Anambra Governor-elect Prof. Charles Soludo (left) and the outgoing governor, Mr Willie Obiano
The Anambra State government has condoled with the Gbulie family of Nimo in Njikoka Local Government Area and the Ogunsanya family of Ikorodu in Lagos State over the deaths of their two prominent members last week. This was contained in a release by C. Don Adinuba, the Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment.
According to a statement by the state, the government commiserated with the Gbulie family for the loss of Ben Gbulie, 82, a soldier and author who rose into national prominence for his role in the January 1966 coup, which ended Nigeria’s First Republic.
The commissioner also said that the government condoled with the Ogunsanya family over the death of Princess Adenrele Adeniran-Ogunsanya, 74, a former Secretary to the Lagos State Government whose father, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, was for decades the closest political associate and personal friend of Nigeria’s first President, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, a worthy son of Anambra State who led Nigeria to independence in 1960.
“Ben Gbulie and his group obviously meant well for Nigeria when they plotted and executed the coup”, said the commissioner, “but they were out of touch with the Nigerian reality which, in a way, is understandable because they were young men in their 20s driven by sheer patriotic exuberance. It is unfortunate that the coup was bloody, and so gave rise to all manner of interpretations and consequences which altered the country’s history for the worse”.
Adinuba noted that Gbulie took up arms to fight for his people when a war was imposed on them, leading at the end of hostilities in January 1970, to his long incarceration in different prisons in Nigeria. Even when he was in 1979 contesting for a seat in the Anambra State House of Assembly on the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) platform, he was disqualified for what was just referred to as “security reasons” without explanation, though it was obvious the disqualification had to do with his military record.
Still, Gbulie was not a bitter man, according to Adinuba, who recalled several efforts the former Nigerian army engineer made to get young Igbo people to eschew violence and embrace peace and dialogue in the resolution of national issues.
Having lost a war, the retired gallant army officer used to argue, it would be suicidal to embark on a campaign that would make the same people lose another war within a short period without fully exploring all options.
The commissioner also recalled the high intelligence which Gbulie displayed at Government College Umuahia, in today’s Abia State, and during his training in different military institutions in Nigeria, the United Kingdom and United States in the 1960s.
“It is a mark of his brilliance that his books like Nigeria’s Five Majors, which was published in the early 1980s, remain among the most quoted and cited works on the country’s recent history”, Adinuba observed.
In a letter to the Ogunsanya family, Adinuba commended the late Princess Aderenle Adeniran-Ogunsanya for being “principle-centred like her legendary father, Chief Adeniran Ogunsanya, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), who was at different times Commissioner for Education in Lagos State, a Minister of the Federal Republic in the First Republic of 1960 to 1966 and the NPP National Chairman in the Second Republic of 1979 to 1983.
‘Even when she was threatened with removal from office if she continued to support the reelection of her principal, Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State, in 2011, she stuck to her guns. Her stand is reminiscent of her father’s principled refusal to yield to strong pressures from ethnic politicians to abandon The Great Zik of Africa”.
The statement recalled that Chief Ogunsanya was abandoned in death by a lot of his kinsmen for insisting on remaining fiercely loyal to Nigeria’s greatest nationalist ever. “Consequently”, recalled Adinuba, “the Igbo practically took over his funeral, and Princess Aderenle Adeniran-Ogunsanaya was on hand to play the role of a wonderful hostess.
“It is heartwarming that despite certain steps to downplay Chief Ogunsanya’s role in national development, the people and government of Lagos State have memorialized him, as demonstrated by the naming of a major street in Surulere and a college of education in Ojo for him. History will always be kind to nationalists like Dr Azikiwe, Chief Ogunsanya and Princess Aderenle Adeniran –Ogunsanya”.
