NADECO’s under-ground and open-ground patriots – Part 2

I say it again: The words of another NADECO exile are particularly intriguing. Who is the NADECO exile who can be said to be both under-ground and open-ground at the same time? He is Ahoada, Rivers-born Dr. Lloyd Ukwu, who is Executive Director of NADECO USA. You may be both right and wrong if you refer to him as a rebel’s rebel. Let me quote at least one of his curious posts to me:

“I greet you sir. I just stumbled upon your article which was well written, but it still needs a bit more information to help you out in your investigation or research or in the case of your next article. I was NADECO’s USA’s General Counsel here in Washington D.C. from 1995-1999. In fact, I registered it here in Washington D.C. I worked with Chief Anthony Enahoro, travelled with him extensively to Canada and London to make presentations on behalf of NADECO USA to make a case for the suspension, not expulsion, of NADECO from the Commonwealth and several other covert trips to Haiti and Ghana and other countries. I was Chief Enahoro’s lone voice in the USA to accompany him to Ottawa for the celebrated meeting between NADECO and Lloyd Axeworthy who was the Canadian Foreign Minister at that time. As you (probably know), Canada was our number one zone. Chief Anthony Enahoro was the Head, NADECO Abroad while Chief Ralph Obioha was Head, NADECO USA. In the United Kingdom, we had Chief Ralph Uwechue, now late and in Canada we had Chief Cornelius Adebayo. We had others like General Akinrinade, Prof. (Wole) Soyinka who was not part of NADECO, Dr. Wahab Dosumu, Senator Bola Tinubu, Senator Ewebiyi, Dr. Sylvester Monye and several others. A lot of us who drove NADECO were forgotten. In fact, I donated part of my well furnished office to NADECO for five years including all phone bills and a fully functional secretariat. Today, I am back in the trenches after squandered twenty years of failed democracy.”

“The National Democratic Coalition (USA) is Nigeria’s premier and foremost pro-democracy group based in Washington D.C. It was registered in 1995 by a group of Nigerians who needed a platform to fight the military regime of General Sani Abacha. The group has recently resumed its advocacy aimed, this time, at challenging the illegal, dangerous and repressive Buhari Administration. NADECO USA is currently planning a conference titled “Nigeria at the Crossroads: Restructuring or Peaceful Dissolution of Nigeria….”

“I am writing to you to seek audience to discuss what role you, as an esteemed journalist, can play by attending and supporting the conference.”

The envisaged international conference on your country my country our country, barring the unforeseen, is ‘scheduled for March 4 – 6, 2022 in Washington D.C. and is designed to bring Nigeria’s ethnic nationalities under one roof for three days to deliberate on how to save Nigeria from the precipice.’”

I have no doubt in my mind that Dr. Lloyd Ukwu’s intriguingly audacious quotation can be completely misinterpreted. We can see in it the pain of a NADECO patriot who was bewilderingly forgotten and forsaken by his fellow way-farers, but who nevertheless did not forswear to denounce or deny or disavow the movement. He and other under-ground and open-ground patriots are bewilderingly committed, no matter what, to the bewildering choices of supreme patriotic value that they have made. My investigation (outside some of Dr. Ukwu’s revelations which I am deliberately not capturing here) has revealed to me that all over the globe NADECO is thriving. You better believe me. To say what I have just said does not mean that NADECO patriots don’t have their challenges and drawbacks. I will not reveal what these are. All the same, thinking about these challenges or drawbacks recreate in me the phrase “Five fingers of a leprous hand” which the late Chief Bola Ige, I think, coined and employed in describing the coalition of political parties of like and unlike minds under the Abacha regime. The late Bola Ige’s metaphor may be apt or may not be apt if anyone wants to apply it today to our under-ground and open-ground political workaholics. But I know for sure that the NADECO patriots – whether under-ground or open-ground – are not lazy or stupid or un-strategic professionals and scholars. This is not a petty or frivolous point. They have made significant encroachments on many Fulani and Northern bodies and people of genuine sensibilities or of patriotic power whose whole consciousness mirrors the consciousness of your country my country our country that must be steered in the direction that is the destined direction of Nigeria that must be blemished no more. On this score, I won’t say more than this; I won’t reveal more than this – at least for now. Any doubter of my patriotic engagements is free to embark on his/her own investigation and research. I won’t reveal and will never reveal the provenance of everything known or unknown about NADECO’s under-ground and open-ground patriots who are super-patriotically committed to everything super-good, super-just, super-humane, super-right, super-moral, super-un-absurd and super-un-primitive about your country my country our country. Our NADECO super-patriots are super-fabulous super-patriots. They are everywhere in our land. New and un-new members itch and are itching to be Super-men and Super-heroes to save Nigeria that must be saved from the perils of thunderously and perilously perilous thunder.

To be continued……

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.