THE STRUGGLE FOR JUSTICE IN THE FACE OF TERROR

” My struggle for justice was forced upon me by the peculiar nature of injustice in Nigeria. The cost on me and my family has been enormous by every stretch of value. But I’ve gotten to the middle of the river. There is no going back. The only option is to paddle as hard as possible across the dangerous current and ominous depth”. — Barr Emeka Ugwuonye

Ugwuonye never set out to become a human rights lawyer. The role he play today was forced on his by circumstances beyond him. He told me sometimes ago that he had prepared himself to become a venture capitalist after his studies in Harvard. But fate played a fast one on him. Today, he moves from one court to another and sometimes, he is remanded in prison custody for cases that does not concern him personally.

Prior to the July 28, 1966 coup in Nigeria, Lt Col Odumegwu Emeka Ojukwu never anticipated the role fate and accident of history forced on him. As a young military officer of about 33 years old, he was appointed the military governor of the old Eastern region. He barely settled for his new appointment before the second coup of July 28, 1966 struck. There was a progrom in the North. His people of the Igbo extraction were massacred in large number.

The burden of protection and justice for his people were placed on his shoulder. Consequently, he rose in defence of his people. An action that would shaped not only his life and that of his people but also shaped the history of Nigeria forever. He became many things to many people depending on the the perspective from where he is viewed. To his enemies – he is a rebel and trouble maker but to his people — he is a hero, saviour, enigma and a charismatic quintessential colossus.

Despite the controversies that surrounded his life, he carried himself with considerable measure of dignity and equanimity till the end of his days.

Martin Luther King Jr was obscure and little known; he was minding his small Baptist church when on December 1, 1955, Rosa Park was arrested in the city of Montgomery for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. Martin Luther King. Jr, volunteered to lead a bus boycott in protest for the arrest of Rosa Park which lasted for 385 days. He was also arrested during the protests and his house bombed.

The protest and court case that followed ended racial segregation on all Montgomery public buses. King’s role transformed him immediately into a national figure. He would from there, rise to change the face of civil rights movement in America forever. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Non of these men saw it coming. Non prepared for the role fate forced on them. But the moment they accepted the verdict of fate, they never looked back. They continued to paddle as hard as possible. Some paid the supreme price while others sailed ashore across the dangerous current and ominous depth.

Nwafor Ifeanyi
Director Of Information
DPA.