He was an enigma. He was controversial and yet widely and wildly loved. He was misunderstood by many and accepted for who he was by even many more people. He was trusting and fiercely loyal to friends and acquaintances. He immersed himself in causes he believed in. That probably explained how he admirably managed to be at first a patriotic Nigerian, then a combatant in the defunct Biafran Army, and ended his journey this side of eternity as a Nigerian statesman.
No single label can effectively and fully explain the mystique and enigma that was embodied by Chief (Dr.) Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Iwuanyanwu, Ahaejiagamba of Ndigbo worldwide. The standard fare will be to write that he lived for 81 years from September 4, 1942 to July 25, 2024. And then proceed to list many of his accomplishments. No. Not for Chief Iwuanyanwu. Yes, he has transitted and changed form but he may yet prove incapable of dying in the classical sense of the earthly definition of that word because he was, without sounding profane, larger than life.
How do you really define a man whose temper took the form of a tsunami and whose kindness was so large and huge and expansive to envelope and fully cover up Mount Kilimanjaro without leaving any traces. Man does not usually come that way. But Chief Iwuanyanwu did. And he lived it to the hilt. Apart from his nuclear family, other persons who related closely with him over a sustained period of time will testify about his fiery and fierce temper, and sometimes unfathomable depth of his love for others. I am one such person. I saw his red eyes of anger and savoured the depth of his love and consideration.
I worked for Chief Iwuanyanwu in Champion Newspapers Limited in Lagos for 23 years and 26 days. For a young man at the time, this should come across as a lifetime. But I was not alone in this longevity of devotion to service and to a cause. Except for egregious things, many youngsters of my generation who had the privilege of being employed in Champion Newspapers, stayed for a considerable length of time. And there were many of us from across the length and breadth of Nigeria. There were even employees from the west and central African subregions of the continent.
There were reasons for the unusually low staff turnover in Champion. In 1988, when the newspaper commenced operations, the pay was good, arguably the highest in the industry at the time. The products – daily and Sunday editions – were vendors’ delight and favourites on the newsstands and markets across the country. The equipment and work tools were topnotch. But above all, it was a family. A starry-eyed southeasterner was the editor of the daily, while another young man from the Middle Belt was in charge of the Sunday offering.
At the top of the pile in Champion House, Ilasamaja, Lagos, was a thorough newspaper man. He recently marked his 90th birthday. He was not of the same stock as the founder. Virtually every position was filled with persons who had the competence, the temperament and the disposition to interpret the vision and to deliver on the mandate. In a way, many of us who were on the lower rungs of the ladder regarded the man at the top as a slave driver. His demand for perfection was beyond our understanding. For us, he was as extremist as they come. It took incarnations to realise that what we took as trouble was really ‘good trouble’ that helped to lay a solid foundation for our professional growth.
The irony was that the ‘trouble’ we experienced did not stampede any of us into leaving Champion. As I said earlier, the pay was good, indeed the best at the time, and the environment was seductive. But the most important factor was that Champion was family and a melting pot of the country and the subregion. Nobody walks away from the family. It took years and much learning to realise that Chief Iwuanyanwu was the reason for what Champion represented at that time. From inception, he purposed that the newspaper would be a microcosm or an approximation of the country. He championed workers’ welfare, living wage and a conducive environment for work. And he managed at the same time to allow those entrusted with the project the free hand to deliver.
If Chief Iwuanyanwu did not create the environment in Champion, many in my set would not have lasted for so long. For some, Champion House became an opium to which we were addicted. We did not have second thoughts in peremptorily rejecting offers of employment from industry rivals and even from transnational corporations. I happen to belong to this category. And I was fortunate to rise from the lowly position of a reporter to the highest post of managing director/editor-in-chief.
My journey through Champion was another testament and testimony to the large heart of Chief Iwuanyanwu. If I rose through the ranks to the topmost office an employee could attain in 2006, in spite of being sacked as the editor of Daily Champion six years earlier (though the company was gracious in saying it was a retirement), it was down to the Finger of God and the readiness of Chief Iwuanyanwu to trust the recommendations and judgments of his lieutenants. The expectation should be that, to be appointed to such a high and sensitive position, the appointer would have known the appointee much more. He did not know me that much. And that was one of the essential attributes of Chief Iwuanyanwu.
Until he retired a few years back, Chief Iwuanyanwu was a leading politician. And for some personages the ownership of a newspaper and activism in partisan politics do not play well. And that was a source of tension between me and my former chairman. I did learn later, but I did not learn quickly enough, how to manage the expectations of Chief Iwuanyanwu as a politician and my, in my opinion, dyed-in-the-wool professionalism as a journalist. Whenever such tensions happened, Chief Iwuanyanwu would say to my face that he didn’t know me when he agreed to create me as an editor-in-chief. He would express anger at my stubbornness. However, he was also always quick to add that he had no regrets for making me the head of the newspaper because of what he said was my capacity to tell him the truth even when he didn’t want to hear such.
The truth was that I had a secret weapon in my ‘daring’ of my former chairman. Unbeknown to many, I had a mother-son relationship with Chief Iwuanyanwu’s late wife, Lolo Eudora. She was a compassionate woman. She was accommodating. She could live and tolerate the exuberance of younger people. She was patient. Her capacity to listen was legendary. And her tendency to forgive was unrivalled. So, she became my human refuge and shield when tensions arose. And they did frequently, especially during election seasons. After I had gone behind the back of my former chairman to explain things to Lady Eudora, she would tell me to face my job and leave the rest to her. She did not fail me. Not for once. It was, therefore, no coincidence that her passage and the withdrawal of my services from a place that was home for more than two decades happened about the same time.
So, how do you say goodbye to a man who loved people without holding back? How could you forget a man who founded a company that allowed you to hone your skills and to find a significant measure of professional expression and fulfillment? How do you appreciate a man who consciously helped to give your people a voice in a contentious and sometimes stifling country? How do you express gratitude to a man who lived fully as a Nigerian and fully as a Biafran when the need arose? How do you love a man who took a bullet in a war to stop the genocide of his people? What love is greater than that of a man, an only son for that matter, who secretly enlisted in the Biafran Army to help save his people? I have not set out to do any such thing because he was human and had his failings. But who is perfect? Who’s that person without blemish? I have deliberately chosen to speak to, or write on, a minute part of his many engagements and accomplishments, and how our paths crossed, to mark what should have been Chief (Dr.) Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Iwuanyanwu’s 82nd birthday today, September 4, 2024. Happy birthday, beloved of God.
