Behold the new Akwue Isama, Onitsha Molokwu Azikiwe son of the great nationalist and leader Owelle Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik of Africa and Prof Uche Azikiwe.
Molokwu, named after his great, great, great-grandfather, who had four children, including Azikiwe, who had six children, including Chukwuemeka, who had ten children, including Nnamdi (Zik), whose children include Molokwu, the current Akwue Isama. (Copied from My Odyssey, An Autobiography by Nnamdi Azikiwe, Spectrum Publishers, 1970, I bought it in 2000 and have read it a couple of times. I recommend it highly)
In 1962, as President of Nigeria, Molokwu’s father (Zik) became Ndichie Okwa, Oziziani Obi. In 1972, he was installed as Owelle-Osowa-Anya of Onitsha, a title Zik’s maternal grand-uncle, Okechukwu, had held in the 1920s. After the passing of the great Zik of Africa, his first son and Molokwu’s half-brother, Harvard-trained Chukwuma, became Owelle of Onitsha until he passed in 2015.
Molokwu joins Ndichie Onitsha, a revered and historic institution with a strong heritage and has discharged a moral burden. A burden of continuity and sustenance of a proud family heritage. This is why I am paying tribute to the newly installed Akwue Isama, a graduate of Lincoln University and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. He followed his father’s steps to Lincoln University and now serves as Director of Budget and Treasury at the ECOWAS Commission.
Molokwu’s trajectory is a tribute to his parents for an upbringing that did not make him an entitled son of a “big” man roaming the streets with delusions of grandeur and living a life of tragic reminders of a glorious past.
Here lies the lesson for all of us. Making your children not suffer like you, providing them with unnecessary cushions and safeguards and paying little attention to proper role-modelling are recipes for future failure.
Akwue Isama, as you sit on the seat of your forebears as Ndichie Onitsha, may your tenure be marked with peace, innovation and sustenance of our cultural heritage. You will live long. You will ascend to Ndichie Ume. Your children will grow in your footsteps, and you will be a source of pride for the Ezechima clan, my great-grand maternal people in Obosi.
Akwue, I implore you to preserve the tradition and also be a change agent in aligning our past with modern precepts. We must hold the difficult conversations about gender and inclusion and eliminate the discrimination of the past that created hereditary exclusion. Ndigbo must lead the charge of aligning tradition with fundamental and inalienable human rights. We must be courageous enough to renounce conduct that is repugnant to natural justice and good conscience. I believe that with your global exposure, you will stand for what is right and, like your father, show the light.
As we worry about the future of Igbo tradition, customs and language, Molokwu’s trajectory proves we can combine the local and global seamlessly. Wherever my son finds himself, Chidinma, like Prof Uche Azikiwe, MUST ensure that he carries the family heritage as a burden, to join Ndichie Obosi someday after me. I hope and dream that our next generation will proudly dance to the rhythm of the Ekwe and Ushio and hand over the banner without stain to the next generation.
I must, at this juncture, pay tribute to Agbogidi, Nnaemeka Achebe, Obi of Onitsha and the Onitsha community for their dogged commitment and dedication to preserving, protecting and expanding the culture of Onitsha—Agbogidi I ga adi. Selecting Molokwu for admission to Ndichie Onitsha is a good signal of the generational shift that must happen and a befitting tribute to the great Zik of Africa.
All hail Akwue Isama, Molokwu Azikiwe.
Osita Chidoka
1 September 2024.
