*DR. JOE NNABUCHI NWODO THROUGH MY LENS*
_The Hon Nwabueze Ugwu (member-emeritus, Enugu State House of Assembly)_
It was a devastating thunderbolt whose direct and ripple effects had turned the lush greenery into a vast wasteland, manifesting a desertification - one that is in disagreement with the forces of nature. Rightly so, natural disasters are usually occasioned by climatic fluctuations. However, conventional torrents follow the due signals: in human life as in the vegetation and weather around us, some persons are so created and positioned to give essence to human conviviality and advancement; call them leaders if you will, this genre of persons, who are in the minority, dot the social environment. Their visions drive the community where they are located; to the eldorado or to the precipice of disintegration and extinction. As a matter of fact, their actions and antecedents situate them on the social spectrum, either as leaders or as villains, and it caterpaults them further, if not into the political space, then to the dungeons of history.
The foregoing captures vividly and in a positive light the life and times of Dr Joe Nwodo, the Agadagbachir'uzo of Ukehe, the Ochendo of the _hoi polloi_ , scion and patriarch of the royal Nwodo family of Ukehe, Igbo Etiti Local Government Area of Enugu State. He shares paternity with the former governor of old Enugu State who also became the National Chairman of People’s Democratic Party, PDP, from where he took a bow a decade ago, Dr Emmanuel Okwesilieze Nwodo; and the mercurial two time Minister of the Federal Republic, who just handed over as President-General of Ohan'eze Ndigbo, and now holds office as President-General of Southern Nigeria and the middle belt, Chief John Nnia Nwodo Jnr, as well as a sister technocrat, Mrs Grace Obayi. Ochendo, as indeed all his siblings, were real chips of the old block, initiated by their illustrious sire, HRH John Nwodo Snr, erstwhile Minister of the defunct Eastern Nigeria.
Dr. Joe Nwodo, the Agadagbachir’uzo of Ukehe, was a wordsmith, whose forthrightness and debt of Knowledge of the problems of the Nigerian state earned him the sobriquet, “Ochendo”. He was later to take it as a chieftaincy title. During the hey days of the self-styled military president of the country, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, he did introduce into our governmental lexicon, a political formula that goes thus: banning, un-banning and banning again. It became the lot of Dr. Joe Nwodo, but he had actually conquered the governorship stool of the old Enugu State. And like Prof Abidoye Babaola described the strength of the elephant in his poem, “Salute to the Elephant”, published in “A Selection of African Poetry”, edited by K.E Senanu, where the professor described the elephant as, “a _demon who snaps tree branches into many pieces and moves on to the forest farm_ ”, Dr Nwodo, after he had got the governorship firmly loaded into his jumper pocket, simply pulled off his jumper, put it on his younger brother, Dr. Okwesilieze Nwodo, and moved inches to the Presidential seat of Nigeria via Port Harcourt where he dissected the problems and solutions of our country, ostensibly for the Presidential party nomination through the same political vehicle as that of the governorship, the National Republican convention(NRC), one of the two political parties decreed into existence by the AFRC (Armed Forces Ruling Council), with Babangida in the cockpit. History records that Dr. Joe Nwodo, a grammarian, so much dwarfed his main contender that if the delegates owned their votes, they surely would have given it, _en masse,_ to him.
In the wake of the scramble for Africa, our colonial masters developed chloroquine which turned the continent of Africa from “ _the white man’s grave_ ” that it had become, to _“the_ _white man’s paradise”_ that it has remained. However, the cash crops that they came with, supposedly to “enrich” our dietary menu, also implanted in our soil, certain diseases that has no cure, one of which is Diabetes – a dreaded disease. As Dr. Joe Nwodo is soon to be gathered to his fathers, I simply say, juxtaposing the words of Mark Anthony in his funeral oration at the graveside of Caesar in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, _“I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him_ .”
Perhaps two phrases stand out in the description of Dr Joe Nwodo: “humility”, and “his deftness for converting every single occasion into speech making exercise”.
Welcome to the Whatsapp platform that warehouses the views of some personages in Nigeria who want to air their vista on the life and times of Dr. Joe Nnabuchi Nwodo. I salute you brethren. I welcome you.
Hon. Nwabueze Ugwu (Member-emeritus, Enugu State House of Assembly).
