While speaking in an explosive interview with News Express Nigeria, Emeka Ojukwu Jnr, a legal practitioner and son of the late Biafran warlord, Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu, alleged that Mrs Bianca Ojukwu killed his father.
Ojukwu Jnr also talked about his father’s death, how his name and image have been abused, the role of his widow, Bianca and Anambra state politics.
Here are excerpts from the interview;
Former Anambra State Governor Mr. Peter Obi saw your late father as his political mentor and APGA (All Progressives Grand Alliance), as a political party, made Ikemba the leader. In the 2010 Governorship election, your late father raised Obi’s hand as his last wish that he should be elected for the second term. And this has caused controversy. Are you comfortable with this?
I do not think it will be wrong for anybody to say that Mr. Obi’s emergence as a political force is directly linked to the backing he received from my late father. I know what you are referring to and I would not want to go into the issue of who raised whose hands because we all know he was ill at the time. The fact still remains that Obi was Ezeigbo’s choice for that election.
On whether I am comfortable or not, I am not. This is as a result, amongst other things, of statements being made by Bianca (Odumegwu Ojukwu) and others at Governor Willie Obiano’s campaigns.
Is that why you have chosen not to join Obiano in his campaign for the second tenure even when, according to sources, he had severally invited and approached you to join him, and a lot of activities are ongoing during Ezeigbo’s (post-humous) birthday celebration?
It is one of the reasons. In the last three years, has Anambra State celebrated Ezeigbo’s birthday? Have they celebrated the anniversary of his death? Have any memorials been put up in his honour? Have any edifices or institution been named after him? Now on the eve of the election, it has become expedient to celebrate his birthday. To be honest with you, the stench of the hypocrisy has become nauseating. I was hitherto once an unwilling participant in this charade and I can no longer abide by it. You have a situation where my father’s memory was invoked to help usher him into office and once elected, all things Ezeigbo where promptly set aside. Billboards with his pictures were taken down, new party clothes and materials were printed without his image, while the incoming Governor was focused on creating his own identity. Now, three-and-a- half years later, Ezeigbo’s pictures are back in full effect in an attempt to use his image yet again for some people’s personal political ambitions.
Yes, I am aware of the invitations and I shall take my time in choosing to take a stand with the candidate of my choice. The truth is, I cannot go on a campaign with Obiano for one final reason, and that is because of some of the people he has chosen to associate himself with; people who speak from both sides of their mouth as long as it serves their own interests.
Who are these people or such people that you are talking about?
I know that you are aware of what Bianca has been saying and I do not want to associate myself with her. This is a woman who wants to create an impression that she loved Ezeigbo, but while Ezeigbo was sick she chose not to take care of him and rather pleased herself until she got tired of waiting for him to die. She had made many disparaging remarks about former Governor Peter Obi in an attempt to curry favour with Obiano, forgetting that when Ezeigbo was gravely ill, Obi, with the help of his friends, was able to get a private jet and took my father to England so that he could get the medical attention he received. She forgets also that it was Peter Obi and other well-meaning folks who were instrumental in persuading the then President Goodluck Jonathan to accord my father what was, in essence, a state funeral. I remain grateful for what he did for Ezeigbo and for the family. Keep in mind that regardless of whatever support my father might have given to him, it was not mandatory that he extend himself in that manner. After all his name is Obi and not Ojukwu.
What do you mean by she chose not to take care of Ezeigbo?
When Ezeigbo had a stroke, he was being “treated” at home. He was neither given a CT scan, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) nor subjected to any of the standard procedures applicable to a stroke victim. She insisted on having him treated in his bedroom by her doctor, against the wishes of the family for two weeks! At some point, family members were stopped at the gate from inquiring about Ezeigbo’s condition. On several occasions, I had to force myself in to see him. So all this grandstanding that Bianca is putting up is just to create a false impression about her relationship with my father and unsuspecting members of the public are buying into it.
But we understand that Bianca was with your father when he was flown to England and made efforts at taking him from Wellington Clinic to another hospital known as Lynden Hill Therapeutic Centre.
All the evidence is available and well documented. First of all, the air ambulance provided only had room for one family member and it was decided that she should go with him in the ambulance.
You are right. Certain changes were made in terms of treatment centres. Lynden Hill Clinic was the third place he was moved to. We were dismayed by the decision, because you have to understand that throughout his treatment, he required 24-hour nursing care, and that particular centre was ill-equipped to handle a patient in his condition, even with 24-hour nursing. That was why he was transferred, yet again, to the Royal Berkshire when his health, predictably, deteriorated. Several members of my father’s immediate and extended family, including myself, made a concerted effort to have him moved to a neurological rehabilitation centre, where he would receive the sort of treatment he needed. But again, Bianca blocked our efforts, and on the 25th of November, 2011, a date I will never forget, without reference to the family, she had him discharged from the Royal Berkshire and transferred to yet another ill-equipped nursing home, this time in London, where he died a few hours later.ᐧ
