped by looming darkness imposed upon by PHCN. Student’s and people’s morale to read is completely butchered by the inability of the PHCN to give light or the government’s ineptitude to empower and monitor the power sector to do its job. You can see that in the night, the last hope of average Nigerians including the students to read and prepare themselves for exam, there’ll be no electric light. It is common to know that anytime it happens like this, the (WAEC) candidates would enter examination hall with no information upstairs but with foreign materials and machinery by the side.

However, to address this problem the government has a pivotal role to play among which are: devising an economic policy that will be implemented from the grass root and which will place every Nigerian above poverty and survival level but at least on success level if putting them on the platform of significance is not yet in sight (but every Nigerian deserves to be significant in the polity of the nation). Something better than poverty alleviation programme should be put in place until the above mentioned programme should be transformed and be shifted from the literature and government’s offices, pages of newspapers and radio tapes where they are fully executed to the door post of the poor masses. The government can consider placing every Nigerian child on a monthly salary at any reasonable amount determined by the National Assembly; true free education up to tertiary level and, establishment and maintenance of functional libraries at every five minutes drive in the streets just as fast food centers (Mr. Biggs) and beer parlours and casinos are. In addition to the above, since the knowledge conveyed by ICT or its current position in the revolutionary world is a public knowledge, the government should make it a basic facility to every school—primary schools included. It is a high time to change the mentality of regarding computer/laptop as a device for the fortunate schools or which a Governor or government official donates to selected institutions to boost his ego.

I’ m always glad when I read in the pages of newspapers that a person or a body donates educative materials to a school or awards scholarship to students. Yes our representatives in the various levels of Government should embark individually, on meaningful programmes that encourage education of the citizenry especially the less privileged ones. Many people are out of school because they have no sponsor(s) while many who are in school are struggling to make two ends meet.

When I mean meaningful academic support, I mean taking the bull by the horn. One time I went home, I asked my people what someone representing us in the State House of assembly had been doing for us, a student told me that he has been trying. “In what aspect?” I asked. Then she quickly told me that he shared exercise books to students. “Exercise books?” I asked again in confusion. How many of the exercise books per student?” To save space she told me each student inherited two. Anyway, the representative made an attempt: but what have two exercise books to do for a student that needs at least ten? Truthfully, the two exercise books do not solve the student’s need for exercise books in particular. It remains the burden of the parents or guardians to provide the required writing materials for the pupil. Students have basic needs which could be a big problem for their parents or guardians to cater. The government and concerned body donors should tackle such basic needs and which are priority to the students. You can think of school and examination fees, accommodation fees, and standard text books and if possible “pocket money” feeding allowance etc. The aged parents and guardians could provide the exercise books and biros and pencils and other paraphernalia that do not require much money.

And in terms of electricity which is the second largest canker worm to students’ academic success if it (light) is not available, and when available, a catalyst and impetus for good performance, the government must make sure that there is constant power supply. Both in schools and at home—without electric light, every electronic gadget given to the schools is a waste. In fact, the government should tender zero tolerance to anybody that diverts money meant for power supply to something else. Base on this, I call for the present government relentless action in probing the US $16 billion power project of the last regime and which after eight years still keep us in darkness. And my prayer is, may the people involved in the award of the contracts never be treated with executive clemency when found guilty but brought to face the law like the common man because they are the enemies of our nation.

However, in summery, the onus is upon the government to create a befitting environment for the students to perform excellently educationally.

N/B:(This article was commenced on the scaffold of a five-story building in the day time and completed in the night with a candle light yet, by a candidate preparing for JAMB).

WAEC SHOULD APOLOGISE IGBO CANDIDATES By: Michael Daniels
Currently, one of the things that is attracting worldwide attention is the promotion of indigenous languages. To this effect, the world has mapped out a day in the year to celebrate mother tongue.

And I believe it is to make our children to be acquainted with our national indigenous languages that made the school authorities to co-opt the three major languages: Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba, spoken in the country as part of the school curricular even to be taught from basic education. But it is unfortunate that equal respect has not been accorded to the national languages compared with other subjects. As a result, people have been looking down on them and couldn't offer any of them. Some even deride those that choose them as a discipline.
My experience in the last Nov/Dec WASSCE or how the candidates that offered the national languages in the exam were treated is what bubbles up this writing. The candidates were not properly informed that their center for the very subjects was changed until very late in the day that day. Very early in the morning, before 8'o clock A.M, we had arrived at our proper center for the on-going exam and for the national languages in particular, and yet met the entrance to the hall pad locked. Thinking we came too early, or that the papers were afternoon papers we relaxed at the environ waiting for when it would be opened. After some hours, one of the school coordinators came and told us there was no exam in the school that day. When we insisted we had Igbo language and other national languages, he promised to find out where the center was. After some times he returned told us where the new center was; from there we took bike and raced to the place (about 20 minutes ride). On our arrival, other candidates have gone half way into the examination. Nevertheless, we were shared and informed that we had only 30 minutes to go for the main paper.

Honestly, after the thirty minutes, the answer sheets were collected back from us by the examiner. But it took some candidates spent the whole of the exam period to locate the new venue: they got to the place when the exam had been stopped and the papers submitted. Many of them encouraged themselves with the facts they had made credit for the indigenous languages in their first sittings. However, I so much had pity on one Segun that was offering Yoruba and who came into the entire exam because of the very subject having cleared other papers in his first sitting and yet could not be granted admission into the university for not procuring credit in Yoruba language (according to him) who was also one of the victims of the shenanigans.
As a confirmation to the ill-treatment meted on us in the day we were taking the national languages, by not informing us in time about the change of the venue, our result sheets are being stained with F9 in the column of the national languages. Hence, I would want WAEC to tender apology to every Igbo candidate and to our Yoruba and Hausa counterparts who receive the same shock and stain, using the candidates from this center 5331503 in Port Harcourt as a point of contact.

Also I would like to advise the National Examination Council (NEC) and
WAEC in general to apply seriousness in handling the indigenous languages in school both in class and in exam. At the same time, I want to extend my advice to our respective governments: they should be providing instant job to those that offer them as a discipline for these measures remain the best way to instill them in our children and encourage them to admire and speak them. Remember a nation without a language is one heading to extinction. Notwithstanding, I want to use the same chance to ask WAEC to release all our results they are still putting outstanding.

MICHAEL DANIELS JOURNAL

schoolboyNG — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:25:57 CDT

This site is all about nation building.via SOCIO-POLITICAL ECONOMY visit also www.mikydaniels.wetpaint.com

POLICE NETWORKING: PRIME WAY TO FIGHT CRIME

Unlike before broad day light criminals claim stakeholders of Port Harcourt, robbed, shut sporadically and yet went uncaught, and the police ran into their cocoons, the story has changed somehow. A different thing is now obtainable.

The Exit of a Nationalist: My Childhood Companion K.K

And They Hacked Him Down

Far back, with root in our basic education, a gap was bridged; a communication line was activated; I mean a nuptial nut was tied between us. And the umbilical cord that joined us was so strong that no one did imagine anything could separate us

WAEC Should Apoplogise Igbo...
Currently, one of the things that is attracting worldwide attention is the promotion of indigenous
languages. To this effect, the world has mapped out a day in the year to celebrate mother tongue. And I believe it is to make our children to be acquainted with our national indigenous languages that made the school authorities to co-opt the three major languages: Igbo, Hausa and Yoruba, spoken in the country as part of the school curricular even to be taught from basic education.

WHENCORRUPTION WERE NOT CORRUPTION

From my recent research on corruption from this side of the world, Nigeria, I have come to know that there are some corruptions even the most sordid ones that were not ‘corruptions’ or treated as such.

Why Candidates Perform Poorly...Beside student’s inadequate preparation for WAEC, poor communication and quantitative skill, inability to understand exam questions, poor grammatical structures and illegible handwriting among others which Chief Nnaemeka Olisah, acting Chairman of Nigeria Exam Council (NEC) highlighted as the reason students fail WAEC, I want to state convincingly that what leads to the poor preparation which is

Why Candidates Perform Poorly

CAKE FOR GENERATIONS (Memoir of Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo)
1900-2007

Well, having taking a retrospective look into the life of my father and saw the stuff he was made of: that in him and around his life dwell hidden treasures that make
great men and nations which the world climbs the high mountains and navigates deep seas to find....

Come Let Us Build the East: The State of Ndigbo in Nigeria II

“Good morning ‘Ndi nzuzu’” was a one time awkward but a mysterious and life changing lesson though a greeting Chief Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Eze Igbo Gburugburu, the man who saw the tomorrow of his people and warned them concerning it,

Missing Aircraft: What a funny story!

“…your pilot is not the only one who knows where your airplane is at any given moment. In fact, several others on the ground are monitoring the progress of your flight...

THE SORRY STATE OF THE HEALTH SECTOR
I have come to know why President Yar’Adua and his ilk always fly abroad for medical treatment.

GOVERNOR FASHOLA AND HOTEL BOBBY
Some times ago, my attention was drawn to Hotel Bobby by the Sunday Sun newspaper through a story of a family it headed: "The Benson Brothers". The story was a type of tragedy!

National Issues

schoolboyNG — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 21:04:43 CDT

POLICE NETWORKING: PRIME WAY TO FIGHT CRIME

By: Michael Daniels

Unlike before broad day light criminals claim stakeholders of Port Harcourt, robbed, shut sporadically and yet went uncaught, and the police ran into their cocoons, the story has changed somehow. A different thing is now obtainable.

One penultimate morning about 11.00am, just at Tombia Road by Obaji Junction, GRA phase 11, the ever busy road was automatically turned to a ghost street as the men of the underworld fired series of gun shot to scare people and have a free passage. A tipper driver who was trying to drive across the road then but run into them sharply lost his wind screen to their shouting, but he was not touched by the bullet. Commercial motorcyclists popularly know as Okada and other road users landed themselves along the road side and some across the drainage with the speed. In no distant time, a fleet of joint police force and the army vans filled the road, fully loaded with the joint force, chasing after the armed robbers. Beside the barrage of the JTF on the vans, many more were on bikes—some on uniform and some or mufti communicating with their radios. The news later come that the arm robbers had robbed at Trans—Amadi area of Port Harcourt and carried the money in a ‘Ghana Must Go’ bag and started running by bike. However, in less than two hours, the JTF who was pursuing the robbers started coming back. One of their vans was carrying a bike that was allegedly said to belong to the robbers, meaning that the robbers were finally caught. Consequently, I attribute the effort of the police and their victory over the arm robbers to the resuscitation of the police by the government and police networking respectively. I mean, the incentive or salary increase given to the police recently might have contributed to the police improvement. And it is police networking in the sense that before all the police could fill the road in that number like soldier ant pursuing the arm robbers they might have been fortified beyond the capacity of the robbers and alerted their colleagues elsewhere concerning what was on ground. Yes, knowing the location the robbers were heading to after robbing, they might have been radio messaging their colleagues in that direction to get ready. And by this, the arm robbers not knowing the measures the police had taken would end up falling into the hands of the police. With this I want to adhere that police networking is the prime way of fighting crime currently and therefore canvass more support for the police to be equipped with advanced gadget for easier communication among themselves, and guns that would give them the courage to face the criminals squarely and fearlessly. Also, to make the public involve in helping the police to fight crime, the police’s phone number should be made more accessible to the public: if it is possible it should be dispatched at every road junction to enable the public to report any crime going on in its environ to the police. I love the posture of a group in Port Harcourt who has dispatched the following numbers: 08036889311, 08059107873 to public to report any crime to them. The public is willing to partner with the police to fight crime. It has assured this interest by responding positively when it was called upon by Presidential Police Equipment Foundation to donate money to procure sophisticated equipment that will help the police to fight crime. It is unfortunate that the money was allegedly said to have been misappropriated by the foundation. If it is true, should the government keep quite over this and allow it to die like the PDTF saga because it involves those in the presidency? God forbid! The EFCC should not play at the gallery aver this but wake up to their duty by making sure that the perpetrators are brought to book if found guilty.

WHEN CORRUPTION WERE NOT CORRUPTION
By: Michael Daniels

From my recent research on corruption from this side of the world, Nigeria, I have come to know that there are some corruptions even the most sordid ones that were not ‘corruptions’ or treated as such. Such corruptions, though very naked to the eyes, and quite an effluvium, are not seen nor perceived by the powers that be including the executives, legislator and the judiciary.

They would set up a committee for this. If the committee could not employ filibuster or sine die to kill it, but submit their findings to the general house, or if the court sits for trial, even when the facts that are enough to attract indictment are omnipresent, they would wave it aside as lacking merit, preponderance of evidence or that the substance of the matter is not proved beyond reasonable doubt. But, this is even when the evidence is ‘proved without more’ i.e. clear, concise, uncontroversial, un-impugned and indeed unchallenged. But they leave the image to pursue the shadow. Prove the title of your land in dispute, they could award it to the disclaimer only that the latter register it before you; show with pure evidence that election is rigged, they would leave the clear evidence and ask you why you do not put ‘full stop’ at the end of your sentence, and hence dismiss your case as work of futility and yet give victory to the fraudulent and or discharge the notorious murderer only because he belong to the upper class or has paid handsomely. Unlike a crime committed by any other Nigerians, those committed by those in the executive arm of the government and its equivalents, and by the ‘godfathers’ and their ‘sons’ and ‘daughters’ are clothed with purity and treated as something sacrosanct. A whole generation could pass without anyone broaching the illicit container of their dubious acts. They might be charged together with the less-privilege ones over the same case, but while the latter are facing trial before the law court, they (those in the upper class) could not be served with court warrant to appear before the court –and because they are not invited, they could not go—Senator Iyado Obasanjo-Bello has more details on this. It is a common knowledge in Nigeria that a crime committed by the highly placed in the country is not treated as such. Nevertheless, I still hold the government of the People’s Republic of China in a high esteem for being indifferent to pampering, harboring and disguising corruption, and by calling a spade, a spade, and not minding whose ass is gored. For collecting bribe worth of ₤425,000 to approve untested medicines, the Chinese government hanged Mr. Zheng Xiaoyu, former head of Food and Drug Administration. This is a good precedent. It should help would be future defaulters to the impending danger standing before them. In many countries, a scam worth of trillion US dollars is not a crime in as much as every member of the agency receives a lion share from it. That is, once the spoil could be handed out to the satisfaction of all that are involved, it is a ‘holy deal’ or ‘Christmas bonus.’ No, a Christian name must be imported for it to make it sound holy. But once a party is cheated in the distribution, automatically, it becomes a sacrilegious thing because he must report it. Knowledge has shown that two recent scams in Nigeria: Police Equipment Fund and the N300 Million scam in the health sector that are under probe (or calling for so) and prosecution, are as a result of this. Certain people that suppose to be beneficiaries of the loot or who were not given a worthy offering bailed the cat that commanded prosecution or call for it. Concerning the Police Equipment Fund scam, the story has it that: “First, and for whatever reason, Dr. Ewulum (a co-founder of the organization who was later stripped off from it) blew the whistle, alleging wrong doings at the organization. He alleged, among other things that what’s going on in the Presidential Committee on Police Equipment Fund (PCPEF) has been shrouded in secrecy,” Patrick Asonye. “It was also revealed that running of the programme was in the hands of a few individuals, to the exclusion of impeccable character whose names were originally dropped to further the organization’s goodwill,” Asonye added. To expose why the government found it difficult to probe the organization, he concluded, “------ because of the various car donations (even the senate president David Mark was mentioned as one of the beneficiaries of the car donations) most agencies were alredy compromised. It was only the (ICPC) that didn’t receive car donations that replied us in the usual official language ‘steps are being taken to look into the matter,’” Festus Keyamo, Sunday Sun, March 23rd page 8 and 15. Besides, that of the N300 million health scam was similar to the above. A member of the organization’s accountant in level four ( according to their stratification) who was deemed to inherit N175,000.00 from the scam as a Christmas bonus who was later asked to collect only N40,000.00 or go to hell, having rejected the new offer, reported the shady deal to the EFCC who immediately probe the matter and found the Minister of Health Adenike Grange, Minister of State in the ministry Mr. Gabriel Aduku, Senate Chairman on Health Mrs. Iyabo Obasanjo-Bello, and many others, guilty (Daily Champion March 26,April, 9). What am I saying? Had it been the guy in level four was given the initial N175, 000.00, he could not have reported the crime, and no one could have known any thing about it. In fact, now Nigerians are not yet morally matured to reject and report corruptions once it occurs without expecting 10%, l argue that such a condition one would be cheated out in a deal like this is good for the nation and for fighting crime. Obviously, it should be the prayers of every well-meaning Nigerian to let misunderstanding that will always result to the exposition of any crime be at any place people gather to share any money stolen from the government coffer. In the other hand, I congratulate the EFCC for taking a positive action in the prosecution of the N 300 million scam in the Health sector, and urge them to apply the same bravery in that of the PCPEF and every other crime that seems to have been swept under the carpet because of the figures that are involved in it. Also, I charge President Yar’Adua, Rule of Law, to adhere to zero tolerance to corruption which is one of his 7-point agenda, and to apply it without showing favoritism. Every Nigerian is equal before the law and should be treated equally. And corruption is corruption despite who commits it and when.

THE SORRY STATE OF THE HEALTH SECTOR,
By: Michael Daniels M.K. Okoronkwo,

I have come to know why President Yar’Adua and his ilk always fly abroad for medical treatment. If it is not for anything else, it is to receive urgent and quality medication. Unlike in the country where doctors in many hospitals are in part-time medical services, and nurses under-supplied, in occidental countries, we can see, not only permanent doctors but resident ones who know the values of life.

What I saw in one of the private hospitals in Port Harcourt, along East-West Road of the city truly reveals the putrefaction of the health sector. About 8’0 clock A.M that day I was told our friend had auto accident earlier before then; about 2’0 clock A.M, fell unconscious and was rushed to the hospital in question. And before we could locate the hospital, it was already noon. And on arrival, we met empty reception room, with no receptionist to attend us. Anyway, we had to wait for one to come. And it took another bit of time before a nurse out of the three nurses in the medium-size hospital could come and ushered us into the ward in which the friend was. However, the excuse of the nurse for keeping us waiting nervously before given us attention should at most be that they all (they only three nurses in the hospital) were treating someone who had a fatal knife-cut all over his body.

On meeting our friend, though he had been stitched on the head where he had a cut, and was on drip, he was still on his dirty cloth full of blood and groaning for pain. “O boy, how about your health (which is paramount)? We queried. “I ‘m having sharp pains both on my shoulder and on the chest. Since I came, I had not been given any serious medication beyond the drip and checking of my blood pressure (BP). The doctor said I should pay a deposit of N20, 000.00 before treatment commenced,” he answered. At this, we decided to go and see the doctor.

The doctor, though not the one that was on duty the early morning the friend was brought to the hospital nor the one that established the deposit bill; told us when the patient was carried to the hospital she was called to come but she declined holding that it was too early to enter the road. At last, she confirmed the N29, 000.00 deposits and could not accept anything less than that to effect treatment.

When we could not win her favour to slash the bill, we decided to go and bring the money. When we returned, the patient was still groaning heavily and sighing as he turned on either side of the bed in pain, but the doctor was nowhere to be found. “Nurse, we have brought the money! Call the doctor,” we pleaded. “Wait! She will soon be here,” the nurse replied. After one hour, we were yet to see the doctor. We therefore, queried her whereabouts again and even demanded for her phone number to call her, all to no avail. They later informed us that the doctor would be in the hospital by 4:00 pm. “You are not serious,” we cried. “If the doctor –comes by 4’ O clock pm, when should the X-ray going to be conducted and the result issued?” We asked in confusion. At this juncture, the nurse stepped on our nerves by telling us, “Sorry, even if the doctor comes now the X-ray will certainly skip today because we don’t have X-ray facility here; moreover, today is Saturday and we couldn’t go outside for it.” “Incredible!” We waved our heads sideways crying for the sorry state of the Nigerian healthcare centers

Once more, we pressed, “You mean our brother would be in this state till next week?” Knowing that our avalanche of pressure on them to reason with us over the condition of our friend might not produce any fruit, we pleaded them to use a damp cloth to wipe out the blood on his body—and he was cleansed by 3:30 pm. Yet he was brought to the hospital by 2’O clock a.m.

Furthermore, till I left the hospital by 5:00 pm, I did neither see the doctor nor any ray of electric light in the hospital—their power generating plant could only supply light to the reception room. And in the hot room my friend was was another patient who had burn all over his body. Meanwhile, this is a man who supposes to be, if not in an air-conditioned room, at least in a cool place. But he was exposed to the oven.

Nevertheless, over the weekend, our friend was transferred to UPTH (University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital) by an uncle. Alas, on the evening of that Monday he called to tell us he was at home. Hence we went to see him. In fact, he regretted leaving the former hospital in the first place to the UPTH despite its shortcomings at least he was given a bed in the first. According to him, “The UPTH is over-crowded: it does not have enough accommodation compared with the teaming patients there. The hospital was so congested that even the waiting room was automatically converted to patient’s room—patients lain indiscriminately all over the hospital premises. To worsen the situation, the doctors are dull in discharging their duties. It took me many hours of waiting to have my X-ray. Even now they told me to come back next week to collect the result. To be candid I left the hospital with annoyance because I was not comfortable in it. Right in my presence, four persons died. I’m tired of this. Besides, the pain of this is too much on me; I could not endure till the next week they told me to come. As a result, tomorrow, I’m going to Enugu with the X-ray to see our family doctor for him to interpret it and give me the necessary medication.” However, as he went to Enugu, he called again to tell us that the cut on his head which was stitched and bandaged at the first hospital was decaying and reopened, and treated and re-stitched in Enugu.

Obviously, I was listening to him with sympathetically as he was narrating his ordeal in the hospital. And this keeps telling me that healthcare centers—both government’s and privates’—in Nigeria are in danger. They are not delivering to the public what is expected from them. Only the poor in the country who have no alternative receive the full blow of their plagues. The rich have nothing to do with the services of the Nigerian health sector. Their own family doctors are in the Overseas, if they feel a little headache they travel abroad for special care. And because they (Nigerian leaders) do not have the masses in their agenda, they have little or nothing to offer to resuscitate the national healthcare, the common hope of the masses. To tell you the extent of their wickedness towards the poor Nigerians, they could audaciously misappropriate the little fund the government could budget for health sector. Who could fathom the impacts N300 million might create in transforming the hospitals in Nigeria at least the government hospitals, or the lives it could save if it was directly applied in developing Nigerian hospitals as against being shared among the doyens of the Ministry of Health. Mrs. Iyabo Obasanjo—Bello, the Senate Chairman on Health who (whose Committee) inherited N10 million from the loot was not ashamed to tell us (in the course of defending herself) that her committee received such tranche from the ministry as a support for a trip to Ghana, to deny the EFCC a toehold from intercepting her. But her argument is a mere wishy-washy. If truly the Ministry used the money to support the journey she claimed, what impact did that trip to Ghana with money allocated to improve the health of the sick-masses at home? The money was not spent properly or at the right place where the utility is at maximum, therefore, it is misappropriation. Consequently, she ought to face the trial.

Notwithstanding, the time is ripe for our leaders to think home in the area of healthcare. A situation the government officials should have such an affinity for Overseas medical treatment should be greatly discouraged—if possible it has to be outlawed to give the leaders the benefit of upward grading of the national healthcare. The government has to put more interest in the national healthcare delivery and transform them to international standard or at least just as the ones they visit in Overseas. They should employ capable hands both foreign medical practitioners and Nigerian doctors practicing in abroad, to come and manage the health of Nigerians and at the same time retrain our local doctors and recruit many more including nurses. I love the transformation going on in the Lagos State healthcare. The simple way to describe it is what the Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Jide Idris said, “…so, the kind of work that is going on at the Ikeja General Hospital is one aspect of building the service at tertiary level so that the amount of money we are spending on sending people abroad , would stop. We are going to use that one too to attract more specialists from abroad, especially Nigerians working there to come back home; we can also use it to build capacity locally, that is why the uncompleted work in Ikeja is being completed and new ones are being planned, especially the cardiac center diagnosis unit at Gbagada. We have completed what we are doing there ….”

I want to reiterate here that Nigerian governments in all levels and in every region should target international standard in building the nation’s healthcare. And until there is influx of patients from South Africa and Overseas to Nigeria for medical treatment, or until Nigerian leaders and wealthy men in the country stop going abroad for medical check-up but start receiving the same from home, Nigerian healthcare institutions remain a death trap. And when the last is the case, Vision 2020 will be in jeopardy. “A healthy nation is a wealthy nation,” they said.

Missing Aircraft: What a funny story!

By: Michael Daniels

“…your pilot is not the only one who knows where your airplane is at any given moment. In fact, several others on the ground are monitoring the progress of your flight. The system has been designed to minimize dangers and maximize safety. (No wonder accidents rates for commercial aircraft are very low)” Awake April 2008, page 15.

Some years back, the country was blessed with series of plane crashes some of which were Belleview, Sosoliso, ADC, Military Aircraft, and aircraft carrying electoral materials to the East during the last April presidential election. And each time any of them occurred, the aviation ministry and the government would act as if they had done anything to avert a successive one. What the government always did ranged from probing the ministry, sacking or changing the minister and promising to upgrade the industry. But when the pain of the inferno seems to have subsided, the upgrading of the industry could be discarded and the chapter exhumed when another one occurs and gets dumped again once the populace seems to have forgot it. The same thing is applicable to road accident. There are many bad roads in the country which millions of people pass on daily, yet to repair them is not in the budget of the government. It is a day a fatal accident would occur on any of them claiming lives that government might deploy bulldozer to grade it. The system is one of the Nigerian factors. In the row is that an about to collapse electric poll or school structure in Nigeria could not be replaced until a day it will fall and cause havoc to lives. More on this, River Niger Bridge could not be dualized to support the existing one, unless the present one collapses. Nigerians know responding to problems after it has constituted a nuisance to humanity: they are yet to know stitch in time saves nine. However, the country has started this year with broken news of a missing areoplane Beech craft 1900D belonging to Wings Aviation Ltd whose search has taken days and had been stretched to Cameroon, yet without any fruit. Besides, when I watch the whole show, especially when I ponder on what I was taught concerning air transportation, that beside the pilot, several others on the ground monitor the progress of passengers’ flight, I take the story of the missing aircraft as a childish talk or the Aviation Ministry as playing in the gallery, unless I were misinformed. My lecturer on aviation taught me that to ensure safety and orderly flow of air traffic, since pilots’ chances of seeing each other while on air is minimal, that a traffic control system is put in place on ground and operated by ground-base (aviation) workers. “Air traffic control specialists play a vital role in the safety of air traffic. The first priority is to provide separation between aircrafts,” says Samuel, a 13 year air traffic controller in California. In his own words, an air traffic supervisor, Melba added, “First and foremost, is safety, but aside from safety, we also provide expeditious and orderly flow of traffic.” The summary of all this is that beside the pilot operating the aircraft from the cockpit, many ground-base eyes and ears are following the flight. Furthermore, I can deduct from here that the ground-base aviation workers play a greater role in the directing of the pilot and or tracking of the aircraft. They see even what the pilot could not see or before he (the pilot) could see it and advise him on the next line of action. To avoid collision of (two) aircrafts, the controller could instruct a pilot to either change: 1. Heading or direction, well known as vectoring in aviation 2. Speed in terms of overtaking or most importantly 3. Altitude to keep them more apart. I was equally meant to know that (at times) when surfing, that pilots do not know on their own where they are or will go especially when they meet intersection points in the airways, except they are informed by the ground-base air traffic controller; this calls for the need for pilots to keep with the ground-base controllers a copy of their intended flight route of plan (flight progress strip) before taking off. And with this the ground-base controller could track aircraft along the airways. “There are intersection points on the airways. When a pilot comes over them, he has to report that information to the controller. Then the controller strip will mark that on his mental picture of the path of that aircraft,” says, Salvador Rafael, another air traffic controller. Nevertheless, the components of the control system or what creates link between the pilot and the ground-base controller are radio and radio transmitter and radar antenna. The radio transmitters are located at specific points as aircraft fly from point to point until it reaches its destination. Also, this point to point flying of aircraft is what about specific airways. The mechanic here is that the directional radio transmitters provide signals to guide aircraft, and the pilot picks the signal through an instrument available in the aircraft and knows exactly where he is. In addition to the directional radio transmitter is the radio with which both the pilot and controller use to exchange information or the pilot receives instruction from the ground-base controller to know where the aircraft is at any given point in time. Before navigating, the pilot and controller choose a common radio and frequency to ensure steady communication and avoid lost of contact as a result of failure of the radio, they (pilot and controller) could select double radios and frequencies. A common language (the one both the pilot and controller understand) and formal phrases are other key factors to be adopted by both the pilot and controller. In addition to this, the pilot is advised to read back or repeat certain instructions given by the Controller. The aim is to see that the pilot gets the controller properly before acting. Rader is the next tool that air traffic controllers use. And through its antenna it picks up any radio waves that bounce off from the aircraft. “The planes then show up as objects, or tangents, on the controllers radar screen. May airplanes are equipped with a transponder, which returns an identification signal to the radar. When the signal is combined with computer input, the aircraft show up on a radar screen, complete with flight number, speed, altitude, and aircraft type,” Awake. As a safety enlacement, the radar also has the capacity to alert the controller when dangerous situations exist. This is possible through visual and visible alarms that go off if the system anticipates that two aircraft will get too close to each other. Anther alarm goes off if an airliner appears to be getting too close to the ground. From the foregoing, or how the aircraft is fortified, to ensure safety, you can discover that the makers of aircraft are very sensitive towards the important of life and would not like to risk any; hence, they put the basic facilities in place. And where these components of the aircraft and the personels operating it are available and functioning accordingly, it sounds funny for an aviation industry to surface with a story of a missing aircraft except to question the intelligence of men or show the world how lackadaisical they are. Consequently, million questions loom in the air waiting for answers from the aviation ministry: if the eyes and ears of the ground-base controller of the aviation department were on the aircraft as l was informed, why did Beechcraft 1900D missed without tracking it, or were they sleeping when it happened? That is number one! Two, if radio transmitter and radio help the pilot and controller to keep time to time communication, why did the aircraft miss amidst the communication or was there a communication failure before the incidence? Or was the plane hijacked? And if the plane was hijacked, when the hijackers were departing from the route the pilot dropped as his flight progress trip (according to my aviation instructor), why didn’t the ground-base controller notices it and reports? Finally, could it be that the aviation workers on duty then are neophytes in the game or that the basic equipment for the control system, especially, the radar were lacking or have worn out and could not function again? I mean does the company only exist verbally without having the necessary equipment for aviation? The government must press to find out.

COME LET US BUILD THE EAST By: Michael daniels
10, Jan.,08

“Good morning ‘Ndi nzuzu’” was a one time awkward but a mysterious and life changing lesson though a greeting Chief Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, Eze Igbo Gburugburu, the man who saw the tomorrow of his people and warned them concerning it, had one afternoon allegedly said t o have greeted his people Ndigbo in Lagos when they invited him to commission a multi-million naira standard market they built in Lagos State. The greeting was awkward be cause it came at the wrong time (in the afternoon) and the people that claim to be sapient acted foolishly. They left their region “The East” desolate and channeled all their resources and business to the West (Lagos) and to the North (Abuja, Kaduna and Kano), and there they live and pay house and shop rents in hundreds of thousands and some in millions per annum. Despite all these, they are still fighting for acceptance in the regions. Apart from being treated as sacrificial animals or like the ‘salah’ cow and rams at every religious and communal crisis they are not the cause, nor associated with, they are suffering structural devastation. Every ElRufai’s bulldozer in Abuja always found a safe landing on the shops where Ndigbo were doing their business. By this, many have been sent home jobless and to some to their early graves. Also, many times in Lagos, the markets where Ndigbo are trading have caught fire, in the process they contributed money and lobbied the government and d rebuilt the market to suffer the same thing in no distant time yet they could not have a rethink. What happened some years back at Computer Village in Lagos during Governor Tinubu’s regime? The market was suddenly declared illegal by the government, and many people were forcefully removed from their s hops. My friend was a victim to that. Hence, he relocated to Calabar and he is doing well there. But what happened to those currently trading there? They did the normal settlement to the forces that-be in the state. And this was in the tone of millions of Naira. Now, the recent fire that gulped Tajuoso Main Market in Lagos on 15th December 2007 and which have resulted into its closure is another heavy knock on Ndigbo in Lagos. Their billions of naira have drained down the ditches through the inferno. The victims did not enjoy the Christmas, and some that managed t o g o home could not return because attempting it would mount into unbearable suffering from hunger and its other attending vices. And some that survived leaving the village are still hanging around at some places in the East, being stranded. However, the victims are still are going to pick their lessons—but not now. With a little recovery, they could run back t o Lagos, join forces and pressurized the e government, not only to reopen the market but to rebuild equally, even with a solemn promise to bear the cost. No, I’m not against any such move! But it is a high time for Ndigbo in Diaspora to think home and think east. It is time for them to be orientated. That Lagos, Kano, etc are what they are today are Ndigbo. If they can put part of what they put in other places in the East, the East would be a ‘new heaven’. Lagos is what it is because people located and invested in it. People come from far and wide targeting Lagos, Kano, Abuja, etc as final destination only that they have been developed. Even the hamlets in the East would become like the Festac Town in Lagos if the Easterners could grasp the vision I’m seeing now concerning the region. It is unfortunate that some people come to Port Harcourt daily for their day-to-day business and return at the end of the day by flight and repeat the same process the next day not at all to display their affluent but because of the restive in the area. If Ndigbo see the vision I’m conceiving they would have made South-East like Lagos and Abuja. And like Donald Duke, subtly steal the offices and headquarters of the companies in Lagos who are there just because they do not find a serene milieu in the South, just as Donald Duke stole the Nolly Wood who was hovering on the air in Lagos like a dove without a nest, to Tinalpa, Calabar where the film industry finally find peace at for its soul. This will contribute enormously to the calming of the militancy in the South-South because this having a resemblance of the Word of God, and for it (the Word) to be fulfilled, though the South-East is not a stranger to the dividends of democracy and national cake, the South-South would become jealous of the development that is eluding it and at the same time being grabbed by her sister region the South-East and would like to change from unwholesome practices in other to regain its ‘missed’ mandate. With this, I believe the restoration of serenity in the South-South regions is in the hands of the South-East. The Word of God of says: “Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back always. I say then, have they stumbled that They should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fullness?” Yes, the South-East has all it takes to soar to this envisaged platform. It is only a matter of months or at most a year. What is needed from for it is oneness, willingness, pertinacity and faith t o do it. As the Bible story goes in Genesis 11:2-4 “And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the EAST, that they found a plain in the land of Shinor; and they dwelt there. And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar. And they, said, Go t o, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we scattered abroad (consumed) upon the face of the whole earth,” ( ) And they arose and built a ‘city and a tower’. Except that the people built with a wrong motive, they would have been wonderful people on earth. Ndigbo, you are wonderful people on earth, the very people in the biblical ‘East’, the land of the wise men, the region for God’s garden (Eden). You are the Isrealites of God in Nigeria. Although you may be in bondage for 400 years, one day, your deliverance will come. But for now, there is a plain and resources for you in the East to build a city and a tower in the eastern Nigeria for the glory of God. And you have the resourcefulness for it. Therefore, I say it again: Come let us build a city and tower in the East. Who is an Igbo man among you? Tell him: come, let us build a city and a tower in the Eastern Nigeria. Our Eastern Governors, revisit your agenda in the last World Igbo Congress (WIC) in Detroit City, US and therefore come for us to build a CITY and a TOWER in Eastern Nigeria for the glory of our God.

Life style

schoolboyNG — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 20:35:05 CDT

THE EXIT OF A NATIONALIST: MY CHILDHOOD COMPANION K.K By: Michael Daniels M.K. Okoronkwo

Far back, with root in our basic education, a gap was bridged; a communication line was activated; I mean a nuptial nut was tied between us. And the umbilical cord that joined us seemed to be so strong that no one did imagine anything could separate us. Little did we suspect that this rascal ‘Mr. Death’ might make an incision on us that could take us extremely apart from each other even before we could together showcase to the world, our special endowments. Apparently, the generation that grows with us sees us as being very promising to the world. They were not ashamed to hope on us for the future at least that we should add colour to life.

With ease, I can regurgitate those days you did fill my gap in my absent: you did freely go to my mum's kitchen, eat the food I ought to eat; go to her farm and did the job I should do. Though, I was not there to see by myself, my mother keeps ringing the bell. Your mum were my mum; your siblings my siblings and mine, yours. We did so many things together just like siemese twins: you knew the girls in whom I had interest just as I know the ones that gave you full giggles and those that broke your heart and set your feet constantly in the street searching.

When it was ripe for us to go by sobriquet, as I rested on 'Unique' and disclosed it to you as the very closest, it did not take you time to go out and publish it as your own name against my expectations--this is the only thing you have robbed from me. Yet I did not drag you before any panel or court of law for prosecution neither did I reprehend you: instead, knowing full well that the name fitted you, I kindly left it for for and shopped for 'Archangel' the one that seems to be divinely assigned for me and which no one did contest with me.

And one thing I do live to remember once I have a retrospective look into what made us who we are, in other words, the origin of our companionship is that: you saw the academic brilliance in me and were challenged. Meanwhile, believing firmly that knowledge is innate, and could be nurtured to excellent, and that there is one in you, you picked up the challenge and resolved to fan into flame your intelligence. “Mike, each time I come to you, you are always reading, and this imposes challenges on me. For that I’m going to put interest in my studies,” you said. Immediately, you curtailed the time you previously assigned for trivialities and give much for constant studies. It wasn’t long you became a bookworm and started competing the first class honour with me. In fact, you were one of my closest rivals. This very act made me to place you on the eerie above your equals. Hence, when I changed to Wilcox Mem orial Comprehensive Secondary School, Aba, you were quite uncomfortable with our former Nkporo Campus—you were like a fish out of the water. And until you changed to Presbyterian Seminary School, Ohafia (all for pursuit of quality education) where you obtained your senior school certificate, you did not have your peace. With this pace, you defiantly encroached into the tertiary institution, University of Benin, precisely, like a wild fire and without being held captive by JAMB and other follow-up exams. Yet, when you went there and were yet to see me against your expectations, you were very much troubled. To hook me up, there was no other gospel you did preach to me except the need for me to be there. As if I were academically stupefied or an ignoramus to whom values of education has not been unfolded, you kept sermonizing to me to suspend every other engagement for now and face the reality ‘education’. You have a keen desire for (my) advance studies. Besides, when you merely knew my advances towards higher learning you shouted “excellent”; the joy in your heart could not be measured. Happily, you encouraged and guided me in certain fields as a don, and disclosed to me your plans to go for your master’s degree. Before now, you have vested yourself with teaching and guiding students on how to beat WAEC, NECO, JAMB, etc hands-down. Through this, many who could not smell the wall of the universities are now in many faculties of learning ranging from social sciences to pure sciences. Oh how is it that you are not here to accomplish the mission you kindly assigned; share your wealth of knowledge; witness my matriculation; and harvest the fruit of your labour! I have missed you dearly! Where on earth would I get a next rival as you? Your innumerable friends have missed you, too, likewise your candidates at Executive Tutors, and the entire Executive Tutors! Who have you handed over your wealth of experience before you left us without saying ‘Goodbye’?

Honorable comrades and members of Executive Tutors, our guru has embarked on the long journey ahead of us: we should take heart until we meet again. But as we live, we should emulate his good qualities: he was gentle and kind, ease-going, sociable and peace loving. He could easily sacrifice what might bring rancor between him and his pals. Above all, he was bold to confront anyone that walked contrary to what was conventional. Simple, he professed social ethics. Since we came to be, I did not seen him quarrelling with anyone not to mention of exchanging fisticuffs with any. His hope that future is dense with goodies is a common knowledge. Hence, he was not moved by the present condition no matter how fierce it looks. His very slogan used to be ‘Future wait for me, I’m coming in a style.’

Ladies and gentlemen, K.K, my penchant name for Kalu Obasi Ogbudibia, was a renowned nationalist: he was a lover of humanity and the entire nation more especially, his home town. He had the propensity towards serving humanity. And he was of the progressive, meanwhile; he joined forces with the progressives to serve his community. He was a member of the Etitiama Nkporo Youth Association (ENYA); he was very active in the age grade-like organization and was one of its national executives. To enthrone justice, peace, unity and development in Etitiama and Nkporo at large and the entire nation as a whole were his uttermost goal. Out of the cozy cities in the country he could live happily, he opted to encamp nearer home to grace his chances of knowing the happenings at home and getting involved in every social and political affairs, all to building and sustaining a better government. No wonder he was always one foot in the town and the other at home. He informed me that he wanted to be quite proximity to home to be involving in home affairs, “I don’t want to be far from home but nearer to enable me in serving the community better. As a result, I’m considering Aba and Port Harcourt as my permanent base. Right in the latter, I’ve put application for a job.” This is K.K for you. Alas, he has been nipped at the bud even at the nick of time his services are at a high demand. Yes, K.K, a call for an interview from the company you applied came at the moment you were combating with life and death i.e. the job you applied for ripen early enough but the symptoms of death dwindled you from the harvest. Yet you were very optimistic you would triumph until you breathed the last breath, and reluctantly relinquished the spirit of nationalism and crushed the hope of generations. What an irreparable loss!

O brethren, faithful companions, and people of the great community and Nkporo nation, a rare gem has gone as a morning rose: when we could say “Welcome, an Element,” we were coerced to alter it to “Goodbye an icon.” Oh, an eulogy fit to be delivered on his birth day celebration or on the occasion of one of his happiest moment in life (celebration of success) has been constrained to be sang as a requiem! May the perpetrators of the evil, the devil's machinery, feel remorse for their lethal machination, embrace the Cross for regeneration lest they perish.

Notwithstanding, we need not pique against the Creator nor query His wisdom which is beyond our comprehension, perhaps we become brutish in nature. Instead, we have to apply maturity of mind, bear the pain with His grace on our side, cry no more (though we have the cause) and yet give thanks to God who is the judge of all. Secondly, we have to import a good mind-set and undergo fresh orientations. Rather than bothering our heart over past glory, let us embrace the future with pride. Our comrade, Martin Luther King Jnr. said, “The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands at moment of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of great challenges and controversy.” Truly, a lacuna has been created and ought to be bridged (again): our chemical engineer has been abruptly cut off from us; therefore, we have a need for a replacement. When Cain killed Abel, a Seth was given to the family for a replacement. And through Seth, a son from whose generation people began calling upon the name of the Lord was raised (Ge.4:25-26). Meanwhile, we need to resize ourselves upwardly to fill the chasm. As for me, I have taken more responsibilities upon myself, a kind more than one man could carry, to ensure the niche made by the absence of my honorable friend is not deeply felt in the world over. Likewise, I want every one of you to do the same. A light has been quenched from the Ogbudibia’s and the community as a whole, and it is a high time to light another—this is the big challenge before us. The onus is upon both the deceased family and the community to produce another star—the future is bright.

Repetitively, I admonish everyone to be very futuristic and conscious of it: tomorrow is bright (er) and better if it is well planned. Keep pursuing it. Never relent. Certainly, you will be there in a style. And to mankind in general, I exhort: shun violence, animosity, acrimony, hatred, etc. Desist from making your heart the Devil’s workshop. Instead, imbibe brotherly love; be your brother’s keeper; pursue peace with all men so that the world would be a better place for us to live, and the community quickly developed.

In conclusion, to our co-traveller K.K who has today come to the climax of his earthly journey, I commit into the hands of the Most High God. May God accept his soul in perfect peace. Rest assured, we do live to remember your strength, ambition and vision. Never will you pass like a coward or be forgot as a stillborn. Forever, you remain a hero.
Goodbye K.K
Adieu Kalu Obasi Ogbudibia
Adios an Element
Au revoir Engineer Ogbudibia.

Courtesy: Michael Daniels M.K Okoronkwo
MICHAEL DANIELS International (MDi)
…The Light of the World…
www.michaeldanielsjournal.wetpaint.com
e-mail: michaeldanielsjournal@yahoo.com
08050743871

To be Published By: MDi…The Light of the World
(Press)
Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgment
Preface
Forward
CHAPTER ONE: Introduction/ 1900 Special Events……………………………..4-7
M.K.O’S Family Background…………………………7-11
Occupations……………………………………………11-13
Social Life……………………………………………….13-16
Religion………………………………………………….16-19
Epilogue…………………………………………………20
Smart K.’s Chapter of MKO’Biography…………………21-22
Tributes To Chief M.K.O………………………………..23-25
Government And Rural Development: Nkporo in Perspective….
Introduction to FOREX……………………………………25-
Introduction to MDi…The Light of the World……………25-30
DEDICATION
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE PROGENITIES OF CHIEF MARCUS KALU OKORONKWO (TO SHOW THEM THE STUFF THEIR FATHER WAS MADE OF). I ALSO DEDICATE IT ONLY TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO REIGN, RULE AND WIN. ABOVE ALL I DEDICATE IT GOD TO USE IT TO BLESS ALL HUMAN RACE FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
First and foremost, I appreciate the almighty God for the wealth of knowledge and infinite grace he bestowed on me which enabled me to write this book. I give Him all the praise. However, my appreciations also go to the entire management of Visa Karena Hotel and especially, its Cyber Cafe department for unimaginable support I received from them during my times of difficulties and also for the printing of this book. Among them, I give greater thanks and admirations to Stephen Ephraim Alongsius, the manager of the Cyber Café who single handed typed the book and also gave me uninterrupted access to the computer at little or no cost to modify it. God used him enormously to make this book a success. May God bless him for me. I equally thank every other person I could not mention their names who helped in one way or the other to make this forte a reality. God bless you all in Jesus’ name! Amen.
WHAT I’M AND WHAT I HAVE WERE DEPOSITED BY MY FATHER; DEVELOPED BY MY MOTHER UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE GRACE OF GOD THE ONLY TREASURE I HAVE AND CHERISH
Michael Daniels M.K.Okoronkwo
PREFACE
“And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp they went into one tent, and did eat and drink and carried thence silver and gold, and raiment , and went and hid it ; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went hid it. Then they said one to another, we do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace; if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us now therefore come that we go and tell the king’s household.” 2 Kings 7:8-9
Well, having taking a retrospective look into the life of my father and saw the stuff he was made of: that in him and around his life dwell hidden treasures that make great men and nations which the world climbs the high mountains and navigates deep seas to find.
And these very stuffs he bequeathed us.
Weighty enough are them, that my heart grows fresh fat daily as I ponder over them—I always draw a new sketch of life for social, economic, religious and community development through touring the life of my dad which is synonymous to nation building.
My father Chief Marcus Kama Ude, as he was fondly called, was God’s gift to the world. When I entitled this book the ‘Cake for Generations’ I was not exaggerating or guessing. He is a package specially garnished by God for His people not only for the generations past but also for the present and the future. He was meant to serve nations across the globe to pregnant them with courage and possibility to keep the ocean going and sail up-stream against the rough tide. He was simply a messenger of perseverance, varieties, success, life abundant, and a research institute for political scientist and diplomats on how to a run a multifarious family or country with diverse ethnic nations and yet keep them within the range of love, peace, unity, and even development—he was a minister of Women Affairs, a renowned diplomat of thought—he handled his family of five wives, a two dozen children, four scores grand children and a ten great grand children and uncountable number of in-laws, and cousins, tactfully till his death, without any fighting one another for one do.
He had good listening ears and patient heart to admit their complaints and attend them according to their needs using the scale of prefereanwhile, as a research institute he is, student of poverty alleviation, orphans and semi-orphans, a nation with mono economy, and generally, economist, etc consult him on how to make a boom out of a meager salary or capital, and without a father’s support (where one is not in extant); and on factors surrounding diversification of economy together with when the diversification is most appropriate and yielding. This was because it was the forte from which he excelled and he has great prowess for them. Even lazy bones are challenged by his business enterprise and acumens to put their hands to the pumps and eke out a living.
But he was yet to be formally educated!
Also, he is a beam of hope to people and families that see no grail hair, who are always assaulted by premature death—mere seeing how long God kept him on earth and protected them from all the arrows of the wicked make them grow fearless of any death that is not of God and have more faith in God that He would see them through all the days of their life on earth.
However, in the crooked world where evil were a custom; people forsook the image and began to pursue the shadow; paid homage to what were not the living God; betrayed brother to take his entitlement, and covered immorality to champion a course and get favor, Etteh Kalu was still focused and determined to hand down uprightness as a legacy. He built his principle on integrity—preached, taught, practiced, and enforced it upon men around him and made it an insignia in his own family. And he seriously frowned when justice is subverted. He led a quiet and responsible life to the level the public could believe and bear him witness. Chief Marcus left many things for us to chew. It is upon these grounds that I chose, against all odds, to put into writing and pass to the world the events that encompassed the 106 years he was on earth writing through his life, and in the heart of men, his many political, economical, social and religious philosophies—the very job he was good at—which have been attested by great minds to be a great innovation so far; so as to take his message farther to where he would have taken it to if he had had the media, and to the exact people God has assigned his journey on earth to be a subsidy and a forte to.
To be candid, I have no contribution in framing his philosophies. He had already made them and stored them in his life. I’m only a custodian to them. Being his lastborn or one nearest to, I spent quality times with him and hence I copied many things mainly the best from him. In fact I picked about 75% of his best interest. In a nutshell, I only record his philosophies as I see them originally written by him in his endeavors.
Frankly, I would be very much unfair to both this generation and generations yet unborn if I have yielded to the forces reacting violently against the publication of this forte from which I excel, and yet, let it elude them. Of course the world would have asked me questions when it sees me in glory and fail to trace my source or at least part of what makes me outstanding. In other word, it is quiet unobtainable to let a king go uncelebrated! Chief Marcus K. Okoronkwo was a king. He reigned and ruled in his days. And because we live he still lives. Hence, we must bestow on him the honor due to him as a chief. Of course, I recommend to the generations after us to keep the pace faithfully to the glory of God.
Also, to appreciate God for the grace He showered upon him to make these high ways for us, is the hidden power that excavated this tome—it is a large and a heavy book not by its volume but by its content or the nourishment it offers. It remains my reference book. I always turn to it for empowerment when great assignment stands before me—I mean when I’m being challenged with Herculean political, social and economical developmental problems; and when I want to know where a hole exists and the ineptitude of men. It is my bible, my very second Bible. I therefore, recommend it only to kings and anyone that wants to reign, lead and win. To God be the glory.
Michael Daniels M.K Okoronkwo.
INTRDUCTION
Many years were that were very remarkable to men because of what they surfaced. The year 1900 was one. It provided great minds with enough to dine on and shift to the generations yet unborn. Hence the majority of what we have now or that transformed us to who we are today dated back to this very year.
For France, 1900 was a moment of her joy as she made her debut in being the host to the world’s most covetable Summer Olympics Games of the Second Olympiad (now Olympic Games). Her capital city Paris was filled to the brim as it featured over one thousand competitors from all over the world who took part in 19 different games some of which were first introduced then into the game industry. Ask Lady Charlotte Cooper, she would tell you it was one of her most blissful moment in life for beside being among the first women that were privileged enough to participate in the Olympic Game for the first time, she was equally the first female Olympic Champion.
In the same year, under William McKinly the 25th US president, US Troops joined international force in putting down Boxer Rebellion in China. Also, US longing for freedom for all, and democratic government in every country of the world, and being at the peak of his administration, William McKinly appointed William Howard Taft who later became the 27th President of US to head the commission charged with terminating US military rule in Philippines. Reversely, hope of freedom dawned on the Philippines in 1900.
Have you heard of Standard Gold Act? Of course you might have. It was in the same year 1900 under William McKinly that the Act was passed, making the gold dollar the sole standard of currency. Guess what! The gold due to its qualities—luster, stability, universality and acceptability, etc. was used to back currencies and hedge them against the influence of US Dollar the bulk of liquid reserves. In the world today, the US Dollar is being used as the international unit of account. Many countries quote their monies in US Dollar to bring it to international knowledge or convert the domestic value into dollar when it comes to international transaction. This is because, if any country is counting on its domestic term—naira for Nigeria, CFA for Togo/Cameroun, Cedi for Ghana, RAND for South Africa, Yen for Japan, EURO for European Union, Pound for Great Britain, WAUA for AU (African Union), Dollar for US, etc. it would create a bit problem in understanding; no one foreigner would understand with ease unlike when the same amount is converted into dollar.
To convert a foreign currency to a domestic one, multiply the value of the foreign currency by the current value of one unit of the domestic currency to the foreign in the foreign exchange market. To convert domestic currency to foreign, divide the domestic currency by the value of one unit of foreign exchange. Among other things, It takes knowing the market value of the currencies you want to trade on to partake in foreign exchange market.
Almost every country has her foreign reserves in US dollar. At the moment Nigerian foreign reserve is $45 million.
The foreign reserve of a country is what gives it balance in international trade. It aids in the balance of payment. If a country’s currency is over valued or depreciated, it takes her foreign reserve to keep her sailing in the market. Trade deficit reduces foreign reserves and also depreciate or lowers domestic currency. And when a nation’s home currency is depreciated her exportation is priced poorly while it cost her dearly to import. To restore or balance a nation’s trade in the global market or make its currency appreciate, the nation has to boost her exportation and minimize her importation.
The three major currencies most countries use to reserve currency remain the Pound, EURO, and the US dollar. And one of the factors that influence each countries choice of currency for foreign reserve is interest rate. Another one is stability or the ability of the currency for foreign reserve to keep low inflation rate. Any country with a better interest rate and higher stability attract many nations to invest in their currency.
Although US dollar makes waves, British Pound and EURO, each of them have a higher market value (purchasing power parity) than it. Yet the British Pound and Euro are nothing to be compared with gold. Change in the price of gold automatically offsets the holdings of these world leading currencies i.e. if the price of gold depreciates holders of pound, Euro or dollar will sell a greater portion of their currencies to buy gold and have more of gold. In other word, if the price of gold soars, it would take extra dollar or pound to get the same quantity of gold unlike before.
Fiat money is protected by gold. Central Banks and the First World Countries have gold as their reserves till date.
Gold does not rot nor rust. The currencies of the world powers vie to be like it. (One ounce of gold is estimated at $625).
More importantly or another reason gold is well cherished as a store of value more than real estates, securities and even government bonds is that unlike fiat money government has arbitrary power over and can re-dominate and devalue thereby setting inflation that deteriorate the value of money the more, it is free from government’s manipulation. With it there is no ‘currency uncertainty’. If you save seven bullion gold of any value today to collect it back by five years, in cash, it will still give you the current price of it then. Let the host nation change her currency or devalues it if she wants, your gold is there for you and will give you back your money any time any where. Gold is market everywhere and at anytime.
Rest assured, although gold has left the market publicly as a standard of currency, it is still competing market covertly with the world’s leading commodities. As some invest in bank shares, automobile companies, oil companies or petroleum, etc many invest in gold. And only men with foresights are transacting on and with it these days. Banks used it to hedge against loans; US also use it to reserve their currency.
Hence, it calls for giving attention. I mean the commodity that was adopted in US in far back 1900, exactly 107 years today as a wealth reservoir is a rewarding business. It hedges against inflation.
“In the absence of gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation from inflation,” –Alams Greenspan Ph.D. (gold and economic freedom by Alams Green.)
Furthermore, 1900 was a period of opportunities! Roosevelt that later emerged the 26th president of US in 1901was by then the Vice President of US under William McKinley. It was the forte by which he excelled.
Indeed, no year had turned out to be an international year as the very year in question. Africa also inherited its blessings. Before the white, an African were a black monkey, a wide beast that worth not to be associated with—they saw nothing good or in common between themselves and the Africans. Hence they discriminated them to the core. And with time maybe to eliminate them from the face of the earth to avoid them from mixing up with them and affecting their children as they might have perceived that soon Africans would be migrating, they introduced the obnoxious slave trade, an instrument with which they led Africa into slavery and humiliated them beyond standard. As animals they had taken Africans to be they yoked them together and dragged them under heavy burden –naked and hungry. Again, just as a cattle farmer counts his yokes of oxen in hundreds, the Whites counted the yokes of their African slaves in thousands; and as a businessman exports and imports bulk commodities likewise they exported and ordered to be imported the Africans as slaves for dubious activities—they allowed most of them to starve and over laboured themselves to death in the plantations.
Meanwhile, when they considered the exportation of the Africans as slaves tedious and a slow process and envisaging colonization of the entire Africa a swift means to enslave the whole African race and manipulate it they embarked on colonization with vigor. They dominated Africa; chase it away from its resources, suppressed her education, changed her language and culture holding firmly that there was nothing worthy of emulation in Africa (cunningly, they questioned the wisdom of God—God why did you make this race?). To make any trace of Africa not to be seen again under the sun, they take as barbarians, and influenced their (Africans’) consanguinities to also regard as such any African that spoke or practiced African language and culture respectively, and also ostracized from the metropolis any Africans caught speaking African language or dressing in African style.
Right in Africa, our fatherland, they enslaved our fathers, denied them access to what rightly belong to us; imposed upon them what were strange to their nature—as a square peg they inserted us into a round hole and yet forced us to enter. When our fathers teamed-up to revolt their evil administration, the Whites introduced ‘operation divide and rule’ an instrument that has lingered in Africa till date and caused more harm to us. They made some traditional rulers and turned them against their consanguinities.
However, this act being an atrocity no man could accommodate and which defiled every known law, and human right, Sir Henry Sylvester Williams West Indies barrister founded ‘Pan Africanism’ to fight against the Whites’ obnoxious slave trade, racism and colonialism, etc for Africa. Among other things and as time went on the organization advocated co-existence among all races of the world and freedom to participate in the administration of their respective countries and later independence. Other prominent members of the organization were W.B. dubois and Marcus Garvey (founder of Universal Negro Improvement Association {U.N.I.A}, 1914). The organization “Pan Africanism” had its first conference in 1900. And African Representatives in their first-five meetings in London were: Dr. Kwami Nkruma of Ghana, Azikiwe of Nigeria ((Zik of Africa), Jomoh Kenyata of Kenya and Banda of MalIn a nutshell, African hope of freedom and integration into the comity of nations dawned on them in the same year 1900.
And until the same year, Nigeria, now generally acclaimed as the giant of Africa which is currently among the first-eleven world oil producing countries and is strictly pressing hard to rob shoulder with the top 20 world economy and the (next level of) eleven emerging economies of the world after the BRIC {Brazil, Russia, India and China} by 2020, was not in the map of the world.
Yes, in the chain of the special events and figures of the 1900 even Nigeria’s twin and age mate was Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo. Indeed, as the British was celebrating the birth of the African most populated country, likewise did the family of Mr. and Mrs. Okoronkwo Onwuka and the entire member of Ndi Egwuonwu compound, Etitama Nkporo, the melting point of Abia (North) State were dancing and jubilating over the birth of the man that came, saw, and conquered, Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo (MKO) formerly and popularly known as Chief Marcus Kalu Ude (KAMA UDE)
FAMILY BACKGROUND
Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo (MKO), was born at Ndi Egwuonwu compound Etitiama Nkporo in Ohafia L.G.A, Abia State, Nigeria to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Okoronkwo Onwuka who (the father) kicked the bucket when the gem (who lies in state today) couldn’t even through intuition recognize him as his dad.
And Chief Kalu, being a man ordained by heaven to lay golden eggs just as the woman of revelation 12:1-6, was not consumed by fatherless, and as the woman too, he was taken care of and provided a home by an eagle of God, an uncle, Mr. Ude on whose wing he grew and unwittingly took as his biological father; and whose surname and compound (Ndi Okerima Amautu) he bore and took to be his real paternal surname and compound, respectively.
However, the knowledge of who his biological father really was and where he came from emerged very late in his life even when he was generally known by his contemporaries as the ‘son of Ude’ and the son of the soil of Ndi Okerima compound where he lived, married and raised roughly all his children: yet not by the sapient-eagle-eyed old men who outlived his father and criticized him (MKO) for bearing false surname and abandoning his father’s compound Ndi Egwuonwu, the highly valued compound in Etitiama or the compound of the honorable (Eziukwu).
Hence, Chief MKO, not entertaining negligence over crucial matters moved to locate his father’s mountain at Ndi Egwuonwu compound. And through the auspice of the elders of the compound who gave him a warm welcome and so much cherished his ambition to discover and recover his fatherland ‘Okpu Ulo’ in the compound, the reclamation of the piece of land was possible despite that other people had been occupying it over the years.
Meanwhile, when he realized his genuine surname is ‘Okoronkwo’ not ‘Ude’, the later as cancer had eaten deep into the fabric mind of his family and the community as a whole to the degree not even the most coercive detergent could erase it from them because all their documents had been thoroughly stained with ‘Ude’ as their surname. Take for instance, one looking for any of his family members using ‘Okoronkwo’ as a surname sounds funny and will produce a very insignificant result. Nevertheless, I firmly stand here to announce to you that we the household of Chief Marcus K. Okoronkwo (MKO), more especially me, do not want to be identified with ‘Ude’ again as our (or my) surname but ‘Okoronkwo’.
However, because my father had been living comfortably at Ndi Okerima, his guardian’s compound, where he had equal right with the sons of the very soil and Where no one of the sons of the compound knew he was not one of them but shared things equally with him, he did not relocate to Ndi Egwuonwu compound to live. Yet he romanced and shared things equally with the two compounds that vied to win his interest more—he was a dual citizen. And all the two parties were proud of him. And to pacify the two compounds, he gave them a sense of belonging by grouping his children among them. Personally, I was staunchly registered in his original compound Ndi Egwuonwu Amudu while most of my elder brothers get their dividends at Ndi Okerima Amuutu.
Also, when he discovered who his father was and where he came from, he was able to trace his step-brother, Mr. Ochu Okoronkwo, the father of Messrs Nmecha and peter Ochu.
Moreover, because of how industrious Etteh Kama Ude was he later packed out from Ndi Okerima, his guardian’s compound to Ndi Orji Imokwe (Ndi Oji New–Layout, as we later nicknamed it) where he bought two plots of land and developed one of them.
And at Ndi Oji, he lived peacefully with them and even married one of their daughters, Madam Oma Chukwu Awam. There, he lived with his family till date he joined the part multitude had taken. In his later days his house was converted into a conference hall for the elders of Ndi Oji. And he was equally a peacemaker among the people. Etteh Marcus, God bless you for taken me to where I rightly belong.
And concerning Mr. Ude who brought him up as his own very son, and following the law of requital, Chief MKO treated him as a father till his (the step father’s) death. According to tradition and culture then, even when he was still alive, Chief MKO bought a bullock for and gave him a befitting burial at death. To crown it all though out of mistake Chief MKO named his first son Ude Kalu after him (his guardian). But for his own father Okoronkwo who he later came to know before then he named with a son from his fifth and last wife though the child is late by now. It was at his request that one of his sons named his son after his father, Okoronkwo, to immortalize the name. These, together with how he loved the boy (till he was no more, he reserved anything he ate for the boy) convinces me of his interest for the name to cut across generations. Before then when he was trying to erase the old name “Ude” from our mind and instill the new one, he always gathered us around him especially we the children who were close to him then and would start asking us to pronounce our names one by one. Anyone that mentioned his names up to ‘Ude’ he would sharply blow foul; and commanded applause for anyone that ended his name with Okoronkwo.
Thus all these things made me to put it upon myself to carry the name along and keep it alive even if my brothers completely decline as they are currently finding it difficult to switch over to it. Even in one of my articles which I sent to and was published at the back page of one of the national dailies ‘Daily Champion of Wednesday 28 November (although a rejoinder or my comment to someone else’s publication “Who wants Igbo Language Dead?”). Above other things, I commented on my willingness to project the ‘Okoronkwo’. See the excerpt of the article:
“Re: Who wants Igbo Language Dead?
…may Igbo Language never see death
Hello Justus Nwakanma,
I received your message on “Who wants Igbo Language dead?” I must tell you the truth:
The tongue that speaks for the progressiveness, unity, establishment, and stabilization of Ndigbo, I cherish.
Nothing pains me as hearing or seeing an Igbo man messing up his political office or profession; and my joy has no boundary any time I hear or see him making waves…not that I have a slight interest in seeing anyone from another tribe misbehaving—I wish the best to all Nigerians so that the country will be a better place for us to live.
I cry when Ndigbo cry and rejoice whenever they rejoice. In fact, the state of Ndigbo in Nigeria makes me to shed tears.
Hence, I have great love for the tribe. I can exchange fisticuffs for her sake with any- one that tends to deride her. I resolved to sue the federal government one morning I woke up from sleep while the first thing that preoccupied my heart though I did not discuss anything purporting to that with any person nor imagine it before going to bed nor dreamt about it in the night –I just woke up and grew annoyed –because of the Federal Government’s marginalization of Ndigbo particularly the existence of five states in the South-East, where Ndigbo are in the majority, while other geopolitical zones are having at least six.
My love for Ndigbo and my father compelled me into bearing a long name instead of adopting at least my first-two names “Michael Daniels”. Even when I considered reducing the last three “Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo” to “MKO,” yet I was not satisfied because I feared I would be mistaken to a Yoruba man even from the line of the late Chief MKO Abiola—Abiola lived his life! I must live mine, promote my tribe and immortalize my own family name.
And my prayer is and will continue to be “May Ndigbo and Igbo language never see moribund in Nigeria both politically, economically, socially, etc. but permeate into every nook and cranny of the nation, occupy, and reign as they always do (every Northerner or Westerner that crosses the Niger Bridge or enters the East {South-East or South-South} strives to know one language—Igbo language, and feels fulfilled and belong once he can hear or speak ‘bia’). I extend the same to our neighbors’. And let someone that thinks it in his heart to expunge Igbo language from being a national language, a language used in the National Assemblies and as a WAEC course, despite how germane his reasons are be like one of the departed fools who no one have any memory of , even like the still-born.” Can I hear somebody say Amen! It is done!
Michael Daniels M.K. Okoronkwo,
Nkporo, Ohafia LGA
mikedan4@yahoo.com
And as if Grand Pa knew (If what I was informed of, that is accredited to him is real) I would one day project his name ‘Okoronkwo,’ stated earlier, when I was only a few months baby even a dying one, in the hands of my mother, that he said, “Nwa kari uto na-nwa nwa— i.e. grand child gives the best of joy.” In January 11th, 2008, when I engaged Mother in discussion particularly on the things of the past, she made mention of reincarnation and pointed out people in our time that wear the spirit of some other people that had come and gone. Being critical about this, I asked her how they used to know who reincarnated who. At this, she revealed “Some people, when they are young always and unconsciously use their mouth to tell mysterious things about who they were and what they did in their first world and a times exhibit their (the people’s) characters while some are being revealed to the people by priests especially when they are sick and as the priest is being consulted to proffer solution for the people’s ailment. Even you (referring to me) fall among the latter group.” Then, she, together with some other hands there, gave me the following examples: I was informed of one wealthy man who finally died leaving wealth behind and which was inherited by the next to kin. And some years later, as the inheritor of the rich man’s wealth was having a meeting with some people in their general sitting room, a small boy of four came into the parlor and went straight to the central chair the late rich man use to sit when he was alive and asked a man sitting on it to stand up from his seat for him (the little boy of four) to sit. Immediately, the man obeyed having visualized the matter. Once the boy took his sit, he pointed at the inheritor of the late rich man’s wealth and told him point plank that the money he is having belong to him (the little boy) and that he (the inheritor) should use it to train him in school. Hence, the inheritor promised him he would do so, and the boy left them. Another one goes like this: they said, “This boy (they told me the person), when he was young walked to an inheritor of his grand father’s symbol of priesthood and pressurized him to give him the symbol for it belonged to him. And the inheritor, without hesitating, went in, brought out the symbol and gave it to him. Immediately, the inheritor later asked him to give it back to him for him (the inheritor) to keep it for the boy until he grew.” And by this means the people concluded those children were the rebirth (in spirit) of those dead men mentioned above.
The second means affirmed that if somebody (a child) was critically ill, and after many treatment had been applied and yet produced no result, a priest is always met to give direction: in the process, the oracle of the priest would make known of who the person was and what would be used to cure it—the priest only prescribed the herb while the person that came for it would go anywhere in the world to get it and apply it on the sick by himself—and immediately the patience is revived. A baby boy, three months after birth fell sick that the parents had been wearied by it until the grand mom decided to go to the priest to know the fate of the baby. But the first one she went to told her the baby would die at dusk! And being not satisfied by this revelation, she appealed to a higher priest. As she came, the priest asked her,” Have you gone to the one told you the child would just die at dusk? The child would not die.” In addition, the priest’s oracle said this about the baby,” I’m Mesherach! I come from a sacred compound and priesthood. I don’t eat anything I see yet you give me whatever you wish. My annoyance is that you people do not keep my principle. Now, use ogirisi (herb) and bath me I ‘ll be alright.” However, by knowledge, the baby boy was a rebirth of his grand mother’s father who was a priest in his lifetime. Meanwhile, once the sick baby was treated with the herb prescribed, he was automatically healed. The boy is three years by now.
Nevertheless, my mother narrated that I shared the same fate with the baby above. According to her, when I was youngish I fell sick that it seemed as if all hope had gone concerning my survival and that my health deteriorated so much that every morning her mother would come to see if I was still breathing and it was at the peak of that that one of my step-mothers, Mary, recommended to her of consulting the oracle at Ndi Agbor Nkporo to discern and diagnose my state. And, reluctantly she went. And on reaching to the place the oracle unveiled I was a rebirth of my grand father and exposed where he lived and also gave direction on the herb that would be used for my cure. According to Mom the oracle lamented, “Nwa kari uto na-nwa nwa!” i.e. grand child gives the best of joy or to have a grand child is sweetest and of a greater joy. “He is Okoronkwo! If you enter Ndi Egwuonwu Compound, Etitiama, you go by the left. That is where he lives. Boil ogirisi, give him to drink and bath him with it, he will live,” it added. To attest if it really worked on me when applied, my mother said she only regretted why she had wasted time before going to the priest. In other word, it prospered instantly.
Well, this, if it is anything to consider about, only tries to make me to suspect why I’m so crazy about the name ‘Okoronkwo’. But before this age long apocalypse was given to me, I had been canvassing support for my brothers to fully adopt the name!
However, Chief MKO, though the last born of his father, he was the first issue of his, mother Mrs. Ogbararu Onwuka who remarried to late Mr. Uka Ogidi of Amaeke compound, who begot both late Chief Olu, Onwuka, Ude and Uka. (And all my father’s late Younger brothers have their children with us, too numerous to mention). Out of the four late brothers of my father, the last two died far earlier than my father and his other two brothers—Olu and Onwuka— died and could leave nothing behind but children. Till their death, they lived in their brothers’ bosom. But between my dad and his first-two brothers above, Chief Onwuka was the richest and the pillar of their family especially when my father retired from active service. He was a business man living in the town, particularly, Aba though he had lived and done business in Ikan , Calabar before relocating to Aba. At Aba, he traded on yams—the very business he was into until his death in 1997 at the age of 83 years. At Aba he had two shops both at Ahia Ohuru ‘New Market’ where he sold the yams. In fact, he was successful in business! Hence, he could build two houses at Aba and secured undeveloped plots of land though he sold the undeveloped land before his death. But his houses outlived him—as a good father he left inheritance to his children. One of the houses is at # 11 Ogwo Road while the other was at Agu Okorie. And he lived at Ogwo Road with his family till died. And this was the very inheritance of his progenies unlike the one at Agu Okorie which he willed to his extended family, although a son, Uche Orji (not his own direct son) in whose hand was entrusted with the family house’s Certificate of Occupancy connived with his mother and sold the house secretly few years after his death. Yet, the entire extended family (Ofia Ukwu) punished them severely by ostracizing them from among it.
Beside the houses in the town, my uncle also built a one storey building in the village which carries 14 rooms including the parlors. There is also a one storey boys’ quarter which with six rooms altogether; and another three bedroom bungalow; also a boy’s quarter in the same compound. The house is located at Isiafor (Achi). Moreover, Chief Onwuka picked my step-brother Onwuka to live with him. Therefore, he trained him up to a secondary school level as one of his own.
But concerning Chief Michael Olu who I was named after, although he was not as wealthy as either of the two—my dad or Chief Onwuka, he had what was enough for him. Like my father, he was a home base and a farmer. And though he was small in stature, he was strong bodily; he had a natural strength and was as swift as Ostrich while at walk. Anyone that walked along with him on the road especially on farm path would be running to keep the same pace with him. It was from this his habit that his popular sobriquet ‘Oji Oso Aga ,Ozobia Nkpo which is literally interpreted as an ‘Agile Man’,’’ was framed. Nevertheless, his strength for work transpired into a six-bedroom flat he built at Amaeke compound. Also like my father, he was no one’s labourer. He equally had large farms and three wives but not to be compared with my father.
Meanwhile, great love was predominant among the three: as a result there was mutual respect in their midst. No matter what, my name sake could not step an inch forward once my father placed an order! How he had quickly comported himself with terror and respect for my father at the shout of my dad, when he was angrily laying complaints to former was what placed him high before my elder sister as being very respectful. Due to how they love each other, when Chief Onwuka died, Uncle Olu concluded he would not be alive to see Uncle Brown buried before him. Meanwhile, three days to bring Uncle Brown’s body home for burial, the former fell critically ill and died in the morning of the day Etteh Onwuka was to be brought home . In fact Chief Michael Olu Uka was quickly buried that day before the body of Mr. Onwuka could be bought in. Frankly, Chief Onwuka’s death affected his surviving brothers but my father accommodated the situation with a matured mind.
Notwithstanding, Chief MKO himself married five wives who nursed his twenty-two children among whom are Late Mrs. Mercy Uka (who was survived by five children), Jane Smart, Ude, Osiri, Ogbonne Isaiah, Titi Simeon and Smart K. through Late Mrs. Orie; Joe, Miena K. Lekwa, Mainna Ukeh, Hannah Agu and Okoro K. through Mrs. Egbe [Chief MKO had two step-children by her in the person of Mesdames Comfort Otah and Rhize Jacob]. Among the children of Chief MKO are Eleanya, Comfort Oju, Esobe, Onwuka and Ufere through Late Mrs. Mary; Sunday [the mother of Kalu and Moses] through Late Mrs. Oma the mother of Luck Uka, Oyidiya Ude and Madam Amiocha who she raised to another man before she was married to Chief MKO. And Madam Oyidiya Ude, because of her overwhelming love for our dad, and which she highly extended to us, we therefore adopted her as one of us. And only what she is yet to suffer we are unconcern about, while the glory we will deny from her is the one that escapes our grip.
Finally, Samuel, Obasi, Ego Agbai, and Michael Daniel through Mrs. Janet, crowned Chief MKO a complete father of the above number of children. Furthermore God decorated his crown with stars of seventy-eight grand children and nine-great grand children.
Meanwhile, one thing common among the children is that their mother is the father’s wife they meet at home while the food in the kitchen belongs to the hungry soul that comes first. Again, my father’s daughters are the pride of their various husbands -- well loved in their respective marital homes while the males are responsible, promising, and full of visions and thrusting into the future with full hope of ruling the world.
OCCUPATION

His Royal Highness, Chief MKO, though not formally edu

And, due to the level of success he attained to in life, he found it odd to see a failure. He was always proud of himself: “In my days I was not destitute! We were the reigning guys, I bought a bull for my father (Ude) in his lifetime,” he always vaunted.
Z
Nevertheless, I am not good at praising man! I always fill guilty for doing so. Because of this, I rarely venture into it. Right now, I have resolved not to say anything beyond what I know or have experienced about Chief MKO. Though I was not there when he was a youth, the family he married some of his wives assured me he was a responsible man even a man of substance. He must have been wealthy and ‘Absalom’ of his days. Take for instance, his first wife Late Mrs. Orie, was from Mr. Iba Olumba family (a well-known and honorable family in the community residing at Ndi Esere compound) who every person would like to be ingratiated with. The very lady has as her sobriquet, ‘Orie Ji Efi Ewu Ugbogho’, that is, one who cooks vegetable soup with a bullock explaining a great exploit. His second wife Mrs. Egbe was not from a base family, but one to write home about. Excuse me! Who can give his daughter to an outside except he has seen him capable? More interesting, never in the history of men a girl revokes her nationality for a common man unless the one she would get the full giggles from. Chief MKO, you crossed the boarder and brought home an angel from Item as wife. By the way, what moved Awam Chukwu of Ndi Orji compound to approve your marriage with his daughter late Mrs. Oma, if not you have something to show? Of all most surprising was, he broke the king’s security, penetrated into the then incumbent king’s palace and came out successfully with the princess particularly the queen then Miss Eziyi Ude Akpala, as wife.

Late Chief and Lolo Eze Ude Akpala, Eze Ogo 7 of Etitiama, what convinced you to give the hand of your queen in marriage to this hero (resting today in the lord’s arms)? Was it not because of his gentleness or for the sake of his handsomeness and wealth? Or should I ask, Chief MKO, ‘O Di Nma Na-Asa Aru (Absolom); Nwoke Ndi Inyom Huru Gbalatara (Ladies’ Hot Cake)’, how did you get through into these high places you treaded upon? Would you persuade me to accept that the best answer must have been a mystery? Or that they all fell in love with you as you pricked around like a turkey or peacock on your gorgeous outfit, as you usually told us? Well, who among women could turn down the offer of a person of your type even if she would be the fifth wife? Chief MKO {Akajiaku}, another point difficult for me to ratify is how you held all these your wives tenaciously in your house till death separated you. Is it with what? Out of charm, love, patience or endurance, which one played the role? Or was it by your knowledge of equitable allocation of resources? I am convinced that your soccer game experience was one the vital keys! Dad with his first wife Lolo Orie SOCIAL LIFE Yes, the fact that my father ate and drank at will and kit elegantly showed for certainty that he was hard working and successful. In Etitiama and Nkporo at large, he was well known for his neat and gorgeous attire. Due to this, he was greatly admired by all men. Let me show you one quasi-drama that occurred during his retirement ceremony: Then as they danced down to Ndi Agbor Nkporo, two Idda people, residing there, join his train on his way back. They were a man and lady. Their presence was noticed at home when everyone had gone. Then the man was inquired about his whereabouts he revealed he followed my father because he loved his style. But, for the woman who laid the same complain as the man, my father for a reason personally known to him ordered his wives to take care of her. The second wife served her food which she declined from eating, while the first wife made bed for her and told her to go and lie down and wait for him. At this, the lady caught by her conscience, burst, ‘Orie, m zulere di gi?’ That is “Orie have I stolen your husband?’ And she hastily jumped out of the house and disappeared into the thin air. Moreover, the elderly ones were also among his fans. In his words, “In those days the elderly ones always took me to (their special) occasions as a sample, and to pose with. His eldest and most favorite friend who was separated from him with great pain by death was Mr. Okoko Ude, the father of Akanu Okoko, another respectable family in the community. Even in his age grade ‘Lucky Age Grade’ Chief MKO was very friendly and influential. He was one of the important men of the peer group. His age-grade friends who death had equally snatched from him a long time ago were Messer Marcus Kama Mba and Egwu Arunsi (the latter), the father of Mr. Orji Egwu, Iro Egwu (the only Virgin or Amaghi Inyom) and co. In the age grade he observed a luxuriant ceremony of their time ‘igbuji Abah’ a kind of ceremony to show affluent which in our today’s world may be likened to a high grade of retirement festival. Politically, Chief MKO was a natural politician, well imbued with the instrument of democracy. He had ‘the majority’ as his watchword – first he opted for what will be for the good of the sovereign majority. In other words, he believed in the majority vote; in the life widely proclaimed as germane and which in its acidic and moral test is not corrosive but a true answer to the yearnings of the man in the street. This is simply the wishes of the masses. If he proposed a policy void of convention he didn’t insist on its implementation for his personal aggrandizement. Nevertheless, he always camped with the minority that made sense, and to protect their interest. He is both a majority and minority leader—these qualities manifested in him. I always watch how he resolved matters as he took precedence of their parley. And it was from there I espied these traits in him. Also, as a blind judge he always allowed the sword to fall helplessly once the scale slid either side wards. The next thing common with him was that he was community-development conscious and loved adventures. In one of those days, after work, as we relaxed in our open-compound for fresh air under the moon, he teased me this viva voce, ‘’ what will be the name of your peer group when the time comes?’’ Immediately, I answered him “Ako N’ Uche (Intelligentsia)” even without thinking as though I had already parboiled it. Then he vowed to see the reality of it. Unfortunately, it occurs at his back. Yet, this inspired me he must had been a figure in giving his age grade their name ‘’ lucky Age Grade,’’ and in most of the important things that happened there. Obviously, age grade in our community is an agent of social, economic and psychological development. It also provides internal and external security. As an analogy, the school blocks, markets (lock-up stalls), Motor Park, hospital, electricity, conference hall, and many other similar projects that are still under construction in our community are carried out by different age grades in the community. Meanwhile, my dad wanted this to continue, and was also desirous that I would be a party to it. That was why he liked me to espouse the age grade. Chief MKO, being a gregarious human being was a member of a popular social club ‘’Akperi” Work and Have Pleasure (by interpretation) whose primary purpose was to share one another’s burden. One can’t count a few number of handsome persons that founded and upheld this club, which attracted the elites of the community, and be right except he has given chief MKO a good place (chairman or treasurer) among them. Of course, he was their treasurer. Moreover, the magnificent-spherical-multiple colored (like that of the rainbow) canopy of this group whose high rise competed with the tallest trees, which took days to be sewn, was knitted in our compound by the experts under my dad’s supervision. Concerning hospitality, Chief MKO was not lacking! He divided his food with his visitors. Though he would not be on table, sighting a hungry man in his house he ordered his food to be brought to the person. None of his wine was opened secretly nor had its cork remain intact on it at the presence of any guest. Kola nut never get dry in his house. The first thing he ordered us to bring when there was a visitor was ‘Nzu’ powder followed by kola and wine. He knew how to entertain guests! Until his translation into glory on 7th October, 2006 by 11pm at the age of 106, one could not sort out who was or is his foe unless the person hated or disdained him out of jealousy. Big dad led a quiet and challenging! He was not only hospitable to aliens but also to his own family. Till he lost his uncles Jonah Ukaeje of Elughu, Arua Uka Echem of Ndi Okude-Etitiama and Mr. Urum of Amurie, he was living peacefully with them, and with his immediate younger ones. None of the later stayed four days without coming to his house. The love of all this brothers’ wives and children were upon him and vice-versa. Not one of them counted his Yule holidays in the village a feat except the person had come to tell him he/she was in town or is returning to his or her base on this or that day; and had blessed him with a gift or two (one of the sources of the plenty wine, kola nuts, stockfish, etc. in his house), and received likewise from him. Not even his in-laws could dodge his presence nor come to him to gratify all righteousness but with love for him. Right from when he assumed the eldest position of his family, his house turned to a ‘Supreme Court’. All cases were brought to and settled at his table to the satisfaction of everybody. Till October 2006 when his life on earth was interrupted as a Justice of peace (JP), he was the last resort of his people. The cross section of the mammoth throng here are his cousins from Elughu, Etitiama, and Amurie who had come to pay their uncle, father, in-law, etc. the last respect they owe him due to his enormous services to them. MKO’S RELIGIOUS LIFE Chief MKO believed in the culture and traditions of his fathers and followed them strictly. Like every man of the community from his days till civilization and Christianity came into the land, he honored the popular ritual ‘Egbele’ of the community where male children are initiated. Hence he initiated all his male children into ‘Egbele’, both to exhibit his affluent and prove himself a fulfilled man, according to them. Though there were sects like ‘ Dibia and Akpam’ (spiritual sects) to mention but a few, people proudly belong and sacrificed to gods with wine, kola, animal etc. and at times do bad to their fellow human beings, Chief MKO (JP) had no little interest in these—he despised them greatly and had no iota of commitment with any one that belong to any of these sects. Throughout his life time, I didn’t for one day saw him at any place with any one that has a public bad record or who was or is (publicly) criticized as an evil one. To add weight to this, my elder sister Madam Ego Demain shared with me her joy after the burial of my father: it was all about my dad’s integrity. She exhumed, “Nothing makes me glad like seeing the burial of our father being over without any secret cult coming to claim him as their member or require one thing or the other for settlement as I witnessed in some others even those that acted so pious.” My father’s wives particularly his second wife Lolo Egbe did not shy away from praising his integrity and effort in life. In a manner which I dubbed the true confession from a true heart she said: “Your dad was truly a man a man! He tried as a man should when he was full of blood and lacked nothing. He was one guys in town yet he did not make trouble with any. The only fault of your father was that he was yet to know to know the true cost of affording education to his children (beyond basic education).” In fact the glory we received from the members of the community concerning the life of our father made us fat, although we returned it to God. People adored his quietness, gentleness, and greatness and thanked us for that as if we to helped to it. Chief M.K.O was generally acclaimed as a man of ‘principle and integrity’. To our eldest (daughter) or who we take to be so, Mrs. Janet Smart Ukwu, nothing piles up her joy and love for my father and helped her to hold our dad in a high esteem as accessing the dozens of my father’s children and scores of his grand and great grand children without seeing a dissident or anyone that is a threat to the society. My father’s integrity is not far fetched. Rather it is a common knowledge. My brother Mr. Smart K. at his own corner and in his own capacity wrote his own chapter of my father’s life or what he knows concerning him, and this together with the first edition of my own chapter of my father’s life circulated the celeration of life ground of my father. And his writing instead of paraphrasing it in this for being the cause of his or her (the person’s) downfall. No wonder he lived his life healthily for several years and slept gently in the lord after he had gathered us (his children) around him and gave us his blessings two months before he took off. Then he lectured us saying: “God made some short, while He created others tall; some slim and some fat. I do not jealous anyone over what God has given him. Be content with what you have of God. Above all, continue in the love among you.” He thought it wise to compile avalanche of wives than to date outside wedlock. Consequently, each of his wives has a legal marriage certificate. And he lived with them till death started separating them. It was not he did not quarrel with any of them for one. He did! But they always settled. One incidence I do remember though I can not recollect the cause was one when I was still very young that my mother divorced him temporarily and took us to her mother’s place and there we lived but not up to three days before we returned. There was this other incident that took place when I and my late younger brother were initiated into ‘Egbele’ the popular ritual as we came to eat my father with a parable asked us if we had eaten as my mother overheard him, she misunderstood him and was embittered in her heart although she did not say anything then yet she treasured the word till one month after we were through with the ritual when she confronted him over it and fought him verbally. But my father behaved himself maturely without fighting back after in it but not to the level of living his house—it was an internal divorce. Both of them lived together till date but without exchanging anything except greeting and any insignificant paraphernalia. Our grand Ma claimed she was living in the house for her children. She was right, anyway. One serious misdemeanor I saw in my father though many people may call it ‘minor and natural’ was that he could disgrace a whisky until the latter turned round and to manslaughter i.e. accidentally shot someone dead in the forest and irrespective of much and sincere pleadings of surviving in the face of difficulties, even in the absence of a father—for he finally emerged successfully after the early death of his dad. He taught us also, to be industrious and keep transforming and or be diversifying our economy (production possibility frontier) until we become successful or obtain what makes us so. This was seen in his involvement in trading architectural and farming activities, which gave him access into the high places he moved on. Orji! Au revoir Etteh Kama Ude! Goodbye Chief MKO

MKO’s Biography, according To Mr. Smart K. on behalf of Mr. Ude Kalu, for the Family

Hospital built at the Chinedu Age Grade Hospital site by a philanthropist Chief MAO Pix By: Anya De Nyasca Also in sight at the Etitiama Community was a Community bank one of its sons Chief Ude Egwu Nkele (Mosco), now late, was building for it. The bank had already approached completion. The building had been raised, fenced and painted. It was left at furnishing. Also, if any of the financial institutions in the country could come and take over the bank and operate it, the community would equally be happy. A functional bank in the community will relief the people the burden of carrying money around or travelling out to bank in the town or else where. Another interesting site to behold in this community is a recreation center built by the youth of the community under the aegis of Etitiama Nkporo Youth Association (ENYA). This is situated at the strategic area of the community. The Youth in addition bought a commuter bus for its Council of Chiefs i.e. to Etitiama Council of Chiefs However, the major project according to them, that is commenced by the government from the late 70s or early 80s which is still going on and has not assumed any shape till now is a pipe-borne water project. The Nkporo community, especially its Ndi Elu ward that lied south-west of the community is faced with serious problem as long as water is concern. The only stream in the region which serves the entire Nkporo community find its way out of Nkporo town through the north-west as it runs, from east to the northern side of Nkporo serving only the Etiti ward and Ndi Agbor ward of Nkporo—these people can just take a cup and open the backyard door to fetch water from the River to a visitor if the person requests for water. Notwithstanding, the whole Nkporo town needs a good drinkable water. But it takes those at Ndi Elu more than one and half hour to go and fetch water from a place the river made a pass near their area. As an alternative, some of the people at Ndi Elu who are too separated from the river move a bit westward and southward to a spring where they use cup to fill their cans from a pothole spring, to fetch water.Uzor Kalu’s administration to continue the water project was so huge that they succeeded in finishing all but a second water reservoir with no water pipe connecting it to the plant, and abandoned it again. The second water tank was at close to Etitiama Satellite Town unlike the first that is at the community’s ancient city. When they (the workers) returned after a long period of abandoning the water project to carry their remaining equipment to make their final exit, the Youth was irritated and resisted them and ceased the equipment (a power generating plant (leister) with which they were welding the tank) from them. The second water reservoir Now, it is the turn of Chief T. A. Orji, the current Abia State Govern

Philosophy

schoolboyNG — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:05:21 CDT

CAKE FOR GENERATIONS
[Memoir Of Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo {M K O}]
Alias Kama Ude
1900- 2006

By: MICHAEL DANIELS M. K. OKORONKWO

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First Edition:
Printed By Divine Computers #1 Dike Road, Aba,Abia State
December, 2006

Second Editon:
Printed By Steven Ephraim,
Visa Karena Cyber Cafe #3d Wonodi Street, G.R.A Phase 3, Port Harcourt
River State.
September 2007

©Michael Daniels M.K Okoronkwo 2007

All Right Reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or mechanically, including photocopying, recording, orany information or retrieval system without prior permission from the copyright holder/owner.

To be Published By: MDi…The Light of the World (Press)

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Contents
Dedication
Acknowledgment
Preface
Forward
CHAPTER ONE:

Introduction/ 1900 Special Events……………………………..4-7

M.K.O's Family Background…………………………7-11

Occupations……………………………………………11-13

Social Life……………………………………………….13-16

Religion………………………………………………….16-19

Epilogue…………………………………………………20

Smart K.’s Chapter of MKO’Biography…………………21-22

Tributes To Chief M.K.O………………………………..23-25

Government And Rural Development: Nkporo in Perspective….

Introduction to FOREX……………………………………25-

Introduction to MDi…The Light of the World……………25-30

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DEDICATION

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK TO THE PROGENITIES OF CHIEF MARCUS KALU OKORONKWO (TO SHOW THEM THE STUFF THEIR FATHER WAS MADE OF). I ALSO DEDICATE IT ONLY TO ANYONE WHO WANTS TO REIGN, RULE AND WIN. ABOVE ALL I DEDICATE IT GOD TO USE IT TO BLESS ALL HUMAN RACE FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I appreciate the almighty God for the wealth of knowledge and infinite grace he bestowed on me which enabled me to write this book. I give Him all the praise. However, my appreciations also go to the entire management of Visa Karena Hotel and especially, its Cyber Cafe department for unimaginable support I received from them during my times of difficulties and also for the printing of this book. Among them, I give greater thanks and admirations to Stephen Ephraim Alongsius, the manager of the Cyber Café who single handed typed the book and also gave me uninterrupted access to the computer at little or no cost to modify it. God used him enormously to make this book a success. May God bless him for me. I equally thank every other person I could not mention their names who helped in one way or the other to make this forte a reality. God bless you all in Jesus’ name! Amen.

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WHAT I’M AND WHAT I HAVE WERE DEPOSITED BY MY FATHER; DEVELOPED BY MY MOTHER UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF THE GRACE OF GOD THE ONLY TREASURE I HAVE AND CHERISH
Michael Daniels M.K.Okoronkwo

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PREFACE

“And when these lepers came to the uttermost part of the camp they went into one tent, and did eat and drink and carried thence silver and gold, and raiment , and went and hid it ; and came again, and entered into another tent, and carried thence also, and went hid it. Then they said one to another, we do not well: this day is a day of good tidings, and we hold our peace; if we tarry till the morning light, some mischief will come upon us now therefore come that we go and tell the king’s household.” 2 Kings 7:8-9

Well, having taking a retrospective look into the life of my father and saw the stuff he was made of: that in him and around his life dwell hidden treasures that make great men and nations which the world climbs the high mountains and navigates deep seas to find.

And these very stuffs he bequeathed us.

Weighty enough are them, that my heart grows fresh fat daily as I ponder over them—I always draw a new sketch of life for social, economic, religious, political and community development through touring the life of my dad which is synonymous to nation building.

Chief Marcus Kama Ude, as he was fondly called, was God’s gift to the world. When I entitled this book the ‘Cake for Generations’ I was not exaggerating or guessing. He is a package specially garnished by God for His people not only for the generations past but also for the present and the future. He was meant to serve nations across the globe to pregnant them with courage and possibility to keep the ocean going and sail up-stream against the rough tide. He was simply a messenger of perseverance, varieties, success, life abundant, and a research institute for political scientist and diplomats on how to run a multifarious family or country with diverse ethnic nations and yet keep them within the range of love, peace, unity, and even development—he was a minister of Women Affairs, a renowned diplomat of thought—he handled his family of five wives, a two dozen children, four scores grand children and a ten great grand children and uncountable number of in-laws, and cousins, tactfully till his death, without any fighting one another for one day.

He had good listening ears and patient heart to admit their complaints and attend them according to their needs using the scale of preference.

Meanwhile, as a research institute he is, student of poverty alleviation, orphans and semi-orphans, a nation with mono economy, and generally, economist, etc consult him on how to make a boom out of a meager salary or capital, and without a father’s support (where one is not in extant); and on factors surrounding diversification of economy together with when the diversification is most appropriate and yielding. This was because it was the forte from which he excelled and he has great prowess for them. Even lazy bones are challenged by his business enterprise and acumens to put their hands to the pumps and eke out a living. But he was yet to be formally educated!

Also, he is a beam of hope to people and families that see no grail hair, who are always assaulted by premature death—mere seeing how long God kept him on earth and protected them from all the arrows of the wicked make them grow fearless of any death that is not of God and have more faith in God that He would see them through all the days of their life on earth.

However, in the crooked world where evil were a custom; people forsook the image and began to pursue the shadow; paid homage to what were not the living God; betrayed brother to take his entitlement, and covered immorality to champion a course and get favor, Etteh Kalu was still focused and determined to hand down uprightness as a legacy. He built his principle on integrity—preached, taught, practiced, and enforced it upon men around him and made it an insignia in his own family. And he seriously frowned when justice is subverted. He led a quiet and responsible life to the level the public could believe and bear him witness. Chief Marcus left many things for us to chew. It is upon these grounds that I chose, against all odds, to put into writing and pass to the world the events that encompassed the 106 years he was on earth writing through his life, and in the heart of men, his many political, economical, social and religious philosophies—the very job he was good at—which have been attested by great minds to be a great innovation so far; so as to take his message farther to where he would have taken it to if he had had the media, and to the exact people God has assigned his journey on earth to be a subsidy and a forte to.

To be candid, I have no contribution in framing his philosophies. He had already made them and stored them in his life. I’m only a custodian to them. Being his lastborn or one nearest to, I spent quality times with him and hence I copied many things mainly the best from him. In fact I picked about 75% of his best interest. In a nutshell, I only record his philosophies as I see them originally written by him in his endeavors.

Frankly, I would be very much unfair to both this generation and generations yet unborn if I have yielded to the forces reacting violently against the publication of this forte from which I excel, and yet, let it elude them. Of course the world would have asked me questions when it sees me in glory and fail to trace my source or at least part of what makes me outstanding. In other word, it is quiet unobtainable to let a king go uncelebrated! Chief Marcus K. Okoronkwo was a king. He reigned and ruled in his days. And because we live he still lives. Hence, we must bestow on him the honor due to him as a Chief. Of course, I recommend to the generations after us to keep the pace faithfully to the glory of God.

Also, to appreciate God for the grace He showered upon him to make these high ways for us is the hidden power that excavated this tome—it is a large and a heavy book not by its volume but by its content or the nourishment it offers. It remains my reference book. I always turn to it for empowerment when great assignment stands before me—I mean when I’m being challenged with Herculean political, social and economical developmental problems; and when I want to know where a hole exists and the ineptitude of men. It is my bible, my very second Bible. I therefore, recommend it only to kings and anyone that wants to reign, lead and win. To God be the glory.
Michael Daniels M.K Okoronkwo.

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INTRDUCTION

Many years were that were very remarkable to men because of what they surfaced. The year 1900 was one. It provided great minds with enough to dine on and shift to the generations yet unborn. Hence the majority of what we have now or that transformed us to who we are today dated back to this very year.

For France, 1900 was a moment of her joy as she made her debut in being the host to the world’s most covetable Summer Olympics Games of the Second Olympiad (now Olympic Games). Her capital city Paris was filled to the brim as it featured over one thousand competitors from all over the world who took part in 19 different games some of which were first introduced then into the game industry. Ask Lady Charlotte Cooper, she would tell you it was one of her most blissful moment in life for beside being among the first women that were privileged enough to participate in the Olympic Game for the first time, she was equally the first female Olympic Champion.

In the same year, under William McKinly the 25th US president, US Troops joined international force in putting down Boxer Rebellion in China. Also, US longing for freedom for all, and democratic government in every country of the world, and being at the peak of his administration, William McKinly appointed William Howard Taft who later became the 27th President of US to head the commission charged with terminating US military rule in Philippines. Reversely, hope of freedom dawned on the Philippines in 1900.

Have you heard of Standard Gold Act? Of course you might have. It was in the same year 1900 under William McKinly that the Act was passed, making the gold dollar the sole standard of currency. Guess what! The gold due to its qualities—luster, stability, universality and acceptability, etc. was used to back currencies and hedge them against the influence of US Dollar the bulk of liquid reserves. In the world today, the US Dollar is being used as the international unit of account. Many countries quote their monies in US Dollar to bring it to international knowledge or convert the domestic value into dollar when it comes to international transaction. This is because, if any country is counting on its domestic term—naira for Nigeria, CFA for Togo/Cameroun, Cedi for Ghana, RAND for South Africa, Yen for Japan, EURO for European Union, Pound for Great Britain, WAUA for AU (African Union), Dollar for US, etc. it would create a bit problem in understanding; no one foreigner would understand with ease unlike when the same amount is converted into dollar.

To convert a foreign currency to a domestic one, multiply the value of the foreign currency by the current value of one unit of the domestic currency to the foreign in the foreign exchange market. To convert domestic currency to foreign, divide the domestic currency by the value of one unit of foreign exchange. Among other things, It takes knowing the market value of the currencies you want to trade on to partake in foreign exchange market.

Almost every country has her foreign reserves in US dollar. At the moment Nigerian foreign reserve is $45 billion.

The foreign reserve of a country is what gives it balance in international trade. It aids in the balance of payment. If a country’s currency is over valued or depreciated, it takes her foreign reserve to keep her sailing in the market. Trade deficit reduces foreign reserves and also depreciate or lowers domestic currency. And when a nation’s home currency is depreciated her exportation is priced poorly while it cost her dearly to import. To restore or balance a nation’s trade in the global market or make its currency appreciate, the nation has to boost her exportation and minimize her importation.

The three major currencies most countries use to reserve currency remain the Pound, EURO, and the US dollar. And one of the factors that influence each countries choice of currency for foreign reserve is interest rate. Another one is stability or the ability of the currency for foreign reserve to keep low inflation rate. Any country with a better interest rate and higher stability attract many nations to invest in their currency.

Although US dollar makes waves, British Pound and EURO, each of them has a higher market value (purchasing power parity) than it. Yet the British Pound and Euro are nothing to be compared with gold. Change in the price of gold automatically offsets the holdings of these world leading currencies i.e. if the price of gold depreciates holders of pound, Euro or dollar will sell a greater portion of their currencies to buy gold and have more of gold. In other word, if the price of gold soars, it will take extra dollar or pound to get the same quantity of gold unlike before.

Fiat money is protected by gold. Central Banks and the First World Countries have gold as their reserves till date.

Gold does not rot nor rust. The currencies of the world powers vie to be like it. (One ounce of gold is estimated at $625).

More importantly or another reason gold is well cherished as a store of value more than real estates, securities and even government bonds is that unlike fiat money government has arbitrary power over and can re-dominate and devalue thereby setting inflation that deteriorate the value of money the more, it is free from government’s manipulation. With it there is no ‘currency uncertainty’. If you save seven bullion gold of any value today to collect it back by five years, in cash, it will still give you the current price of it then. Let the host nation change her currency or devalues it if she wants, your gold is there for you and will give you back your money any time any where. Gold is market everywhere and at any time.

Rest assured, although gold has left the market publicly as a standard of currency, it is still competing market covertly with the world’s leading commodities. As some invest in bank shares, automobile companies, oil companies or petroleum, etc many invest in gold. And only men with foresights are transacting on and with it these days. Banks used it to hedge against loans; US also use it to reserve their currency.

Hence, it calls for giving attention. I mean the commodity that was adopted in US in far back 1900, exactly 107 years today as a wealth reservoir is a rewarding business. It hedges against inflation. “In the absence of gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation from inflation,” –Alams Greenspan Ph.D. (gold and economic freedom by Alams Green.)

Furthermore, 1900 was a period of opportunities! Roosevelt that later emerged the 26th president of US in 1901was by then the Vice President of US under William McKinley. It was the forte by which he excelled.

Indeed, no year had turned out to be an international year as the very year in question. Africa also inherited its blessings. Before the white, an African were a black monkey, a wide beast that worth not to be associated with—they saw nothing good or in common between themselves and the Africans. Hence they discriminated them to the core. And with time maybe to eliminate them from the face of the earth to avoid them from mixing up with them and affecting their children as they might have perceived that soon Africans would be migrating, they introduced the obnoxious slave trade, an instrument with which they led Africa into slavery and humiliated them beyond standard. As animals they had taken Africans to be they yoked them together and dragged them under heavy burden –naked and hungry. Again, just as a cattle farmer counts his yokes of oxen in hundreds, the Whites counted the yokes of their African slaves in thousands; and as a businessman exports and imports bulk commodities likewise they exported and ordered to be imported the Africans as slaves for dubious activities—they allowed most of them to starve and over laboured themselves to death in the plantations.

Meanwhile, when they considered the exportation of the Africans as slaves tedious and a slow process and envisaging colonization of the entire Africa a swift means to enslave the whole African race and manipulate it, they embarked on colonization with vigor. They dominated Africa; chase it away from its resources, suppressed her education, changed her language and culture holding firmly that there was nothing worthy of emulation in Africa (cunningly, they questioned the wisdom of God—God why did you make this race?). To make any trace of Africa not to be seen again under the sun, they take as barbarians, and influenced their (Africans’) consanguinities to also regard as such any African that spoke or practiced African language and culture respectively, and also ostracized from the metropolis any Africans caught speaking African language or dressing in African style.

Right in Africa, our fatherland, they enslaved our fathers, denied them access to what rightly belong to them; imposed upon them what were strange to their nature—as a square peg they inserted us into a round hole and yet forced us to enter. When our fathers teamed-up to revolt their evil administration, the Whites introduced ‘operation divide and rule’ an instrument that has lingered in Africa till date and caused more harm to us. They made some traditional rulers and turned them against their consanguinities.

However, this act being an atrocity no man could accommodate and which defiled every known law, and human right, Sir Henry Sylvester Williams West Indies barrister founded ‘Pan Africanism’ to fight against the Whites’ obnoxious slave trade, racism and colonialism, etc for Africa. Among other things, and as time went on, the organization advocated co-existence among all races of the world and freedom to participate in the administration of their respective countries and later independence. Other prominent members of the organization were W.B. dubois and Marcus Garvey (founder of Universal Negro Improvement Association {U.N.I.A}, 1914). The organization “Pan Africanism” had its first conference in 1900. And African Representatives in their first-five meetings in London were: Dr. Kwami Nkruma of Ghana, Azikiwe of Nigeria ((Zik of Africa), Jomoh Kenyata of Kenya and Banda of Malawi.

In a nutshell, African hope of freedom and integration into the comity of nations dawned on them in the same year 1900.

And until the same year, Nigeria, now generally acclaimed as the giant of Africa which is currently among the first-eleven world oil producing countries and is strictly pressing hard to rob shoulder with the top 20 world economy and the (next level of) eleven emerging economies of the world after the BRIC {Brazil, Russia, India and China} by 2020, was not in the map of the world.

Yes, in the chain of the special events and figures of the 1900 even Nigeria’s twin and age mate was Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo. Indeed, as the British was celebrating the birth of the African most populated country, likewise did the family of Mr. and Mrs. Okoronkwo Onwuka and the entire member of Ndi Egwuonwu compound, Etitama Nkporo, the melting point of Abia (North) State were dancing and jubilating over the birth of the man that came, saw, and conquered, Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo (MKO) formerly and popularly known as Chief Marcus Kalu Ude (KAMA UDE)

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FAMILY BACKGROUND

Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo (MKO), was born at Ndi Egwuonwu compound Etitiama Nkporo in Ohafia L.G.A, Abia State, Nigeria to the family of Mr. and Mrs. Okoronkwo Onwuka who (the father) kicked the bucket when the gem (who lies in state today) couldn’t even through intuition recognize him as his dad.

And Chief Kalu, being a man ordained by heaven to lay golden eggs just as the woman of revelation 12:1-6, was not consumed by fatherless, and as the woman too, he was taken care of and provided a home by an eagle of God, an uncle, Mr. Ude on whose wing he grew and unwittingly took as his biological father; and whose surname and compound (Ndi Okerima Amautu) he bore and took to be his real paternal surname and compound, respectively.

However, the knowledge of who his biological father really was and where he came from emerged very late in his life even when he was generally known by his contemporaries as the ‘son of Ude’ and the son of the soil of Ndi Okerima compound where he lived, married and raised roughly all his children: yet not by the sapient-eagle-eyed old men who outlived his father and criticized him (MKO) for bearing false surname and abandoning his father’s compound Ndi Egwuonwu, the highly valued compound in Etitiama or the compound of the honorable (Eziukwu).

Hence, Chief MKO, not entertaining negligence over crucial matters moved to locate his father’s mountain at Ndi Egwuonwu compound. And through the auspice of the elders of the compound who gave him a warm welcome and so much cherished his ambition to discover and recover his fatherland ‘Okpu Ulo’ in the compound, the reclamation of the piece of land was possible despite that other people had been occupying it over the years.

Meanwhile, when he realized his genuine surname is ‘Okoronkwo’ not ‘Ude’, the later as cancer had eaten deep into the fabric mind of his family and the community as a whole to the degree not even the most coercive detergent could erase it from them because all their documents had been thoroughly stained with ‘Ude’ as their surname. Take for instance, one looking for any of his family members using ‘Okoronkwo’ as a surname sounds funny and will produce a very insignificant result. Nevertheless, I firmly stand here to announce to you that we the household of Chief Marcus K. Okoronkwo (MKO), more especially I, do not want to be identified with ‘Ude’ again as our (or my) surname but ‘Okoronkwo’.

However, because my father had been living comfortably at Ndi Okerima, his guardian’s compound, where he had equal right with the sons of the very soil and Where no one of the sons of the compound knew he was not one of them but shared things equally with him, he did not relocate to Ndi Egwuonwu compound to live. Instead, he romanced and shared things equally with the two compounds that vied to win his interest more—he was a dual citizen. And all the two parties were proud of him. And to pacify the two compounds, he gave them a sense of belonging by grouping his children among them. Personally, I was staunchly registered in his original compound Ndi Egwuonwu Amudu while most of my elder brothers get their dividends at Ndi Okerima Amuutu.

Also, when he discovered who his father was and where he came from, he was able to trace his step-brother, Mr. Ochu Okoronkwo, the father of Messrs Nmecha and peter Ochu. Moreover, because of how industrious Etteh Kama Ude was he later packed out from Ndi Okerima, his guardian’s compound, to Ndi Orji Imokwe (Ndi Oji New–Layout, as we later nicknamed it) where he bought two plots of land and developed one of them.

And at Ndi Oji, he lived peacefully with them and even married one of their daughters, Madam Oma Chukwu Awam. There, he lived with his family till date he joined the part multitude had taken. In his later days his house was converted into a conference hall for the elders of Ndi Oji. And he was equally a peacemaker among the people. Etteh Marcus, God bless you for taken me to where I rightly belong.

And concerning Mr. Ude who brought him up as his own very son, and following the law of requital, Chief MKO treated him as a father till his (the step father’s) death. According to tradition and culture then, even when he was still alive, Chief MKO bought a bullock for and gave him a befitting burial at death. To crown it all though out of mistake Chief MKO named his first son Ude Kalu after him (his Guardian). But for his own father Okoronkwo who he later came to know before then he named with a son from his fifth and last wife though the child is late by now. It was at his request that one of his sons named his son after his father, Okoronkwo, to immortalize the name. These, together with how he loved the boy (till he was no more, he reserved anything he ate for the boy) convinces me of his interest for the name to cut across generations. Before then when he was trying to erase the old name “Ude” from our mind and instill the new one, he always gathered us around him especially we the children who were close to him then and would start asking us to pronounce our names one by one. Anyone that mentioned his names up to ‘Ude’ he would sharply blow 'foul'; and commanded applause for anyone that ended his name with 'Okoronkwo'.

Thus all these things made me to put it upon myself to carry the name along and keep it alive even if my brothers completely decline as they are currently finding it difficult to switch over to it. Even in one of my articles which I sent to and was published at the back page of one of the national dailies ‘Daily Champion of Wednesday 28 November (although a rejoinder or my comment to someone else’s publication “Who wants Igbo Language Dead?”). Above other things, I commented on my willingness to project the ‘Okoronkwo’. See the excerpt of the article:
“Re: Who wants Igbo Language Dead? …may Igbo Language never see death

Hello Justus Nwakanma, I received your message on “Who wants Igbo Language dead?” I must tell you the truth: The tongue that speaks for the progressiveness, unity, establishment, and stabilization of Ndigbo, I cherish. Nothing pains me as hearing or seeing an Igbo man messing up his political office or profession; and my joy has no boundary any time I hear or see him making waves…not that I have a slight interest in seeing anyone from another tribe misbehaving—I wish the best to all Nigerians so that the country will be a better place for us to live. I cry when Ndigbo cry and rejoice whenever they rejoice. In fact, the state of Ndigbo in Nigeria makes me to shed tears. Hence, I have great love for the tribe. I can exchange fisticuffs for her sake with anyone that tends to deride her. I resolved to sue the Federal Government one morning I woke up from sleep while the first thing that preoccupied my heart though I did not discuss anything purporting to that with any person nor imagine it before going to bed nor dreamt about it in the night –I just woke up and grew annoyed –because of the Federal Government’s marginalization of Ndigbo particularly the existence of five states in the South-East, where Ndigbo are in the majority, while other geopolitical zones are having at least six. My love for Ndigbo and my father compelled me into bearing a long name instead of adopting at least my first-two names “Michael Daniels”. Even when I considered reducing the last three “Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo” to “MKO,” yet I was not satisfied because I feared I would be mistaken to a Yoruba man even from the line of the late Chief MKO Abiola—Abiola lived his life! I must live mine, promote my tribe and immortalize my own family name. And my prayer is and will continue to be “May Ndigbo and Igbo language never see moribund in Nigeria both politically, economically, socially, etc. but permeate into every nook and cranny of the nation, occupy, and reign as they always do (every Northerner or Westerner that crosses the Niger Bridge or enters the East {South-East or South-South} strives to know one language—Igbo language, and feels fulfilled and belong once he can hear or speak ‘bia’ which is for 'come'). I extend the same to our neighbors’. And let someone that thinks it in his heart to expunge Igbo language from being a national language, a language used in the National Assemblies and as a WAEC course, despite how germane his reasons are be like one of the departed fools who no one have any memory of , even like the still-born.” Can I hear somebody say Amen! It is done!
Michael Daniels M.K. Okoronkwo, Nkporo, Ohafia LGA.

And as if Grand Pa knew (If what I was informed of, that was accredited to him were real) I would one day project his name ‘Okoronkwo,’ stated earlier, when I was only a few months baby even a dying one, in the hands of my mother, that , “Nwa kari uto na-nwa nwa— i.e. grand child gives the best of joy.” In January 11th, 2008, when I engaged Mother in discussion particularly on the things of the past, she made mention of reincarnation and pointed out people in our time that wear the spirit of some other people that had come and gone. Being critical about this, I asked her how they used to know who reincarnated who. At this, she revealed: “Some people, when they are young always and unconsciously use their mouth to tell mysterious things about who they were and what they did in their first world and a times exhibit their (the people’s) characters while some are being revealed to the people by priests especially when they are sick and as the priest is being consulted to proffer solution for the people’s ailment. Even you (she pointed at me) fall among the latter group.” Then, she, together with some other hands there, gave me the following examples: I was informed of one wealthy man who finally died leaving wealth behind and which was inherited by the next to kin. And some years later, as the inheritor of the rich man’s wealth was having a meeting with some people in their general sitting room, a small boy of four came into the parlor and went straight to the central chair the late rich man use to sit when he was alive and asked a man sitting on it to stand up from his seat for him (the little boy of four) to sit. Immediately, the man obeyed having visualized the matter. Once the boy took his sit, he pointed at the inheritor of the late rich man’s wealth and told him point blank that the money he was having belong to him (the little boy) and that he (the inheritor) should use it to train him in school. Hence, the inheritor promised him he would do so, and the boy left them. Another one goes like this: they said, “This boy (they told me the person), when he was young walked to an inheritor of his grand father’s symbol of priesthood and pressurized him to give him the symbol for it belonged to him. And the inheritor, without hesitating, went in, brought out the symbol and gave it to him. Immediately, the inheritor later asked him to give it back to him for him (the inheritor) to keep it for the boy until he grew.” And by this means the people concluded those children were the rebirth (in spirit) of those dead men mentioned above.

The second means affirmed that if somebody (a child) was critically ill, and after many treatment had been applied and yet produced no result, a priest is always met to give direction: in the process, the oracle of the priest would make known of who the person was and what would be used to cure him—the priest only prescribed the herb while the person that came for it would go anywhere in the world to get it and apply it on the sick by himself—and immediately the patience is revived. A baby boy, three months after birth fell sick that the parents had been wearied by it until the grand mom decided to go to the priest to know the fate of the baby. But the first one she went to told her the baby would die at dusk! And being not satisfied by this revelation, she appealed to a higher priest. As she came, the priest asked her,” Have you gone to the one that told you the child would just die at dusk? The child would not die.” In addition, the priest’s oracle said this about the baby,” I’m Mesherach! I come from a sacred compound and priesthood. I don’t eat anything I see yet you people give me whatever you wish. My annoyance is that you people do not keep my principle. Now, use ogirisi (herb) and bath me I ‘ll be alright.” However, by knowledge, the baby boy was a rebirth of his grand mother’s father who was a priest in his lifetime. Meanwhile, once the sick baby was treated with the herb prescribed, he was automatically healed. The boy is three years by now.

Nevertheless, my mother narrated that I shared the same fate with the baby above. According to her, when I was youngish I fell sick that it seemed as if all hope had gone concerning my survival and that my health deteriorated so much that every morning her mother would come to see if I was still breathing and it was at the peak of that that one of my step-mothers, Mary, recommended to her of consulting the oracle at Ndi Agbor Nkporo to discern and diagnose my state. And, reluctantly she went. And on reaching to the place the oracle unveiled I was a rebirth of my grand father and exposed where he lived and also gave direction of the herb that would be used for my cure. According to Mom the oracle lamented, “Nwa kari uto na-nwa nwa!” i.e. grand child gives the best of joy or to have a grand child is sweetest and of a greater joy. “He is Okoronkwo! If you enter Ndi Egwuonwu Compound, Etitiama, you go by the left. That is where he lives. Boil ogirisi, give him to drink and bath him with it, he will live,” it added. To attest if it really worked on me when applied, my mother said she only regretted why she had wasted time before going to the priest. In other word, it prospered instantly.

Well, this, if it is anything to consider about, only tries to make me to suspect why I’m so crazy about the name ‘Okoronkwo’. But before this age long apocalypse was given to me, I had been canvassing support for my brothers to fully adopt the name!

However, Chief MKO, though the last born of his father, he was the first issue of his mother Mrs. Ogbararu Onwuka who remarried to late Mr. Uka Ogidi of Amaeke compound, who begot both late Chief Olu, Onwuka, Ude and Uka. (And all my father’s late Younger brothers have their children with us, too numerous to mention). Out of the four late brothers of my father, the last two died far earlier than my father and his other two brothers—Olu and Onwuka— and could leave nothing behind but children. Till their death, they lived in their brothers’ bosom. But among my dad and his first-two brothers above, Chief Onwuka was the richest and the pillar of their family especially when my father retired from active service. He was a business man living in the town, particularly, Aba though he had lived and done business in Ikan , Calabar before relocating to Aba. At Aba, he traded on yams—the very business he was into until his death in 1997 at the age of 83 years. At Aba he had two shops both at Ahia Ohuru ‘New Market’ where he sold the yams. In fact, he was successful in business! Hence, he could build two houses at Aba and secured undeveloped plots of land though he sold the undeveloped land before his death. But his houses outlived him—as a good father he left inheritance to his children. One of the houses is at # 11 Ogwo Road while the other was at Agu Okorie. And he lived at Ogwo Road with his family till his death. And this was the very inheritance of his progenies unlike the one at Agu Okorie which he willed to his extended family, although a son, Uche Orji (not his own direct son) in whose hand was entrusted with the family house’s Certificate of Occupancy, connived with his mother and sold the house secretly few years after his death. Yet, the entire extended family (Ofia Ukwu) punished them severely by ostracizing them from its affairs.

Beside the houses in the town, my uncle also built a one storey building in the village which carries 14 rooms including the parlors. There is also a one storey boys’ quarter which has six rooms altogether; and another three bedroom bungalow; also a boys' quarter in the same compound. The house is located at Isiafor (Achi). Moreover, Chief Onwuka picked my step-brother Onwuka to live with him. Therefore, he trained him up to a secondary school level as one of his own.

But concerning Chief Michael Olu who I was named after, although he was not as wealthy as either of the two—my dad or Chief Onwuka, he had what was enough for him. Like my father, he was a home base and a farmer. And though he was small in stature, he was strong bodily; he had a natural strength and was as swift as Ostrich while at walk. Anyone that walked along with him on the road especially on farm path would be running to keep the same pace with him. It was from this his habit that his popular sobriquet ‘Oji Oso Aga ,Ozobia Nkpo which is literally interpreted as an ‘Agile Man’,’’ was framed. Nevertheless, his strength for work transpired into a six-bedroom flat he built at Amaeke compound. Also like my father, he was no one’s labourer. He equally had large farms and three wives but not to be compared with my father.

Meanwhile, great love was predominant among the three: as a result there was mutual respect in their midst. No matter what, my name sake could not step an inch forward once my father placed an order! How he had quickly comported himself with terror and respect for my father at the shout of my dad when he was angrily laying complaints to the former was what placed him high before my elder sister as being very respectful. Due to how they love each other, when Chief Onwuka died, Uncle Olu concluded he would not be alive to see Uncle Brown buried before him. Meanwhile, three days to bring Uncle Brown’s body home for burial, the former fell critically ill and died in the morning of the day Etteh Onwuka was to be brought home . In fact Chief Michael Olu Uka was quickly buried that day before the body of Mr. Onwuka could be bought in. Frankly, Chief Onwuka’s death affected his surviving brothers but my father accommodated the situation with a matured mind.

Notwithstanding, Chief MKO himself married five wives who nursed his twenty-two children among whom are Late Mrs. Mercy Uka (who was survived by five children). Jane Smart, Ude, Osiri, Ogbonne Isaiah, Titi Simeon and Smart K. were siblings late Mrs. Mercy through Late Mrs. Orie; Joe, Miena K. Lekwa, Mainna Ukeh, Hannah Agu and Okoro K. were other children of Chief MKO through Mrs. Egbe [Chief MKO had two step-daughters by her in the person of Mesdames Comfort Otah and Rhize Jacob]. Among the children of Chief MKO are Eleanya, Comfort Oju, Esobe, Onwuka and Ufere through Late Mrs. Mary; Sunday [the mother of Kalu and Moses] through Late Mrs. Oma the mother of Luck Uka, Oyidiya Ude and Madam Amiocha who she (Oma) raised for another man before she was married to Chief MKO, was the only child her mother born for my dad. And Madam Oyidiya Ude, because of her overwhelming love for our dad, and which she highly extended to us, we therefore adopted her as one of us. And only what she is yet to suffer we are unconcern about, while the glory we will deny from her is the one that escapes our grip.

Finally, Samuel, Obasi, Ego Agbai, and Michael Daniels through Mrs. Janet, crowned Chief MKO a complete father of the above number of children. Furthermore God decorated his crown with stars of seventy-eight grand children and nine-great grand children. Meanwhile, one thing common among the children is that their mother is the father’s wife they meet at home while the food in the kitchen belongs to the hungry soul that comes first. Again, my father’s daughters are the pride of their various husbands -- well loved in their respective marital homes while the males are responsible, promising, and full of visions and thrusting into the future with full hope of ruling the world.

OCCUPATION

His Royal Highness, Chief MKO, though not formally educated was industrious! He was a great business mogul during his days, dealing on textiles, particularly wrapper. As a businessman he traveled far and wild out of our community. One of his wives late Mrs. Mary Kalu Ude who he married at Item, a neighbouring town, confirmed him as a traveller. Hence, being business wise, beside trading, he supported himself with architectural work. He was a mason by profession. The extent he was in this, I do not know. All I know is that he had a complete set of building equipment. Even now one can still trace some of them in the house.

Moreover, in one of those days, I was an eyewitness of when he was personally plastering our house. Then I was equally his personal assistant in bringing him basic materials. To sum it up, he was the architect of our house.

Assuredly, within the fractions of years I knew and was with him till the time he was bedridden with eyes problem from where he resigned completely from all manual jobs after the eyes problem defiled medication at Aba and some other places; there was no dull moment in his life. He was a workaholic. And in him resided the spirit of enterprise—he was a capitalist per say. His final occupation was farming. And in his active days in the farm, he was a great farmer. Single handed, he cultivated large hectares of land at different places and planted them with quality yams. It took a loudspeaker or messenger to disseminate information to workers at the extreme of his farm. One trying to do it mechanically ends up cracking his throat. Unlike some farmers who shared barns with other men because of the scantiness of their yams, my father occupied two big barns but with his wives.

More interesting things I experienced about my dad were these—of all the years I was with him or while he remained a farmer, there was never a day I found him working for any man in his farm as a laborer (or) to earn his living. Instead, he hired laborers to work for him: and he paid all his workers the same day even in the farm! No one did insult him because he owed the person neither has any person ever hurt me on the same rhyme. Till his retirement from farming he was indebted to no man! He even paid his laborers in advance. Chief MKO ate and still had a left over. And, due to the level of success he attained to in life, he found it odd to see a failure. He was always proud of himself: “In my days I was not destitute! We were the reigning guys, I bought a bull for my father (Ude) in his lifetime,” he always vaunted.

Nevertheless, I am not good at eulogizing man! I always fill guilty for doing so. Because of this, I rarely venture into it. Right now, I have resolved not to say anything beyond what I know or have experienced about Chief MKO. Though I was not there when he was a youth, the families he married his wives assured me he was a responsible man even a man of substance. He must have been wealthy and ‘Absalom’ of his days. Take for instance, his first wife Late Mrs. Orie, was from Mr. Iba Olumba family (a well-known and honorable family in the community residing at Ndi Esere compound) who every person would like to be ingratiated with. The very lady has as her sobriquet, ‘Orie Ji Efi Ewu Ugbogho’, that is, one who cooks vegetable soup with a bullock explaining a great exploit. His second wife Mrs. Egbe was not from a base family, but one to write home about. Excuse me! Who can give his daughter to an outsider except he has seen him capable? More interesting, never in the history of men a girl revokes her nationality for a common man unless the one she would get the full giggles from. Chief MKO, you crossed the boarder and brought home an angel from Item as wife. By the way, what moved Awam Chukwu of Ndi Orji compound to approve your marriage with his daughter late Mrs. Oma, if not you have something to show? Of all most surprising was, he broke the king’s security, penetrated into the then incumbent king’s palace and came out successfully with the princess particularly the queen of the princess then Miss Eziyi Ude Akpala, as wife.

Late Chief and Lolo Eze Ude Akpala, Eze Ogo 7 of Etitiama, what convinced you to give the hand of your queen in marriage to this hero (resting today in the lord’s arms)? Was it not because of his gentleness or for the sake of his handsomeness and wealth? Or should I ask, Chief MKO, ‘O Di Nma Na-Asa Aru (Absolom); Nwoke Ndi Inyom Huru Gbalatara (Ladies’ Hot Cake)’, how did you get through into these high places you treaded upon? Would you persuade me to accept that the best answer must have been a mystery? Or that they all fell in love with you as you pricked around like a turkey or peacock on your gorgeous outfit, as you usually told us? Well, who among women could turn down the offer of a person of your type even if she would be the fifth wife? Chief MKO {Akajiaku}, another point difficult for me to ratify is how you held all these your wives tenaciously in your house till death separated you. Is it with what? Out of charm, love, patience or endurance, which one played the role? Or was it by your knowledge of equitable allocation of resources? I am convinced that your soccer game experience was one the vital keys!

Dad with his first wife Lolo Orie

SOCIAL LIFE

Yes, the fact that my father lived luxiriantly-- ate and drank at will and kit elegantly showed for certainty that he was hard working and successful. In Etitiama and Nkporo at large, he was well known for his neat and gorgeous attire. Due to this, he was greatly admired by all men. Let me show you one quasi-drama that occurred during his retirement ceremony: Then as they danced down to Ndi Agbor Nkporo, two Idda people, residing there, join his train on his way back. They were a man and lady. Their presence was noticed at home when everyone had gone. Then the man was inquired about his whereabouts he revealed he followed my father because he loved his style. But, for the woman who laid the same complaint as the man, my father for a reason personally known to him ordered his wives to take care of her. The second wife served her food which she declined from eating, while the first wife made bed for her and told her to go and lie down and wait for him. At this, the lady caught by her conscience, burst, ‘Orie, m zulere di gi?’ That is “Orie have I stolen your husband?’ And she hastily jumped out of the house and disappeared into the thin air. Moreover, the elderly ones were also among his fans. In his words, “In those days the elderly ones always took me to (their special) occasions as a sample, and only to pose with. His eldest and most favorite friend who was separated from him with great pain by death was Mr. Okoko Ude, the father of Akanu Okoko, another covettable family in the community. Even in his age grade ‘Lucky Age Grade’ Chief MKO was very friendly and influential. He was one of the important men of the peer group. His age-grade friends who death had equally snatched from him a long time ago were Messers Marcus Kama Mba and Egwu Arunsi (the latter), the father of Mr. Orji Egwu, Iro Egwu (the only Virgin or Amaghi Inyom) and others. In the age grade he observed a luxuriant ceremony of their time ‘igbuji Abah’ a kind of ceremony to show affluent which in our today’s world may be likened to a high grade of retirement festival.

Politically, Chief MKO was a natural politician, well imbued with the instrument of democracy. He had ‘the majority’ as his watchword – first he opted for what will be for the good of the sovereign majority. In other words, he believed in the majority vote; in the life widely proclaimed as germane and which when undergoes acidic and moral test is not corrosive but a true reflection of the yearnings of the man in the street; this is simply the wishes of the masses.Any policy he proposed which is void of convention, he didn’t insist on its implementation for his personal aggrandizement. Nevertheless, he always camped with the minority that made sense, and to protect their interest. He is both a majority and minority leader—these qualities manifested in him. I always watch how he resolved matters as he took precedence of their parley. And it was from there I espied these traits in him. Also, as a blind judge he always allowed the sword to fall helplessly once the scale slidded either side.

The next thing common with him was that he was community-development conscious and loved adventures. In one of those days, after work, as we relaxed in our open-compound for fresh air under the moon, he teased me this viva voce, ‘’ what will be the name of your peer group when the time comes?’’ Immediately, I answered him “Ako N’ Uche (Intelligentsia)” even without thinking as though I had already parboiled it. Then he vowed to see the reality of it. Unfortunately, it occurs at his back. Yet, this inspired me he must had been a figure in giving his age grade their name ‘’ lucky Age Grade,’’ and in most of the important things that happened there. Obviously, age grade in our community is an agent of social, economic and psychological development. It also provides internal and external security. As an analogy, the school blocks, market (lock-up stalls), Motor Park, hospital, electricity, conference hall, and many other similar projects that are still under construction in our community are carried out by different age grades in the community. Meanwhile, my dad wanted this to continue, and was also desirous that I would be a party to it. That was why he liked me to espouse the age grade.

Chief MKO, being a gregarious human being was a member of a popular social club ‘’Akperi” Work and Have Pleasure (by interpretation) whose primary purpose was to share one another’s burden. One can’t count a few number of handsome persons that founded and upheld this club, which attracted the elites of the community, and be right except he has given chief MKO a good place (chairman or treasurer) among them. Of course, he was their treasurer. Moreover, the magnificent-spherical-multiple colored (like that of the rainbow) canopy of this group whose high rise competed with the tallest trees, and which took days to be sewn, was knitted in our compound by the experts under my dad’s supervision.

A concerning hospitality, Chief MKO was not lacking! He divided his food with his visitors. Though he would not be on table, sighting a hungry man in his house he ordered his food to be brought to the person. None of his wine was opened secretly nor had its cork remain intact on it at the presence of any guest. Kola nut never got dried in his house. The first thing he ordered us to bring when there was a visitor was ‘Nzu’ powder followed by kola and wine. He knew how to entertain guests! Until his translation into glory on 7th October, 2006 by 11pm at the age of 106, one could not sort out who was or is his foe unless the person hated or disdained him out of jealousy.

Big dad led a quiet and challenging life!

He was not only hospitable to aliens but also to his own family. Till he lost his uncles Jonah Ukaeje of Elughu, Arua Uka Echem of Ndi Okude-Etitiama and Mr. Urum of Amurie, he was living peacefully with them, and with his immediate younger ones. None of the later stayed four days without coming to his house. The love of all this brothers’ wives and children were upon him and vice-versa. Not one of them counted his Yule holidays in the village a feat except the person had come to tell him he/she was in town or is returning to his or her base on this or that day; and had blessed him with a gift or two (one of the sources of the plenty wine, kola nuts, stockfish, etc. in his house), and received likewise from him. Not even his in-laws could dodge his presence nor come to him to gratify all righteousness but with deep love for him.

Right from when he assumed the eldest position of his family, his house turned to a ‘Supreme Court’. All cases were brought to and settled at his table to the satisfaction of everybody. Till October 2006 when his life on earth was interrupted as a Justice of peace (JP), he was the last resort of his people. The cross section of the mammoth throng here are his cousins from Elughu, Etitiama, and Amurie who had come to pay their uncle, father, in-law, etc. the last respect they owe him due to his enormous services to them.

MKO’S RELIGIOUS LIFE

Chief MKO believed in the culture and traditions of his fathers and followed them strictly. Like every man of the community from his days till civilization and Christianity came into the land, he honored the popular ritual ‘Egbele’ of the community where male children are initiated. Hence he initiated all his male children into ‘Egbele’, both to exhibit his affluent and prove himself a fulfilled man, according to them. Though there were sects like ‘ Dibia and Akpam’ (spiritual sects) to mention but a few, people proudly belong and sacrificed to gods with wine, kola, animal etc. and at times do bad to their fellow human beings, Chief MKO (JP) had no little interest in these—he despised them greatly and had no iota of commitment with any one that belong to any of these sects them. Throughout his life time, I didn’t for one day saw him at any place with any one that has a (public) bad record or who was or is (publicly) criticized as an evil one. To add weight to this, my elder sister Madam Ego Demain shared with me her joy after the burial of our father: it was all about my dad’s integrity. She exhumed, “Nothing makes me glad like seeing the burial of our father being over without any secret cult coming to claim him as their member or require one thing or the other for settlement as I witnessed in some others even those that acted so pious.”

My father’s wives particularly his second wife Lolo Egbe did not shy away from eulogising his integrity and effort in life in a manner I dubbed the true confession from the closest. She said, “Your dad was truly a man ! He tried as a man should when he was full of blood and lacked nothing. He was one of the guys in town yet he did not make trouble with any. The only fault of your father was that he was yet to know the true cost of affording education to his children (beyond basic education).”

In fact the glory we received from the members of the community concerning the life of our father made us fat, although we returned it to God. People adored his quietness, gentleness, and greatness and thanked us for that as if we helped to it. Chief M.K.O was generally acclaimed as a man of ‘principle and integrity’. To our eldest (daughter) or who we take to be so, Mrs. Janet Smart Ukwu, nothing piles up her joy and love for our father and helped her to hold our dad in a high esteem as accessing the dozens of my father’s children and scores of his grand and great grand children without seeing a dissident or anyone that is a threat to the peace of the society.

My father’s integrity is not far fetched. Rather it is a common knowledge. My brother Mr. Smart K. at his own corner and in his own capacity wrote his own chapter of my father’s life or what he knows concerning him, and this together with the first edition of my own chapter of my father’s life circulated the celebration of life ground of my father. And his writing instead of paraphrasing it in this second edition, I consider it appropriate to attach it wholly at the end of mine; I dubbed it ‘MKO’s Biography according to Mr. Smart K., on behalf of Mr. Ude Kalu, for the family. The reason is it is popularly held that the witnesses of two people stand--and the two writings uphold each other. The genius, Chief MKO, despite he was not a Christian outwardly (by confession), initially, he was one inwardly: He feared God, soliloquized and regurgitated over His laws written in this heart. He neither advocated any evil nor supported one. He was a moralist. In one of those days, in his presence, when I was reading an Igbo novel entitled ‘Mmiri Oku Eji Egbu Mbe’ audibly and came to a point that disclosed how the major actor planned and robbed banks, he [Chief MKO, (JP)] sternly reprimanded me to quit from reading such books that corrupted good manner but to go for those that taught good living. This was after he had asked me the very lesson the article he heard me read conveyed.

To consolidate my point on his morality, till he was glorified he neither had skeleton in his cupboard nor received any accusing finger from anyone in the community for being the cause of his or her (the person’s) downfall. No wonder he lived his life healthily for several years and slept gently in the Lord after he had gathered us (his children) around him and gave us his blessings two months before he took off. Then he lectured us saying: “God made some short, while He created others tall; some slim and some fat. I do not jealous anyone over what God has given him. Be content with what you have of God. Above all, continue in the love among you.”

He thought it wise to compile avalanche of wives than to date outside wedlock. Consequently, each of his wives has a legal marriage certificate. And he lived with them till death started separated them. It was not that he did not quarrel with any of them for once. He did! But they always settled. One incidence I do remember though I can not recollect the cause was when I was still very young that my mother divorced him temporarily and took us to her mother’s place and there we lived but not up to three days before we returned. There was this other incident that took place when I and my late younger brother were initiated into ‘Egbele’ the popular ritual; as we came to eat my father with a parable asked us if we had eaten. When my mother overheard him, she misunderstood him and was embittered in her heart although she did not say anything then yet she treasured the word till one month after we were through with the ritual when she confronted him over it and fought him verbally. But my father behaved himself maturely without fighting back after he had clarified her. The idiom my father used which my mother misunderstood goes like this: “Ewu ahu ogbabirila?” i.e. “Has the goat gone out of the rope?” Which according to my father means “Is the food ready?” However, because the ritual is associated with goat i.e. parents, particularly mothers, who have money and or love their children always buy goat for them for it and for remembrance—the goat will be kept for raising kids for the people, my mother thought he (my father) was mocking her for not buying goat for us. But that was not what my dad meant.

Another person among my father’s wives that attempted divorce was the first wife (but I do not know the cause). In fact, she succeeded in it but not to the level of living his house—it was an indoor divorce. Both of them lived together till date but without exchanging anything except greeting and any insignificant paraphernalia. Our grand Ma claimed she was living in the house for her children. She was right, anyway.

One serious misdemeanor I saw in my father though many people may call it ‘minor and natural’ was that he could disgrace a whisky until the latter turned round and assault him without mercy even to the extent of plunging him into having a ding dong with any of the wives who was impatient with him. Notwithstanding, even if the fracas reached the high heavens that night, the thing capsized the following morning while their normal business continued. In the row was one time in the year 2000 when one of his cousins from Amurie came to him and demanded a piece of clothing [george —a ceremonial clothing used in the Eastern part of the country] which was part of what his (the cousin’s) native doctor prescribed for him (the cousin) to bring in other to forecast for him (the cousin) the solution for his nemesis. And this, my father granted him speedily to satisfy him despite all my pressure on him not to.

Nna, his common name by all his children and close relatives {though mainly a title he merited by the reason of his age and his faithfulness to it}, was very transparent and could let know for goodness sake what many may like to be swept under the carpet. One startling revelation he gave to us with a great remorse concerning a heinous evil his family was once lured to commit in the years back even when most of my elder brothers were yet to come attested this. He unveiled that one person in his family fell victim to manslaughter i.e. accidentally shot someone dead in the forest and irrespective of much and sincere pleadings they tendered to the deceased family with solemn promises to pay them handsomely in kind and give the victim a suiting burial they refused but insisted on ‘an eye for an eye’. When his (my father’s family) could not prevail in winning the heart of the people they let them go with one of their souls even their very own consanguinity a youth of that nature whose whereabouts is uncertain till now. May the gentle and innocent souls of these fatalities rest in perfect peace in Jesus’ name! Amen. And May God forgive all the parties involved in these lethal atrocities; and let the blood of Jesus Christ that speaks better things than the blood of Abel silence the vengeance cries of these fellows whose lives were violently snuffed out from them. Oh, the blood of Jesus, speak peace, grace, love, prosperity and joy to the progenitors of these various homes in the same and mighty name of Jesus Christ! Amen. It is done.

Yes, though Nna began as a moralist; he ended up his earthly journey as a believer! Because as my custom always was since I found the way, sharing Jesus with him as Lord and Saviour, and praying for him that God would forgive him his sins and accept his soul before he would be taken away. Three month before his transition when I was exhorting him to believe in Jesus, he agreed to do so in as much as it is the way the majority had taken. In his own words, he voiced, ‘’ Nwe (ebe) nde (ndi) mmadu ka ikputu (otutu) ma-ala nwowo (ebe obu), ‘’ which is being interpreted as ‘’wherever people are in the majority, I will be there.’’ ‘’ it is in Christ Jesus,’’ I replied and led him in prayers once again. (The non-bracketed words in the first quotation are in his original dialect).

EPILOGUE

Today, an icon is gone! Yet not without leaving behind innumerable legacies among which are the following: Not to entertain negligence over sensitive issues. This came from his zeal to go and discover who his father is and where he came from who died even when he (MKO) could not know him. Equally, he assured us the possibility of surviving in the face of difficulties, even in the absence of a father—for he finally emerged successfully after the early death of his dad. He taught us also, to be industrious and keep transforming and or be diversifying our economy (production possibility frontier) until we become successful or obtain what makes us so. This was seen in his involvement in trading, architectural and farming activities, which gave him access into the high places he moved on. Most touching among these, was his debt free life! Absolutely rare among men, this is! Yet, how he did it, But I can’t just tell how: surely he inculcated a spontaneous love among us, his children. Each of us is always happy to see one another. And the core friend of nearly all of us is always from within us. Or should I adjudge, before one makes external companion, he had secured one inside.

I will not fail to mention his gentleness, self-confident life, together with his morality, and his altruism. To save space, Chief MKO was only a legacy, a schoolmaster to everyone that envisages greatness in life.

Big daddy, I am happy to have such an industrious and God fearing man like you as a father. “I'm proud of you. God bless you! Your entire beloved is here to say, safe journey to the lord’s bosom. And as we gather here to offer you the quasi-last face-to face respect, this is not the end of it! We live to keep the race you have set, and keep your name vibrating: Nations and generations you do not know will hear about you.
Adios papa!
Adieu Nna Ndi Orji!
Au revoir Etteh Kama Ude!
Goodbye Chief MKO
Ga Nke oma Onye Ije.

MKO’s Biography, according To Mr. Smart K. on behalf of Mr. Ude Kalu, for the Family

TRIBUTES

1. TRIBUTES TO MY BELOVED DAD (CHIEF MKO)

Not unanticipated, but the reverse!
And once it happened, though I was far away, I saw it.
And being what I crave not for so soon, I waved it aside to procrastinate it:
Yet my spirit haunted me until I gave my consent.
Really, it’s all about the exit of an icon,
Chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo (MKO)
Alias KAMA UDE, grace personified.
To God be the glory.
----------------Michael Daniels (The last son, but not the least)

2. A TRIBUTE TO MY FATHER

Death the inevitability of every living being has taken from me a very precious asset. There are two stages in everyone’s life, the day you were born and the day you will die. We cannot change nature neither can we fight death because it comes with a very mighty binding force which we cannot resist. Nna, you left a word to us before you departed and your word is always a word of oneness and love which you have sowed into our hearts. You have died and left many vacuum uncovered in my life which no body can fill. Nna, your children have gathered like a mustard seed, who will be there to call their nominal rolls? The fondly common English language you normally use to make your children happy which is ‘’Ede go from E de go Oh yes’’ is still fresh in my memory how are the mighty fallen. I love you but God loves you so much. Bye - Bye.
--------------------Noble Smart Kalu Ude, Son.

3. A TRIBUTE TO MY LATE GRAND FATHER

Nna, if everyone will live as long as you lived, who will cry bitterly for the lost of a loved one? Death, we believe is inevitable did not come too early this time. You lived long because you saw life as a mere stage where you came to play a role and leave. You were hardworking yet contented. Yet you were ambitions yet not driven by it. You were loving, yet you did not spare the rod to spoil the child. I remember how you scold me only when your wife was doing that. I always laugh because I know you meant well and enjoy doing it together. You left a legacy worthy of emulation. I am glad because you have passed outstanding qualities down to your ‘fruit’. And we promise to uphold and pass these qualities unto the generations yet unborn. You lived well and long yet we miss you. Rest peacefully, Nna. ---Uche Uka (Grand daughter).

4. A TRIBUTE TO MY FATHER-IN-LAW

Nna you are the best father-in-Law, I have ever seen. I came into your house and heard people calling you Nna; yes you are the Nna of all. You welcomed all your daughters-in-law well. Outside that, you were my best friend. Yes I believe it is a pity and almost unbearable to lose a best friend which you were to me. If I have the opportunity to choose father-in-law again, I will surely choose you Nna. May your peace-loving soul find peace in God’s kingdom. Adieu Nna, Adieu father of all, Adieu father-in-law, Adieu the great hero.
------Ngozi Samuel (Daughter-in-law)

5. A TRIBUTE TO MY DEAR GRAND FATHER

I am proud o f you my grandfather. You are worthy of emulation. I call you a hero because you merited it in every way. I thought it was not true until it was confirmed. The cold hand of death took you away from us. E wooh! Grand dad, I miss you so much. I salute you for a life well spent in this world. Have peace with God
---- Ezinne Samuel Kalu (Grand daughter)

6. TRIBUTE TO MY DEAR GRAND FATHER

Life is like a vapour! As fortune knocks at every man’s door at the appointed time so does death knocks at every man’s door. We are weeping for you Nna (Nna oha) yet rejoicing for you lived to see us and we had the opportunity to live and stay with our grand father. To God be the glory. We know a very big vacuum has been created, but our question is who will do what grand papa did for us when he was alive? Grand papa, we pray for peaceful rest in the bosom of the lord. Papa Titi Eleanya Oko, we are consoled that we will meet again some day. Adieu papa, Adieu papa Oha.
---------Onyinyechi Eleanya Oko (Grand Daughter)

________________________________________________________________________________________________

THE GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: NKPORO IN PERSPECTIVE

Upon every effort the Federal Government is making to hook the interior parts of the country to the central government or make them feel belong by taking the government to the rural places, which brought about the stratification of government up to the LGA level, yet, the rural areas are seeming to be farther separated from the government of today. Instead of the gap between the government and the rural areas to be disintegrating (more and more), it is widening rather; the dividends of democracy are minimally given to the rural places. This bubbles out many questions for the government, and its officials to answer.

What has become the works of the government? What is the essence of establishing the various levels of governments? All the yearly budgets of the government what are they meant for? Where are they being spent in? Furthermore, are the rural areas not a party to the budget? If the answer to the last question is in the negative, why is it that each government comes and goes while the rural areas do not notice it despite that the rural areas and their inhabitants remained the people that voted them into power or that it is the ground on which the politicians rigged themselves into power (should they argue no one voted for them) respectively. It is a good saying that, “Thou shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treaded out the corn…that he that plowed should plow in hope; and that he that threshed in hope should be partaker of his hope (1Cor. 9:9-10). This is the standard God has set from the foundation of the world “… and, the labourer is worthy of his reward ….” (1Tim. 5: 18).

And people, when voting in any election always have this in mind that the person they are voting for will use his office to lift the ugly state of their community and transform their standard of living. Unfortunately for them, the politicians once elected disassociate themselves from the electorates and would at most compensate their faithful cronies with dinner party and weekend refreshment, and yet leave the communities they stood on and carried out their campaigns unattended. Some go to the level of diverting the fund given to them to develop the rural areas into their private purse. What an absurdity!

Rural development should be the highest goal of any government to curb the surging migration to the urban places from the former.

What I saw in my resent visit to one of the communities in South-East is the intumescences of this episode. At the Motor Park of this community in Abia North was a woman with five children who are within the age of 9-2yrs; and their luggage, who was stranded on how to get the next vehicles to continue their journey which they started at Item, a neighbouring village in Bende LGA of the State. The women accosted and asked me if she could get a vehicle there to Afikpo in Ebonyi State, to go to Akwa-Ibom, her real destination.

Being not sure, I directed her to some men nearby who I perceived were working in the Motor Park. As she inquired from them they told her there was none because of the bad state of the road i.e. that the road is not motor able unless she would go by bike (Okada).

Moreover, to get the bike, out of tens of bikes parking there, who could sail the rough, road was talk of war. The two Okada men that agreed at last to carry them to Osso-Nkporo Junction of the road where Ebonyi and Abia State through Nkporo have common boundary charged her N800.00. The fare would have been N300.00 for all of them by car if the road is motor able. However, I was confounded as I began to ponder over this! Does it mean Abia state road stops at Nkporo or that Nkporo is a terminus city? More clearly, should it be that one at Nkporo is cut off from the world at Ebonyi State, and beyond or that one in Abia State have no access to Ebonyi State through Nkporo, the closest and easiest route for the people of Ebonyi in Abia State and Nigeria at large if the road is useable unlike the Enugu State road the Ebonyians are currently taking? This is incredible! That a community or State in Nigeria is not connected to its immediate neighbouring state is quite unbelievable!

Poor road networks entail many things: economic jeopardy; impediment on freedom of movement and association; community development hazard etc. And these very things are visible in this very community in question (I believe it is also traceable in any other community that is faced with this same problem). Interestingly, the day I was in this community was their market day, (Ahia Eke) “Eke Market” in particular. I then took the same opportunity to visit the market at Etitiama Autonomous Community of Nkporo, a stone-throw from the Motor Park, and I discovered that 30 cups of gari which was rampant in the market is N200.00 i.e. roughly N6.00 per cup as against N20.00 it is in some towns—yet they have a better cup for the measurement. Another thing was that the gari was going begging in the market because there were no buyers except people from the community. The same is the fate of other commodities like yam, fruit and other farm produce. I conclude had it been there are good roads linking the area to the surrounding communities, towns, councils and States, people would have been coming from the cities to the villages to buy those items and take them to the towns. Or that the villagers would hand been taking those commodities to the towns where they could sell them better and get more reward for their labour. And much food would have been in the towns for the teaming masses. But even when they think of this, the expenses they might undergo due to the bad road could scare them away. And when the village produces food more than they can consume, and would not dispose the excess to the towns, the food, no doubt, would be a waste—and a waste of the economy.

Nevertheless, just opposite the Etitiama Ultra Modern Daily Market as its sign board reads depicting the vision they have for the look-up stalls market (in the nearest future) was a Etitiama Community Primary School. Inside the Primary School that was established in 1957 by the community and which (the school) has graduated many elites of the community who are currently in many walks of life, were feeble structures, Out of seven blocks in the school compound, five were built by the community “and each has three classrooms per block” while two of the blocks with two partitions each were built by the government. Again out of the seven blocks, only three (one government and two community built blocks) are sound while another two of the community built structures have dangerous cracks on the wall that run it vertically making the classroom risky to be stayed in for classes by the pupil because of its near-to-collapse state. Yet, the last two (one government and one community built block) are thoroughly damaged. Though they are still on their foundations, their roofs are dilapidated and the surrounding areas over grown by grass. In fact, they have become abandoned property and constituted to what give the school an unpleasant and a sordid look. Looking at the state of the school one would wonder, should this be the school that has equipped some of the politicians, academicians, capitalist etc in the community and in different levels of government and some other professions? Has the government of Ohafia LGA or any person that has access to it ever seen the state of this school structures? If yes the state of the school might have been uplifted unless the person or the government has no conscience. It is encouraging to state here that either UBE or its like had renovated two blocks in this same school, but the very ones in question are still rubbles.

The present condition of the school structures calls for justice, if the school could speak, it would have been beckoning on those who had been empowered in it as they are driving across it daily in their jeeps and living in fine mansions, to consider their actions, and even on the government whose purse is being enriched by its fruits.

Anyway, by what I sew on the fence of the primary school, it (the fence) was built by different sets of elementary six pupils who were passing out of the school in their final year. Think about it! Elementary six Pupils are building school fence in a village school. Where do they get the money from? It is an extra levy on the parents that are struggling to make two ends meet. I can see the free education the government has declared is not truly free. They parents are paying for it in the other way round, and even more. If the parents were not the source of the funds, the children might have been forced to go for, manual labour to get the money. And if it is so, what a child abuse! And I hope no government official had been coming for the commissioning of such a project when it is completed. If anyone has been coming for it, it is shamelessness on his part. I pray the government should wake up and look into this. Meanwhile, I am of the opinion that the government should come up and rebuild our schools both primary and secondary schools to make education more interesting, comfortable and enjoyable to our wards and children—the physical appearance of our learning institutions needs to be very attractive to the eyes, first.

Dilapidated Government built block in Etitiama Primary Sncnhool, Pix By: Anya De Nyasca

However, the community being very ambitious, industrious and zealous to provide for itself what the government has denied from it succeeded in installing electricity in the community which was commissioned in 1990 by Cdr. Amadi Ikwechehor, former Sole Administrator of Imo State where the community belong to then—a notice board on the electric transformer of this community revealed this. The dirty side of this good news is that due to the unsteady nature of the electric light most of the times, or the total failure of the NEPA to give light for good number of days, thieves usurped the chance, sneaked in and made away with the electric cables at the out skirt of the community up to a long distance the community has not been able to reinstall for some years now.

Now, this has left on the people a double jeopardy or has piled up its woes: no road networks to travel freely to see what is going on in the country or for other people even vendors to come to them; no electric light to power on their radio or television to hear news or have access to the Internet—the people in the rural areas could not boldly point out what the Federal Government’s policies are . They are just like a besieged city. They are left in dark! When shall this end? These people as I can see have their final hope now on the government to rescue them. In fact by their precedent so far, they deserve government’s attention. Every tangible project there, both completed and on-going ones are community financed projects particularly by its different age grades. In addition to the above mentioned projects built by some age grades, their standard Motor Park; a two -storey conference hall, etc were also built by an age grade, each.
Among the basic amenities provided to the community through its age grade is a hospital block though it is not functioning. And right at the hospital site, a philanthropist in the person of Chief MAO from Ohafia came and built for it (the community) a giant hospital compared with what the Chinedu Age Grade had erected. This character is worthy of emulation! And the community, lacking what is enough to show appreciation to Chief MAO, appeal to God to reward him accordingly, and at the same time call on other Nigerians who have concern for rural development to imitate him. The new on going block for the hospital contains 15 partitions beside 2 extra large rooms and a large central hall. It is roofed with aluminum roof. The windows are slidi ng glass windows all through.

Also in sight at the Etitiama Community was a Community bank one of its sons Chief Ude Egwu Nkele (Mosco), now late, was building for it. The bank had already approached completion. The building had been raised, fenced and painted. It was left at furnishing. Also, if any of the financial institutions in the country could come and take over the bank and operate it, the community would equally be happy. A functional bank in the community will relief the people the burden of carrying money around or travelling out to bank in the town or else where.

Another interesting site to behold in this community is a recreation center built by the youth of the community under the aegis of Etitiama Nkporo Youth Association (ENYA). This is situated at the strategic area of the community. The Youth in addition bought a commuter bus for its Council of Chiefs i.e. to Etitiama Council of Chiefs.

However, the major project according to them, that is commenced by the government from the late 70s or early 80s which is still going on and has not assumed any shape till now is a pipe-borne water project. The Nkporo community, especially its Ndi Elu ward that lied south-west of the community is faced with serious problem as long as water is concern.
The only stream in the region which serves the entire Nkporo community find its way out of Nkporo town through the north-west as it runs, from east to the northern side of Nkporo serving only the Etiti ward and Ndi Agbor ward of Nkporo—these people can just take a cup and open the backyard door to fetch water from the River to a visitor if the person requests for water. Notwithstanding, the whole Nkporo town needs a good drinkable water.

But it takes those at Ndi Elu more than one and half hour to go and fetch water from a place the river made a pass near their area. As an alternative, some of the people at Ndi Elu who are too
separated from the river move a bit westward and southward to a spring
where they use cup to fill their cans from a pothole
spring, to fetch water. Hospital built at the Chinedu Age Grade Hospital site by a philanthropist Chief MAO
Pix By: Anya De Nyasca
Abandoned Water Project @ Etitiama Nkporo
Okpo Nkuma Spring at Etitiama West, a second major sources of drinking water beside the River, to the people of Etitiama Pix By: Anya De Nyasca

However, the water problem at Ndi Elu attracted the sitting of the water tank in their vicinity. Hence, this raised the taste of the people that soon they would be relieved from this monstrosity, water scarcity and contaminated water, (where any is available). But all to no avail, the whole thing fell like pack of cards.

The project did not go beyond the establishment of the water plant right at the riverside at Obofia though they complained the water-pumping machine was incapable of pushing water from the plant to the water reservoir at Mission Hill, Etitiama, Ndi Elu, many miles away. And this marked the end of the project. Later, in the 90s, the government came back and carried away the water-pumping machine with a promise to exchange it with a bigger one that could do the job. Till now, it (the government) is yet to come back with the bigger machine.

Thus an attempt in 2003 during Chief Orji Uzor Kalu’s administration to continue the water project was so huge that they succeeded in finishing all but a second water reservoir with no water pipe connecting it to the plant, and abandoned it again. The second water tank was at close to Etitiama Satellite Town unlike the first that is at the community’s ancient city. When they (the workers) returned after a long period of abandoning the water project to carry their remaining equipment to make their final exit, the Youth was irritated and resisted them and ceased the equipment (a power generating plant (leister) with which they were welding the tank) from them. The second water reservoir Now, it is the turn of Chief T. A. Orji, the current Abia State Governor to register his presence in the water project.

Immediately he took the throne, as if he wanted to use the water to say “Thank you people of Nkporo for voting me into power,” fresh work started on the water project. Now, it was the laying of the water pipes from the reservoir to the plant. Good a thing, they replaced the 1980 ceramic pipes with a plastic one. And at the early stage, work was going on seriously but now the workers are no more in sight while the laying of the pipes is not yet a success. (I was able to trace the pipe line to at least, the waterside where it is running to meet the plant, there are still some dislocations) Hence, speculations are high among the people if the project has seen its usual moribund; if the contractor has entered into the thin air following his predecessors’ pattern who started it, or if the government has played its normal politics, and yet whether the water project has been left again to wait for the next government.

Besides, the people never wish any of the above imaginations to be the fate of the project they constantly yearn to see as fait accompli: rather, they pray to the government of chief T. A. Orji who has worn the shoes and understood where it pinches them most and thrusts himself forward to give them a relief, to continue the good work he had begun and also accomplish it. In fact the people have profound gratitude for him if he could give them water in no distant time.

Nevertheless, Etitiama Autonomous community, the seat of development in Nkporo and the assumed capital city of the entire Nkporo community has a profound joy and great thanks for her son, a councilor Hon. Obasi Iro and to the government over a health clinic center it inherited from the government through the office of the Councilor. The Clinic centre was built at the town square of the Etitiama Community i.e. in the ancient city.

The Landscape / Demography of Nkporo

However, Nkporo is a town with eight communities. It is delineated into three wards as already mentioned above. Two communities, Amurie and Etkitiama are at Ndi Elu Ward; while three wards namely, Elughu, Obofia and Ndi Nko are at Etiti Ward; besides, the next three, Agbaja, Okwoko and Ukwa are at Ndi Agbor Ward. Etitiama happens to be at the center of Nkporo. It (Nkporo) is bounded by Item in the south-west, Abiriba in the south and Ohafia in the south-east. At its eastern and northern boundaries are Idda and Afikpo in Ebonyi State. From Item in Bende LGA to Etitiama Motor Park through Amurie Nkporo is a state government road and it is N150.00 by bike. And from Abiriba (junction) through Etitiama is N150.00 to the Etitiama Park. The road passes through Ndi Agbor Nkporo and runs down to Afikop in Ebonyi State; meanwhile, it is a federal road. Again, from Ohafia or Oroni junction (a junction that joins Ohafia, Ida and Nkporo) through Elughu Nkporo, to Etitiama Motor Park is LGA’s road. It is also N150.00 by bike. From Elughu, one can also make a touch to the federal road at Ndi Nko junction through Obofia before he starts going to Ndi Agbor from where he will burst to Afikpo, Ebonyi State. Out of the roads that link up Nkporo, only the State Government and LGA roads are usable, currently. The former is tarred while the latter is graded. But the major and longer road (more than 40 miles) which is the federal’s that holds the economy and development of Nkporo is badly spoilt and cries for justice. Nkporo has a branch of its Motor Park at #83 Item Road, Aba, from where one can get a direct transport from Aba to Nkporo. As earlier stated, one can enter Nkporo through Item, Abiriba, Ohafia or Afikpo and Idda—Nkporo is a town with many routes.

Apparently, Nkporo has a vast fertile land for commercial agriculture. The land is good for planting yams, cassava, maize, melon, fluted pumpkins and vegetable. Beside these, the Ndi Agbor part of Nkporo has enough succulent ground for rice cultivations which is a second major occupation of the people in the area. Palm trees also thrive in every part of the town. In addition to the palm trees that scatter all over the places, there is Nkporo Palm Plantation at Osso. A third major occupation of the people of Nkporo is palm oil processing. But they have a problem with this! They use the most primitive method of palm oil processing to extract the oil from its other components; and therefore needs government assistance in securing more modest equipment for palm oil processing to enable them provide enough red oil (cooking oil) for the nation.

However, going to the south-eastward i.e. part of Amurie, Etitiama and Elughu respectively is hilly and rocky. At Ugwu Agbala, Etitiama South, is a (white) sandy soil for building constructions. It covers a large space of land that it serves the whole region (Ohafia LGA) for building, from generation to generation. But coming northward the hill fluctuates until it reaches Ugwu Orji, Etitiama, from where it keeps a steady fall until it forms a plain at a place called Ezeaja where Etitiama built its secondary school Etitiama High School, former Etitiama Girls High school. The plain flows westward from Ezeaja-Etitama until it encroached into Amurie. This very area, Amurie has taken as its new development site. From the place they first situated when they first came into Nkporo, they are building towards this area. Also, this area of Etitiama towards the south-west of Amurie, very close to the boundary of Ohafia and Bende LGA through Amurie, is savannah in nature. Unlike the south-east of Nkporo even the Ezeaja-Etitiama east and south which are always a thick forest zone. And from Ezeaja that over looks Etitiama ancient home on a hill towards the north, the plain and savannah gently disappear and translate into an always-green and low-tree bush and finally into the hill Etitiama ancient city is sitting.

Etitiama is adjacent to Amurie at the western region or their houses back each other. It takes a nativity of the either to know the boundary. And from there Etitiama builds towards the east to meet Elughu and Obohia. But a hill and a river stopped Etitiama from making in roads into the above two, respectively.

Meanwhile, the hill Etitiama ancient city is locating on begins a gradual slope again after it has reached its crescendo at Ogwo Orji Square where the huge Iroko tree (Ogwo Orji) that is older or as old as the city, which the free, is the symbol and natural sign board of Etitiama—the tree greats you from after once you make an entry into any of the high lands especially the “Ugwu Orji” at Etitiama south or from its equivalent at Amurie. The falling of the hill from “Ogwo Orji Square” comes to a total fall at Etitiama Motor Park in Etitiama west and runs to the east through Ezeaja Road that takes one from Etitiama Park to Elughu Nkporo, about hundred poles away. This is also the border of Etitiama ancient city. Behind the road towards the south is the ancient city and from the road towards the north is the Etitiama satellite town. The Etitiama satellite town is a vast plain land and savannah in form, too, occupying the remaining part of Etitiama. It can be dubbed ‘Etitiama North’ though it ends up in the far west. From Etitiama Motor Park or Civic Center, it runs eastward to the river ‘Ironyi Ndi Orji.’ The river is named after the compound ‘Ndi Orji Imokwe’ or its road ‘Ndi Ndi new layout or Obohia Road, Etitiama’ the very and first road that begins Etitiama satellite town from Ezeaja Road, about five poles from the town’s Civic Centre. (This is the same road chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo, ‘the cake for generations’, parked into from Ndi Okerima compound in the ancient city of Etitiama.)

However, from the point it made contact with the river, it left the river immediately and went upwards from east to north, yet keeping a boundary with Obofia, it maintaines its north-east flow until it made another contact with Nkporo Central (GRA) or Nkporo Secretariat in the north east. Moreover, with the boundary it maintaines with Nkporo Secretariat, it went westward through the north to touch Agbaja Nkporo in the north-west. And from Agbaja, it runs westward to meet Amurie Nkporo again in the south-west.

But this south-west area of Nkporo is forestry and s ome places prone to fire consumption. Agbaja equally lies on a plain. In fact the land of Nkporo is good for airport, stadium, industries, civic centers, high rise buildings and every other establishment that requires a plain land. The soil texture of Ndi Elu is more course than that of Ndi Agbor which is clayey and muddy—the area is swampy during rainy season. Right in Nkporo are four secondary schools, two at Ndi Elu, one at Elughu (Etitiward) and one at Nkporo Central. Almost all the communities have primary school each.

Religion
Two prominent religions practiced in the town are Christianity which is in the majority, about 95%, and ‘Egbele,’ a traditional religion which is even withering away from the community: only about 5% of the people are faithful to it. The ruling churches in the town are Presbyterian Church, Assemblies of God Church, the Apostolic Church, and Roman Catholic. Many others like Mountain Of Fire, Deeper Life, etc are fighting to have root.

Nkporo is a serene place! The people are very industrious and capitalist in character. The desire for higher education and wealth, make them to leave their community to the cities all over the country and some to Over Seas. To develop their communities is their highest goal that is why once they make money they come back home to invest it. They invest their wealth both under individual, age grade and community levels. They are sociable and always go in groups both at home and in any town they may find themselves. Anyone makes it a point of duty to come home at least all the festive periods in the year. Easter, August ending (time for the community’s New Yam Festival), and Xmas are always the most grooving seasons in the community. People associate, eat and drink freely in this community without fear of the evil one. It is not that an evil man could not be traced among the people since a bad egg is always found among the good ones, but it could be one out of every one thousand. Civilization has chased them into oblivion in the community. And any that exists does so at his detriment. In fact, he is a bad person only because the public might not have identified him.

There is peace, order and security in the land enforced by the Nigeria Police Force whose station is sitting at Etitiama. The police are very accessible. In addition to the security situation, there is also Community vigilante Group.

Beside the Police is the Nigerian Civil Service Defense Corps (NCDSC) whose office is also at Etitiama.

Nkporo is very hospitable and plays host to some outsiders some people from Enugu/Anambra, Ebonyi and Ohafia live and do their business in Nkporo. Some sell building materials while some fix themselves in any other vocations of their choice like teaching, rice cultivation etc. Many more work in the Local Government. There is no house problem in the community and house rent is equally heart warming. The people give a warm welcome to any person that wants to live with them in as much as the person is not a dissident. And their land is open for sale to any interested buyer who is out for development, and once the person could follow the communities building plan.

Nkporo, in the nearest future is a tourist zone and centre of commerce. It has Calabar and Akwa Ibom on the neighborhood through Ohafia beside Ebonyi State. Hence, there are many outlets from Nkporo to other states. There are many lock-up stalls in all the markets in Nkporo. As a result, whatever that is not produced in the community is a good market in Nkporo. Because of this many are in the village buying and selling; However, though many of the people from the community are in the towns, yet, those that have travelled out are seriously warming up to come back, live and do their business in the community having discovered the hidden treasure in their locality. They received the greatest challenge from their people who have lived many years in the cities even in Lagos and yet without any achievement but came back home and started doing well— many of them have built houses while in the village.

Nevertheless, Nkporo community needs the support of the three levels of governments who have a hand in the community to make its dreams a reality, and therefore call on them and philanthropists and NGO’s together with foreign bodies to come and put hands together to build this new Nigerian nation in the East.

Obviously, making contact with friends and relatives and business associates in any part of the world from Nkporo and through GSM is quite accessible with any network. And for improvement, Celtel has seen a vision of the upcoming Nkporo City came and mounted its mast at Etitiama. Hence, the network is leading in the town among others. The onus is now upon other communication networks to come and upgrade their network services in the area too, just like Celtel.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

Tips On FOREX

Since you are now close to international deals or eye it dangerously, let me expose you the more on the intricacies of it (how it works, and what determines it). But before that, rest assured, that Foreign Exchange market, also known as Forex or FX is one of the most leading markets in the world today. Analysis proved that about 2-3 trillion dollars change hand in FX market everyday. In case you doubt it, ask London Stock Exchange (LSE), New York and Tokyo, the largest FX market in the world. Note that you can trade on foreign exchange anywhere in the world even through the world-wide-web commonly known as Internet.

Market for foreign exchange

Now, FX markets are the markets in which one currency can be traded for another. In FX market, it is one country's currency that is exchanged for another's. The currency of a country is acceptable within the bounds of that country, but usually it will not be accepted by people and firms in another country. When it involves international transaction, any country needs exchange its domestic currency with the foreign's to pay for goods and services in abroad and she will accept the foreign currency for the payment of goods and services she supplied if she knows she can change the foreign or that the foreign is profitable for her. International payments involve the exchange of currencies between people who have one currency and require another The exchange of one currency for another is a foreign exchange transaction.

Foreign Exchange

The term 'foreign exchange' refers to actual or various claims on it, such as bank deposits or promises to pay that are traded for each other. Moreover, dollar is ta ken to be FX.

Foreign Exchange Rate

The ' foreign exchange rate' is the value of the domestic currency in terms of foreign currency; it is the amount of currency that can be obtained with one unit of the domestic currency. To illustrate, if 1 pound or $1 will buy #246.3509 or #124.05 respectively, the naira-pound/USD exchange rate is #246.3509 or #124.05 respectively.

Currency Quotation

Currency quotation is a way of expressing currencies and their spot value i.e. current price in the market To be continue…

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

GRAB IT NOW!

h how wonderful it is to maximize your potentialities and the children’s! Never allow, especially, the children to loiter about or waste their times in frivolities? Yes, there is no crime spending time in recreation centers, swimming pools, game world, night parties or club houses, etc. All these things are encouraging after “something” might have been done.

My friend, Katharine Graham revealed this concerning the early life of her father Mr. Eugene Meyer an American business mogul and owner of the Washington Post, “He knew very few people – he was a lonely Jewish boy from the West—so he studied all the time and took extra credits, with an occasional break for workout in the gym, no doubt to compensate for the lack of social life and because he was driven to excel.” Also, Abraham Lincoln was born in Kentucky, USA on February 12, 1809. He (Young Abraham) grew to love learning. He developed himself by reading privately until he became a lawyer in 1836—he taught himself law. And he later became the sixteenth president of USA in 1860.

No doubt about it, no skilful, influential, and ever triumphant lawyer; maverick, pertinacious and anabolic politician; adventurous and inventive scientist; a renowned and innovative accountant or bank manager; popular, glamorous and alluring artist to mention but a few, has ever emerged or become what he is by mere participating in ceremonial activities or observing parties except through giving himself to thorough studies.

However, many people have great appetite to read voraciously but are coerced to abort it and opted for a second choice only that there is no conducive environment for them to peruse, and where there is one, they could not have access to quality books or vice versa. Convincingly, this is the root of the nemesis bothering our educational system and the society at large. I mean it, the skyrocketing of illiteracy in the society and the high rate of examination mal-practices that are omni-present in the society today are traceable to this.

But there is still hope for our society to return to the spring board of their greatness in life i.e. to go back to active studies. MDi—the light of the world – is committed to enticing our generation to face again their studies squarely, so as to be able to challenge positively the challenges of this life and yet compete with the best and brightest of their generations who had toe the line of commitment to studies and bequeath us with enviable legacies. The grace is upon us sufficiently to help you to be self-empowered with the rudiments of life through books of or from men taken as authorities.

Our style of coming to the zenith of this high goal is very simple! We achieve it through establishing library right in your house. The size of your home is less considerable. If there is no space in your house, we create one. Where one already exists but lacks books, we furnish with books. Yet, where books are already in extant, we modernize and change the obsolete ones with the most current—we know giving fresh taste for reading and studying because for us it is the bases of life.

Yes, hotels are not exempted from our vision. Beside the Internet system, satellite network, swimming pools, and the gyms in your hotel, you still need a library to thrive. Great minds are best entertained with inspiring and wisdom-laden books! At times, one may not comb a whole book a day, and could hardly see it elsewhere, an incident that could compel him to call again, at least. We can add this aura to your hotel if you give us a signal.

Moreover, because we are licensed and determined to illuminate our generation, we extend our services to schools, communities, towns, cities and wherever our services are highly needed. Rest assured the best gift you can give to yourself, family, community or nation as an individual, group or government is education or avenue for it. Let me reiterate, MDi has resolved to encourage you to start it. And great accolades await you from the people you may put this “library” in place for, just try us.

We are General Contractors and Consultants.

MDi (MICHAEL DANIELS INTERNATIONAL—The Light of the World),

4: Library Establishment & Maintenances; Registration of business names; Media & International Relations; Publications etc
www.michaeldanielsinternational.wetpaint.com

K.K' File

schoolboyNG — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 04:18:15 CDT

And they Hacked Him Down
By: Michael Daniels

What did they hack down? I asked in confusion.
Should it be a log of wood meant for fuel?
but it was not that.
Should it be an iroko tree in the thick forest along Ugwuagbala,
meant for timber?
yet it was not.
Should it be a rock at Ugwuagbala, meant for construction?
Absolutely, no !

But what did they hack down?
(Base on my knowledge of English that higher animals are ascribed with human qualities,
I imagined further:)
Is it a bull they hacked down for meat?
Is it a donkey they hacked down for being weary to bear the burden?
Is it a horse they hacked down for not performing?
Or is it a lion they hacked down for being too devouring?
Yet none of these carried the 'yes' answer.

What then did they hack down?
Is it a mad man in the street? No!
Is it a common criminal in town? No!
Is it a notorious murderer? No!
Is it a dissident?Not at all.
But they hacked him down!

Who actually did they hack down?
That penultimate Saturday morning,
my phone rang.
"Hello,"I answered.
"Happy new year Iwola," I added
(though it was a day before the beginning of the second-half of the
year, but because we had not seen each other since the year).
Everyone burst into laughter.
But the laughter could not last on his side
while mine would soon be changed into sorrow because of the news
I were not interested to hear. "That's by the way: have you been
hearing from K.K?" he asked.
"Yes! It was on ... I called him while he was in hospital...,"
I tried to put in.
"Well, K.K is dead, " he interrupted me.
"What do you mean?" I shouted at him.
"I will get in touch with you later, "he switched off the phone and left me
exhausted and motionless;
He switched off the phone and left me confused;
He switched off the phone and left me wounded.
"Which K.K is dead? I communed nervously within
myself.
With my own phone, I called and expected him to renege his previous attack
on me, 'the revelation', and to tell me it was a slippery of the tongue,
yet he upheld his word.

Three times, the same period,
I called him to hear "I was joking, I beg your pardon."
Yet he was very adamant,
he could not compromise himself to tell me something different and better
except that
"Already it has happened--there is nothing else to do."
And they hacked him down.

Do you want me to accept that,
it was my childhood companion they hacked down?
The very one with whom we were pursuing the future together?
He is as gentle as dove,
... as sapient as serpent,
... as industrious as ants,
...and as charming as the eagle!
It is quit incredible that they hacked him down!

Please tell me something else.
Who did you say they hacked down?
A graduate of the University of Benin.
Who did you say they hacked down?
An element of chemical engineering,
one of its kind in the land of his birth and origin;
even few months after his Youth Service to his nation,
and at the time he was to take up a paid job from the
company he applied.
Who did you say they hacked down?
A beam of hope to his generation;
A promising young star;
A symbol of positive change, and to some extent, the end of sorrow;
A nationalist, an elder statesman... and a representative.
And they hacked him down.

The whole story was to me as folk tale told by moonlight;
or a fabrication by the Nollywood star--
even when I went for condolence visit and or was being consoled.

However, that ugly day,
the very day we were carrying in a casket, out of the morgue,
the remains of my friend who came to town by himself, it dawned on me
they have hacked him down.
"What are these fleet of buses waiting for?
To queue behind the ambulance conveying my honourable friend home?
Is it?" I asked simultaneously.
My heart was embittered and beat repeatedly.
Oh they have hacked him down.

More so, when I stood at the ENYA center,
an acronym for Etitiama Nkporo Youth Association,
heard my friend being introduced as 'Late' ;
saw the train of able youth, friends, and relatives in black attires all
through, mourning and traipsing the long way heading to the Eze Okwe
Palace to alert him of the fallen iroko,
it was becoming clear to me that--of a truth,
they have hacked him down.
Hence, behold the tears dripping from my eyes.
No, I could not hold it back.
As a result, it rushed out helplessly.

And right in the Ogbudibia's sitting room,
the casket was laid on a catafalque, and opened.
Also to my greatest surprise and displeasure,
people were wooed to come and see him for the last time if they wished.
"You must be funny," I mumbled.
"You mean I should come and see for the last time who I ought to be seeing always,"
I asked rhetorically.
Consequently, people quickly formed a procession and marched round the catafalque,
staring at my friend, throwing a fit, frowning face and shedding tears.

My friend who used to perform, lain in state facing towards heaven,
seeing all that were around but no one--even when I came he did not notice my presence
(it was here I really knew that something had gone wrong);
hearing everything but nothing people were saying about him,
except what his Creator was saying concerning his brief journey on earth.
At the same time, he was delivering his final lecture to mankind:
telling them that, "One day, you will become as I."
But the fools did not understand him.

The worst of it all, even before I could be loathsome with seeing him for the last time,
they took him to the garden and lowered him to the mud,
as deep as six feet below the ground level.
Surely, they have hacked him down.

Mercilessly, they started throwing sand and pebbles at him--
his most closet were even those that started it;
they could not rest until the last drop of sand dug out was hipped on him--
completely, he was separated from me.
And they hacked him down.

With great pain, I watched the land of Nkporo via Etitiama ate its dinner very early in the morning.
What it ought to preserve, it devoured voraciously even before time.
But it is not to blame, but those who aided the situation;
The land is not to blame but the brutes that live in it;
The land is not to blame but the fools who does not know the value of life,
nor what it costs God to form a soul--
they are foolish because they don't know the repercussion of blood shed.
And they hacked him down.

Lonely, I dragged myself home with grieve, wondering why it should be him instead of that thing I do not know
or which has nothing good to offer.
Yet the nostalgia of the days we rocked many things together constantly stand before me as a statute.
And his memories and philosophies always live before me though they hacked him down.
Fare well Kalu Obasi Ogbudibia
(Kelly Jar).

Regioal Issues

schoolboyNG — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:18:56 CDT

Gov. Fashola and Hotel Bobby: Fire on the Mountain By: Michael Daniels M.K Okoronkwo

Some times ago, my attention was drawn to Hotel Bobby by the Sunday Sun newspaper through a story of a family it headed: "The Benson Brothers". The story was a type of tragedy! At the conclusion of the story, I was set ablaze by the (unwholesome) action of Lagos state Governor Babatude Fashola. I was startled to hear (for no cogent reason, except that miscreant boys were using the structure as a hideout) that the three storeys building with more than 50 rooms were demolished—the site is now rubble. The worst part of it is that the Benson Brothers were said to have been at the verge of renovating the hotel at the period the hotel was being leveled down. In my own opinion, if it is not because of the hard economic situation of Nigeria or how the country’s economy has crippled the masses, the Benson Brothers might have completed the renovation before Governor Facula’s bulldozer could do its worst against the building.

Now let’s take a more critical look into the action of the Governor or the danger it imposes upon the people. What was Fashola’s real intention for embarking on the very action, beside checkmating miscreant boys from using the building as a rendezvous? The flattening of the building, was it (not) part of his bid to compulsorily acquire any land in sight in the state for his government? But if this was his ambition, he would have done the proper consultation and made the statutory compensation if he gets the consent of the people, instead of to adopt this ‘commodore’ pattern in this democratic era, violating people’s right of freedom of possession of immovable property in any part of the country, and which shall not be compulsorily taken from them except at certain conditions provided by the law—yet none of conditions is visible in the very incidence.

However, if the Governor insists that the building due to its state is inimical to life, why not agree with the family and renovate the house and instead lease it out, collect the rents until his outgoings for the renovation is recovered, and then hand it back over to the family. I think this would serve as part of the poverty alleviation programme which even his government is canvassing!

Okay, if Fashola does not have any ulterior motive concerning the piece of land, why is that the very house was the only structure that was razed down? Does it mean it was the only uninhabited building in Lagos this so called ‘miscreant boys’ were using as a refuge? Why were others spared? Moreover, if the breaking down of uninhabited building is the best way of controlling vagabonds or getting them out of the city, that means buildings should go down including many dilapidated structures in both our primary and secondary schools. Also such a building like former Enyimba Hotel, a six-storey, and one of the tallest buildings in the city at Ogbor Hill Aba, Abia State which I learned was sold out in the 80’s or late 70’s by the then state government and which has been abandoned by the buyer without renovating it till moment and which many socially and economically deprived people "miscreant folk" have converted into their resting place, should expect its own demolition by its host government. And because war against miscreant boys ought to be a national phenomenon, River State Government at the same time should be warming up to pull down an uncompleted and a long time abandoned 5-storey building at Water Lines, opposite Olu Obasanjo Road Port Harcourt which many less privileged people or Street Traders always take as a shade; and which the police always parade to round up bad boys. Yes, each State should gird itself very well to demolish whatever structure within its area which the owner could not have completed till now, to deny the lazy bones a hideout.

Now, back in Lagos, the Lagos state governor should have, beside, dismantling the Bobby Hotel, move further to destroy all the Overhead Bridges in Lagos under which the miscreant boys might also have been gathering. To be destroyed among others is Obalende Burial Ground which has recently turned to a home for the living or which the latter are sharing with the dead, according to report by FRCN. (The thing is that, the destitute in Lagos are sleeping in the burial ground at night.) Doing this will prove how serious Fashola is in fighting miscreant boys through destroying non-functional houses—Bobby Hotel being destroyed alone could not send miscreant boys packing from Lagos.

In fact, even if all the uninhabited-open buildings in Lagos are broken down, miscreant boys should still be found in Lagos until the correct measure is taken by the Governor. When I came to the point in the story that Governor Fashola demolished the hotel to punish the miscreant boys, a message a pastor once preached revealing how he treats witches automatically flashed back in my mind. The pastor, knowing that witches are used by the spirit of witches and that the spirit cannot die, concluded not to pray for witches to die. His judgment was that if he prays for a witch to die, and the witch dies, it is only the human being that is being possessed by the spirit of witches that will die not the spirit itself that causes the (main) havoc; and that the spirit of the witch would leave the dead man and enter into another man and yet continues its lethal action. Instead, the pastor chooses praying a prayer of salvation to the witches. Base on this, I want Governor B. Fashola to pick a lesson from this: he could not record any success by destroying citizens’ right acquired property like the Bobby Hotel in the aegis of combating lazy bones. He might end up breaking every such structure and yet without bringing any miscreant boys to order, but piques himself against the subjects (if ever he is determined to bring them to book). By the way, by removing Hotel Bobby, which miscreant boy has left Lagos?

Indeed, Babatunde Fashola owes the Benson Brothers explanation on why he did what he did and hence, should be ready to rebuild the very building he had demolished as damages for his trespasses against the Benson Brothers. I’m solidly behind the Benson Brothers in their legal suit against the Governor and pray to the court of law, the last hope of the poor masses to handle the matter holistically to avert the citizens of any further illegality by the highly placed against the proletariat. By the action of the Governor against the Benson Brothers, I can see an enormous fire on the mountain set by Babatunde Fashola. And except the law court quenches it, Nigerians are consumed.

public opinion

schoolboyNG — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 19:49:09 CDT

Michael Daniels M. K. Okoronkwo
Etitiama Nkporo
Ohafia L G A
Abia State
Nigeria
West Africa.
Phone Number: +2348050743871
E- Mail: michaeldanielsjournal@yahoo.com

Do you have an Idea of what should be done to build a better nation or what the government should do to be a government for the masses, drop it here or contact us through ther abov address.

Economy

schoolboyNG — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 02:02:29 CDT

THE GOVERNMENT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT: NKPORO IN PERSPECTIVE
By: Michael Daniels

Upon every effort the Federal Government is making to hook the interior parts of the country to the central government or make them feel belong by taking the government to the rural places, which brought about the stratification of government up to the LGA level, yet, the rural areas are seeming to be farther separated from the government of today. Instead of the gap between the government and the rural areas to be disintegrating (more and more), it is widening rather; the dividends of democracy are minimally given to the rural places. This bubbles out many questions for the government, and its officials to answer.

What has become the works of the government? What is the essence of establishing the various levels of governments? All the yearly budgets of the government what are they meant for? Where are they being spent in? Furthermore, are the rural areas not a party to the budget? If the answer to the last question is in the negative, why is it that each government comes and goes while the rural areas do not notice it despite that the rural areas and their inhabitants remained the people that voted them into power or that it is the ground on which the politicians rigged themselves into power (should they argue no one voted for them) respectively. It is a good saying that, “Thou shall not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treaded out the corn…that he that plowed should plow in hope; and that he that threshed in hope should be partaker of his hope (1Cor. 9:9-10). This is the standard God has set from the foundation of the world “… and, the labourer is worthy of his reward ….” (1Tim. 5: 18).

And people, when voting in any election always have this in mind that the person they are voting for will use his office to lift the ugly state of their community and transform their standard of living. Unfortunately for them, the politicians once elected disassociate themselves from the electorates and would at most compensate their faithful cronies with dinner party and weekend refreshment, and yet leave the communities they stood on and carried out their campaigns unattended. Some go to the level of diverting the fund given to them to develop the rural areas into their private purse. What an absurdity!

Rural development should be the highest goal of any government to curb the surging migration to the urban places from the former.

What I saw in my resent visit to one of the communities in South-East is the intumescences of this episode. At the Motor Park of this community in Abia North was a woman with five children who are within the age of 9-2yrs; and their luggage, who was stranded on how to get the next vehicles to continue their journey which they started at Item, a neighbouring village in Bende LGA of the State. The women accosted and asked me if she could get a vehicle there to Afikpo in Ebonyi State, to go to Akwa-Ibom, her real destination.

Being not sure, I directed her to some men nearby who I perceived were working in the Motor Park. As she inquired from them they told her there was none because of the bad state of the road i.e. that the road is not motor able unless she would go by bike (Okada). Moreover, to get the bike, out of tens of bikes parking there, who could sail the rough, road was talk of war. The two Okada men that agreed at last to carry them to Osso-Nkporo Junction of the road where Ebonyi and Abia State through Nkporo have common boundary charged her N800.00. The fare would have been N300.00 for all of them by car if the road is motor able. However, I was confounded as I began to ponder over this! Does it mean Abia state road stops at Nkporo or that Nkporo is a terminus city? More clearly, should it be that one at Nkporo is cut off from the world at Ebonyi State, and beyond or that one in Abia State have no access to Ebonyi State through Nkporo, the closest and easiest route for the people of Ebonyi in Abia State and Nigeria at large if the road is useable unlike the Enugu State road the Ebonyians are currently taking? This is incredible! That a community or State in Nigeria is not connected to its immediate neighbouring state is quite unbelievable!

Poor road networks entail many things: economic jeopardy; impediment on freedom of movement and association; community development hazard etc. And these very things are visible in this very community in question (I believe it is also traceable in any other community that is faced with this same problem). Interestingly, the day I was in this community was their market day, (Ahia Eke) “Eke Market” in particular. I then took the same opportunity to visit the market at Etitiama Autonomous Community of Nkporo, a stone-throw from the Motor Park, and I discovered that 30 cups of gari which was rampant in the market is N200.00 i.e. roughly N6.00 per cup as against N20.00 it is in some towns—yet they have a better cup for the measurement. Another thing was that the gari was going begging in the market because there were no buyers except people from the community. The same is the fate of other commodities like yam, fruit and other farm produce. I conclude had it been there are good roads linking the area to the surrounding communities, towns, councils and States, people would have been coming from the cities to the villages to buy those items and take them to the towns. Or that the villagers would hand been taking those commodities to the towns where they could sell them better and get more reward for their labour. And much food would have been in the towns for the teaming masses. But even when they think of this, the expenses they might undergo due to the bad road could scare them away. And when the village produces food more than they can consume, and would not dispose the excess to the towns, the food, no doubt, would be a waste—and a waste of the economy.

Nevertheless, just opposite the Etitiama Ultra Modern Daily Market as its sign board reads depicting the vision they have for the look-up stalls market (in the nearest future) was a Etitiama Community Primary School. Inside the Primary School that was established in 1957 by the community and which (the school) has graduated many elites of the community who are currently in many walks of life, were feeble structures, Out of seven blocks in the school compound, five were built by the community “and each has three classrooms per block” while two of the blocks with two partitions each were built by the government. Again out of the seven blocks, only three (one government and two community built blocks) are sound while another two of the community built structures have dangerous cracks on the wall that run it vertically making the classroom risky to be stayed in for classes by the pupil because of its near-to-collapse state. Yet, the last two (one government and one community built block) are thoroughly damaged. Though they are still on their foundations, their roofs are dilapidated and the surrounding areas over grown by grass. In fact, they have become abandoned property and constituted to what give the school an unpleasant and a sordid look. Looking at the state of the school one would wonder, should this be the school that has equipped some of the politicians, academicians, capitalist etc in the community and in different levels of government and some other professions? Has the government of Ohafia LGA or any person that has access to it ever seen the state of this school structures? If yes the state of the school might have been uplifted unless the person or the government has no conscience. It is encouraging to state here that either UBE or its like had renovated two blocks in this same school, but the very ones in question are still rubbles.

The present condition of the school structures calls for justice, if the school could speak, it would have been beckoning on those who had been empowered in it as they are driving across it daily in their jeeps and living in fine mansions, to consider their actions, and even on the government whose purse is being enriched by its fruits. Anyway, by what I sew on the fence of the primary school, it (the fence) was built by different sets of elementary six pupils who were passing out of the school in their final year. Think about it! Elementary six Pupils are building school fence in a village school. Where do they get the money from? It is an extra levy on the parents that are struggling to make two ends meet. I can see the free education the government has declared is not truly free. They parents are paying for it in the other way round, and even more. If the parents were not the source of the funds, the children might have been forced to go for, manual labour to get the money. And if it is so, what a child abuse! And I hope no government official had been coming for the commissioning of such a project when it is completed. If anyone has been coming for it, it is shamelessness on his part. I pray the government should wake up and look into this. Meanwhile, I am of the opinion that the government should come up and rebuild our schools both primary and secondary schools to make education more interesting, comfortable and enjoyable to our wards and children—the physical appearance of our learning institutions needs to be very attractive to the eyes, first.

Dilapidated Community & Government built structure in Etitiama Primary School Pix By: Anya De Nyasca

However, the community being very ambitious, industrious and zealous to provide for itself what the government has denied from it succeeded in installing electricity in the community which was commissioned in 1990 by Cdr. Amadi Ikwechehor, former Sole Administrator of Imo State where the community belong to then—a notice board on the electric transformer of this community revealed this. The dirty side of this good news is that due to the unsteady nature of the electric light most of the times, or the total failure of the NEPA to give light for good number of days, thieves usurped the chance, sneaked in and made away with the electric cables at the out skirt of the community up to a long distance the community has not been able to reinstall for some years now. Now, this has left on the people a double jeopardy or has piled up its woes: no road networks to travel freely to see what is going on in the country or for other people even vendors to come to them; no electric light to power on their radio or television to hear news or have access to the Internet—the people in the rural areas could not boldly point out what the Federal Government’s policies are . They are just like a besieged city. They are left in dark! When shall this end? These people as I can see have their final hope now on the government to rescue them. In fact by their precedent so far, they deserve government’s attention. Every tangible project there, both completed and on-going ones are community financed projects particularly by its different age grades. In addition to the above mentioned projects built by some age grades, their standard Motor Park; a two -storey conference hall, etc were also built by an age grade, each. Among the basic amenities provided to the community through its age grade is a hospital block though it is not functioning. And right at the hospital site, a philanthropist in the person of Chief MAO from Ohafia came and built for it (the community) a giant hospital compared with what the Chinedu Age Grade had erected. This character is worthy of emulation! And the community, lacking what is enough to show appreciation to Chief MAO, appeal to God to reward him accordingly, and at the same time call on other Nigerians who have concern for rural development to imitate him. The new on going block for the hospital contains 15 partitions beside 2 extra large rooms and a large central hall. It is roofed with aluminum roof. The windows are sliding glass windows all through. a

Hospital built at the Chinedu Age Grade Hospital site by a philanthropist Chief MAO Pix By: Anya De Nyasca

Also in sight at the Etitiama Community was a Community bank one of its sons Chief Ude Egwu Nkele (Mosco), now late, was building for it. The bank had already approached completion. The building had been raised, fenced and painted. It was left at furnishing. Also, if any of the financial institutions in the country could come and take over the bank and operate it, the community would equally be happy. A functional bank in the community will relief the people the burden of carrying money around or travelling out to bank in the town or else where. Another interesting site to behold in this community is a recreation center built by the youth of the community under the aegis of Etitiama Nkporo Youth Association (ENYA). This is situated at the strategic area of the community. The Youth in addition bought a commuter bus for its Council of Chiefs i.e. to Etitiama Council of Chiefs However, the major project according to them, that is commenced by the government from the late 70s or early 80s which is still going on and has not assumed any shape till now is a pipe-borne water project. The Nkporo community, especially its Ndi Elu ward that lied south-west of the community is faced with serious problem as long as water is concern. The only stream in the region which serves the entire Nkporo community find its way out of Nkporo town through the north-west as it runs, from east to the northern side of Nkporo serving only the Etiti ward and Ndi Agbor ward of Nkporo—these people can just take a cup and open the backyard door to fetch water from the River to a visitor if the person requests for water. Notwithstanding, the whole Nkporo town needs a good drinkable water. But it takes those at Ndi Elu more than one and half hour to go and fetch water from a place the river made a pass near their area. As an alternative, some of the people at Ndi Elu who are too separated from the river move a bit westward and southward to a spring where they use cup to fill their cans from a pothole spring, to fetch water.

Okpo Nkuma Spring at Etitiama West, a second major sources of drinking water beside the River, to the people of Etitiama Pix By: Anya De Nyasca

However, the water problem at Ndi Elu attracted the sitting of the water tank in their vicinity. Hence, this raised the taste of the people that soon they would be relieved from this monstrosity, water scarcity and contaminated water, (where any is available). But all to no avail, the whole thing fell like pack of cards. The project did not go beyond the establishment of the water plant right at the riverside at Obofia though they complained the water-pumping machine was incapable of pushing water from the plant to the water reservoir at Mission Hill, Etitiama, Ndi Elu, many miles away. And this marked the end of the project. Later, in the 90s, the government came back and carried away the water-pumping machine with a promise to exchange it with a bigger one that could do the job. Till now, it (the government) is yet to come back with the bigger machine. Thus an attempt in 2003 during Chief Orji Uzor Kalu’s administration to continue the water project was so huge that they succeeded in finishing all but a second water reservoir with no water pipe connecting it to the plant, and abandoned it again. The second water tank was close to Etitiama Satellite Town unlike the first that is at the community’s ancient city. When they (the workers) returned after a long period of abandoning the water project to carry their remaining equipment to make their final exit, the Youth was irritated and resisted them and ceased the equipment (a power generating plant (leister) with which they were welding the tank) from them.

The second water reservoir

Now, it is the turn of Chief T. A. Orji, the current Abia State Governor to register his presence in the water project. Immediately he took the throne, as if he wanted to use the water to say “Thank you people of Nkporo for voting me into power,” fresh work started on the water project. Now, it was the laying of the water pipes from the reservoir to the plant. Good a thing, they replaced the 1980 ceramic pipes with a plastic one. And at the early stage, work was going on seriously but now the workers are no more in sight while the laying of the pipes is not yet a success. (I was able to trace the pipe line to at least, the waterside where it is running to meet the plant, there are still some dislocations) Hence, speculations are high among the people if the project has seen its usual moribund; if the contractor has entered into the thin air following his predecessors’ pattern who started it, or if the government has played its normal politics, and yet whether the water project has been left again to wait for the next government. Besides, the people never wish any of the above imaginations to be the fate of the project they constantly yearn to see as fait accompli: rather, they pray to the government of chief T. A. Orji who has worn the shoes and understood where it pinches them most and thrusts himself forward to give them a relief, to continue the good work he had begun and also accomplish it. In fact the people have profound gratitude for him if he could give them water in no distant time. Nevertheless, Etitiama Autonomous community, the seat of development in Nkporo and the assumed capital city of the entire Nkporo community has a profound joy and great thanks for her son, a councilor Hon. Obasi Iro and to the government over a health clinic center it inherited from the government through the office of the Councilor. The Clinic centre was built at the town square of the Etitiama Community i.e. in the ancient city.

The Landscape of Nkporo/ Demography

However, Nkporo is a town with eight communities. It is delineated into three wards as already mentioned above. Two communities, Amurie and Etkitiama are at Ndi Elu Ward; while three wards namely, Elughu, Obofia and Ndi Nko are at Etiti Ward; besides, the next three, Agbaja, Okwoko and Ukwa are at Ndi Agbor Ward. Etitiama happens to be at the center of Nkporo. It (Nkporo) is bounded by Item in the south-west, Abiriba in the south and Ohafia in the south-east. At its eastern and northern boundaries are Idda and Afikpo in Ebonyi State. From Item in Bende LGA to Etitiama Motor Park through Amurie Nkporo is a state government road and it is N150.00 by bike. And from Abiriba (junction) through Etitiama is N150.00 to the Etitiama Park. The road passes through Ndi Agbor Nkporo and runs down to Afikop in Ebonyi State; meanwhile, it is a federal road. Again, from Ohafia or Oroni junction (a junction that joins Ohafia, Ida and Nkporo) through Elughu Nkporo, to Etitiama Motor Park is LGA’s road. It is also N150.00 by bike. From Elughu, one can also make a touch to the federal road at Ndi Nko junction through Obofia before he starts going to Ndi Agbor from where he will burst to Afikpo, Ebonyi State. Out of the roads that link up Nkporo, only the State Government and LGA roads are usable, currently. The former is tarred while the latter is graded. But the major and longer road (more than 40 miles) which is the federal’s that holds the economy and development of Nkporo is badly spoilt and cries for justice. Nkporo has a branch of its Motor Park at #83 Item Road, Aba, from where one can get a direct transport from Aba to Nkporo. As earlier stated, one can enter Nkporo through Item, Abiriba, Ohafia or Afikpo and Idda—Nkporo is a town with many routes. Apparently, Nkporo has a vast fertile land for commercial agriculture. The land is good for planting yams, cassava, maize, melon, fluted pumpkins and vegetable. Beside these, the Ndi Agbor part of Nkporo has enough succulent ground for rice cultivations which is a second major occupation of the people in the area. Palm trees also thrive in every part of the town. In addition to the palm trees that scatter all over the places, there is Nkporo Palm Plantation at Osso. A third major occupation of the people of Nkporo is palm oil processing. But they have a problem with this! They use the most primitive method of palm oil processing to extract the oil from its other components; and therefore needs government assistance in securing more modest equipment for palm oil processing to enable them provide enough red oil (cooking oil) for the nation. However, going to the south-eastward i.e. part of Amurie, Etitiama and Elughu respectively is hilly and rocky. At Ugwu Agbala, Etitiama South, is a (white) sandy soil for building constructions. It covers a large space of land that it serves the whole region (Ohafia LGA) for building, from generation to generation. But coming northward the hill fluctuates until it reaches Ugwu Orji, Etitiama, from where it keeps a steady fall until it forms a plain at a place called Ezeaja where Etitiama built its secondary school Etitiama High School, former Etitiama Girls High school. The plain flows westward from Ezeaja-Etitama until it encroached into Amurie. This very area, Amurie has taken as its new development site. From the place they first situated when they first came into Nkporo, they are building towards this area. Also, this area of Etitiama towards the south-west of Amurie, very close to the boundary of Ohafia and Bende LGA through Amurie, is savannah in nature. Unlike the south-east of Nkporo even the Ezeaja-Etitiama east and south which are always a thick forest zone. And from Ezeaja that over looks Etitiama ancient home on a hill towards the north, the plain and savannah gently disappear and translate into an always-green and low-tree bush and finally into the hill Etitiama ancient city is sitting. Etitiama is adjacent to Amurie at the western region or their houses back each other. It takes a nativity of the either to know the boundary. And from there Etitiama builds towards the east to meet Elughu and Obohia. But a hill and a river stopped Etitiama from making in roads into the above two, respectively. Meanwhile, the hill Etitiama ancient city is locating on begins a gradual slope again after it has reached its crescendo at Ogwo Orji Square where the huge Iroko tree (Ogwo Orji) that is older or as old as the city, which the free, is the symbol and natural sign board of Etitiama—the tree greats you from after once you make an entry into any of the high lands especially the “Ugwu Orji” at Etitiama south or from its equivalent at Amurie. The falling of the hill from “Ogwo Orji Square” comes to a total fall at Etitiama Motor Park in Etitiama west and runs to the east through Ezeaja Road that takes one from Etitiama Park to Elughu Nkporo, about hundred poles away. This is also the border of Etitiama ancient city. Behind the road towards the south is the ancient city and from the road towards the north is the Etitiama satellite town. The Etitiama satellite town is a vast plain land and savannah in form, too, occupying the remaining part of Etitiama. It can be dubbed ‘Etitiama North’ though it ends up in the far west. From Etitiama Motor Park or Civic Center, it runs eastward to the river ‘Ironyi Ndi Orji.’ The river is named after the compound ‘Ndi Orji Imokwe’ or its road ‘Ndi Ndi new layout or Obohia Road, Etitiama’ the very and first road that begins Etitiama satellite town from Ezeaja Road, about five poles from the town’s Civic Centre. (This is the same road chief Marcus Kalu Okoronkwo, ‘the cake for generations’, parked into from Ndi Okerima compound in the ancient city of Etitiama.) However, from the point it made contact with the river, it left the river immediately and went upwards from east to north, yet keeping a boundary with Obofia, it maintaines its north-east flow until it made another contact with Nkporo Central (GRA) or Nkporo Secretariat in the north east. Moreover, with the boundary it maintaines with Nkporo Secretariat, it went westward through the north to touch Agbaja Nkporo in the north-west. And from Agbaja, it runs westward to meet Amurie Nkporo again in the south-west. But this south-west area of Nkporo is forestry and s ome places prone to fire consumption. Agbaja equally lies on a plain. In fact the land of Nkporo is good for airport, stadium, industries, civic centers, high rise buildings and every other establishment that requires a plain land. The soil texture of Ndi Elu is more course than that of Ndi Agbor which is clayey and muddy—the area is swampy during rainy season. Right in Nkporo are four secondary schools, two at Ndi Elu, one at Elughu (Etitiward) and one at Nkporo Central. Almost all the communities have primary school each.

Religion

Two prominent religions practiced in the town are Christianity which is in the majority, about 95%, and ‘Egbele,’ a traditional religion which is even withering away from the community: only about 5% of the people are faithful to it. The ruling churches in the town are Presbyterian Church, Assemblies of God Church, the Apostolic Church, and Roman Catholic. Many others like Mountain Of Fire, Deeper Life, etc are fighting to have root. Nkporo is a serene place! The people are very industrious and capitalist in character. The desire for higher education and wealth, make them to leave their community to the cities all over the country and some to Over Seas. To develop their communities is their highest goal that is why once they make money they come back home to invest it. They invest their wealth both under individual, age grade and community levels. They are sociable and always go in groups both at home and in any town they may find themselves. Anyone makes it a point of duty to come home at least all the festive periods in the year. Easter, August ending (time for the community’s New Yam Festival), and Xmas are always the most grooving seasons in the community. People associate, eat and drink freely in this community without fear of the evil one. It is not that an evil man could not be traced among the people since a bad egg is always found among the good ones, but it could be one out of every one thousand. Civilization has chased them into oblivion in the community. And any that exists does so at his detriment. In fact, he is a bad person only because the public might not have identified him. There is peace, order and security in the land enforced by the Nigeria Police Force whose station is sitting at Etitiama. The police are very accessible. In addition to the security situation, there is also Community vigilante Group. Beside the Police is the Nigerian Civil Service Defense Corps (NCDSC) whose office is also at Etitiama. Nkporo is very hospitable and plays host to some outsiders some people from Enugu/Anambra, Ebonyi and Ohafia live and do their business in Nkporo. Some sell building materials while some fix themselves in any other vocations of their choice like teaching, rice cultivation etc. Many more work in the Local Government. There is no house problem in the community and house rent is equally heart warming. The people give a warm welcome to any person that wants to live with them in as much as the person is not a dissident. And their land is open for sale to any interested buyer who is out for development, and once the person could follow the communities building plan. Nkporo, in the nearest future is a tourist zone and centre of commerce. It has Calabar and Akwa Ibom on the neighborhood through Ohafia beside Ebonyi State. Hence, there are many outlets from Nkporo to other states. There are many lock-up stalls in all the markets in Nkporo. As a result, whatever that is not produced in the community is a good market in Nkporo. Because of this many are in the village buying and selling; However, though many of the people from the community are in the towns, yet, those that have travelled out are seriously warming up to come back, live and do their business in the community having discovered the hidden treasure in their locality. They received the greatest challenge from their people who have lived many years in the cities even in Lagos and yet without any achievement but came back home and started doing well— many of them have built houses while in the village. Nevertheless, Nkporo community needs the support of the three levels of governments who have a hand in the community to make its dreams a reality, and therefore call on them and philanthropists and NGO’s together with foreign bodies to come and put hands together to build this new Nigerian nation in the East. Obviously, making contact with friends and relatives and business associates in any part of the world from Nkporo and through GSM is quite accessible with any network. And for improvement, Celtel has seen a vision of the upcoming Nkporo City came and mounted its mast at Etitiama. Hence, the network is leading in the town among others. The onus is now upon other communication networks to come and upgrade their network services in the area too, just like Celtel.

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corruption

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