Collins Onyenze on his passion for charity

Collins Onyenze, first class scholar, executive director, Good Governance Monitor, and president, Rotary Club of Festac Town, Lagos, speaks on his organisation’s efforts to promote the rights of individuals and shares his views about charity.

By Chuks Oluigbo

When you are scheduled to meet a scholar of Collins Onyenze’s calibre for an interview, your best bet is to equip yourself with the right arsenal or risk being intimidated by his very wide knowledge. So, when I spoke with him on phone last week and he confirmed an interview appointment for 8am on Friday at his Festac Town, Lagos residence, I went into research. But as I sat with him that morning and we had preliminary discussions, it became clear to me there was a lot more I ought to have included in my list of questions if I had all the space. 

Onyenze

Onyenze, the executive director, Good Governance Monitor, a non-governmental organisation that promotes the rights of individuals, studied Political Science at Panjab University, Chandigarh, India, graduating with first class honours, and subsequently obtained a Masters degree in Public Administration from the same university. He later attended Central European University (CEU), Budapest, Hungary, as a George Soros Foundation scholar, and is currently awaiting the defence of his PhD thesis which centres on intra-ethnic conflicts and conflicts resolutions.

Onyenze received training in Peace Building and Good Governance for United Nations’ African Civilian Personnel at the Legon Centre for International Affairs (LECIA), University of Ghana. While at CEU, he also trained in the use of Alternative Media at the Centre for Media Studies in Budapest. A Paul Harris Fellow, he is also the president, Indian Universities Alumni Association of Nigeria, an association of Nigerians who studied and obtained degrees in the various Indian universities. He is a member of Nigeria India Chamber of Commerce and Industry (NICCI) and the CEO of Premier Union Limited, a company involved in outsourcing business of printing.

Looking at his impressive academic records, one would have wished that Onyenze were in an academic environment imparting the knowledge he has acquired over the years to the younger generation. He wishes so too, he says, but thinks he missed the mark at the beginning. “I actually did my one year National Youth Service in an academic environment, in the University of Benin. I would have stayed back there, but then there was an embargo on employment in the universities. At some point I was offered a part-time opportunity, with the hope that my appointment would be regularised in due course, but the lure of Lagos was too much for me. I came to Lagos. So far so good. We thank God for what we have achieved, but looking back, I still feel that that aspect of me is missing,” he says.

His organisation, Good Governance Monitor, was founded in 2006 when he came back from Budapest after the submission of his PhD thesis, he tells me. “It’s about government impacting on the people,” he explains. “It was established within the rights of individuals to enjoy the benefits of government – the right to social benefits, such as quality medical attention, education, such things that are often neglected. We concern ourselves with how government is providing these things. Oftentimes in Africa, most of these things are ignored. People talk about human rights – right to life, freedom of association, and so on, but not the right to safe drinking water, electricity, and other social benefits. When you look around, you discover that some Nigerians do not really feel like citizens because nothing about the government touches their lives, because it is what government provides that makes you a beneficiary of government activities, that makes you feel like a citizen.”

Because the organisation operates more at the intellectual level, contributing to policies and debates that relate to the rights of individuals, such things that may be considered intangible, Onyenze tells me it is not easy to measure their successes. However, he is positive that their contribution in the past eight years has been immense. “After one year of its establishment, we had a coalition of NGOs in Abuja and I was made the chairman. There, we articulated the rights of Nigerians and submitted the document to the government. But oftentimes most of these things do not come to the public sphere. But little by little we make most of these things come true. We strongly believe that someday somebody somewhere will look at what we have done and take it up from there,” he says.

“We have been getting across to governments at all levels – federal, state and local governments. Currently, we have got a letter from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Hilary Njoya, who is in charge of anti-corruption in Africa, has invited us to join in the campaign to enlighten Nigerians on their rights in the fight against corruption. We believe that as everybody comes from different angles, the impact will continue to filter in. You may not see it happening. It is not like building roads or bridges or other social infrastructure. But we need to do a lot more. We cannot say we have done enough,” he adds.

Passionate about charity, Onyenze joined Rotary International over 10 years ago. He tells me that all his life he has never seen an organisation as organised as Rotary. Today, as president of Rotary Club of Festac Town, Lagos, he says he has articulated, since his investiture last year, the projects that he will execute for the year since Rotary operates a yearly presidency. “And I’m working towards achieving almost all of them because it has to do with sincerity of heart – what you have told people that you would do, are you doing them? We may not be privileged to have all the money promised during the investiture ceremony, but within the resources available to us, we are doing our very best. We are working towards sending two children with hole in the heart for corrective surgery in India; we are purchasing lab equipment for the Daughters of Father Tansi, a congregation of Reverend Sisters who work in rural areas; we organise health talks where we enlighten people on health issues and run free tests to help them know their health status, just to mention these,” he says.

It’s not been very easy, he tells me, but commitment remains a driving force. “Rotary is a voluntary organisation, but once you are in, it becomes mandatory for you to do those things you said you would do,” he explains. “That’s exactly what we are doing. It has been very challenging because it is an organisation where individuals contribute, and we help the communities where we live. We sink boreholes, we train individuals in skill acquisition, because oftentimes you discover that people are idle because they do not have any particular skill that they can hold on to so as to employ themselves.”

He tells me how good it is to be charitable, but adds, however, that charity is best when it is articulated. “That is why I like Rotary. There are many people who want one thing or the other, but you have to look at how you can reach the greatest number of these people. As you move along the road you see many people asking you for one thing or the other, it is good to reach out to them, but if you can do it in a more organised way, it becomes more effective. That’s what we do. For example, we do microcredit. We give small credit to people selling in the market. It doesn’t have to be big money. For instance, if we give N50,000 each to 10 market women, that money will have multiplier effect on the 10 families affected, and many more lives will be touched. It may look small to those in rich areas, but for these struggling families it is a whole lot and it goes a long way,” he says.

“So, my concept of charity is to have a proper organisation to channel it where these things will have greater impact. If you give a beggar N100 today, he will still ask you again when he sees you tomorrow. As it is said, when you give a man fish, he will eat the fish and come back tomorrow to ask for another one, but if you teach him how to fish and give him a fishing net, he will always go back to the stream to catch the fish himself,” he adds.

As a student at Panjab University in India, Onyenze says he was in the sporting team of the university as a boxer. For three years he represented the university in boxing competitions, and his excellent performance in boxing earned him the university’s scholarship. “I studied as a scholarship student at Panjab,” he tells me. “Before I went to India, I had little knowledge of boxing. But somebody saw me and felt I had the height and the build. The university was looking for people to box in the heavyweight, and that was how I was introduced to boxing and I became part of the university’s boxing team. The experience was wonderful and I continue to cherish it.”

One of the things he cherishes about boxing, Onyenze says, is that it teaches the noble act of self-defence. He tells me that he still watches boxing matches, and he knows why some people don’t win challenges, even in Olympics. “You see someone jumping around the ring throwing his hands about, but he is not making the points. They merely throw jabs and miss the punches. A punch is different from a jab. A punch is counted but a jab is not. Aggressiveness of the boxer is also a factor of success in boxing,” he says.

Sharing on his boxing icons, Onyenze first mentions the legendary Mohammed Ali. “Everybody will tell you that Ali was a very successful boxer,” he says. “I also admire Mike Tyson. He has a small body, but his punches come right from his stomach, that is why he can bring down a mighty iroko with a single punch. Evander Holyfield, I love his resilience. I watched Dick Tiger and I think he too was a very good boxer. But today, not much of challenge is going on.”

A man of many parts, Onyenze was also part of Nollywood’s little beginnings, featuring in movies like ‘Nneka the Pretty Serpent’, ‘Tycoon’, ‘Black Arrow’, and a number of others. Looking back, he agrees that Nollywood has come a long way from what it used to be. “When we started, our concentration was on the stories. But along the way, attention shifted more to the commercial value of the movies. Glamour came in too. Moviemakers began to showcase the beautiful aspects of Nigeria, which the world also wants to see. Of course, it’s driven by commerce – an investor needs to recoup his investment and make profit. If you write the best scripts and they are not selling, Nollywood will collapse. So, I think so far, there is progress. Nollywood is now a megabucks industry, continuously selling the good image of Nigeria abroad. But we need to do more,” he says.

A jolly good fellow, Onyenze says he likes to relax with friends. “You know, in Rotary, we also share fellowship with one another in a lighter mood. I also engage in sporting activities. I have some gym equipment in my house where I work out. I also jog within the house. I play table tennis almost every day. And at the Indian Universities Alumni Association of Nigeria, we come together to relate and share,” he says.

In his spare moments, he also watches football. But does he support any club? “I won’t really say I support any club,” he replies, “but I have sympathy for Arsenal, basically because I have been to their arena. I feel good about their successes and feel bad about their failings.”

Remembering Catherine Acholonu

CHUKS OLUIGBO

It was early in June 2009. I was then Arts reporter for The Statesman, the Imo State government-owned newspaper based in Owerri. Steve Osuji, then managing director, called me to his office that morning and handed me an invitation card. “Chuks, you have to cover this,” he said to me. I studied the information on the card. The event was to hold at the Michael Okpara Square in Enugu. It was the public presentation of her revolutionary book on the origins of the Igbo, They Lived Before Adam: Pre-historic Origins of the Igbo – The Never-Been Ruled, a product of 18 years of intense research under the aegis of The Catherine Acholonu Research Centre (CARC).

Prof Catherine Obianuju Acholonu (1951-2014)

My excitement knew no bounds. I had admired Catherine Acholonu from afar long before then. As an undergraduate student in the English Department of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, I had read some of her poems, ever so deeply engrossed with Igbo mythology. When the book launch brought me face to face with her, I was not disappointed, especially when she mounted the podium to speak on the essence of the book. She was a firebrand intellectual.

When I approached her to introduce myself, she was filled with profound joy that her own people, all the way from Imo State, came to identify with her. I replied that she had my MD, Steve Osuji, to thank for that. She promptly agreed to an interview and, on the sidelines of the launch, granted me a thought-provoking interview that dwelt essentially on the book she had just presented to the reading public and other things she was working on. I also got a chance to speak with the Indian, Ajay Prabhakar, who worked on the research with her.

Back in Owerri, I did what I consider a good report, which was prominently carried by The Statesman, and ran a full-page interview subsequently. That marked the genesis of what would become a vibrant, mutually-beneficial relationship. The Prof, when she read the publication, came to The Statesman premises herself to thank us for a job well done. She met with my MD, and after discussions with him, took up a back page column, called The Catherine Acholonu Column, which appeared every Thursday, where she espoused her theses on Igbo origins.

Thereafter, she became my regular source. In several live interviews and phone chats, she enlightened me on such cultural issues as the annual Ahiajoku Lecture Series organised by the Imo State government, women exclusion in the kolanut ritual in Igboland, and so on. And once I took her up on Feminism. That was when I learnt about her Theory of Motherism, her personal brand of Feminism. “There is something women have that men do not have,” she told me in that interview, by way of further explanation. “It is called ‘milk of human kindness’. This milk is the only thing that makes a human being compassionate. Nigeria needs this milk of human kindness now to save its people from leaders who milk them like cows from one generation to the next. Women leaders are more prone to feed their followers with milk, while men will, more often than not, milk their followers by depriving them of the means of survival.”

I last spoke with Prof Acholonu in 2012. I lost her contact shortly after that. However, not long ago I found her on Facebook and we became friends again. Just last week, while discussing with a colleague, the name of Catherine Acholonu came up and I promised myself to do everything possible to reconnect with her. But alas! While I was on this, Prof Acholonu was already lying cold in the morgue! She was buried on Friday, April 11, 2014.

Acholonu, erudite scholar, culture ambassador, author of many books, one-time presidential adviser on cultural matters, and country ambassador, the United Nations Forum of Arts and Culture, remains one of the greatest researchers I’ve known. Of all her works, three stand out. Popularly known as The Adam Trilogy, the books comprise The Gram Code of African Adam, a 500-page book about the monoliths of Ikom in Cross River State and how they contain evidence that Eden was in Nigeria; They Lived Before Adam: Pre-historic Origins of the Igbo – The Never-Been Ruled; and The Lost Testament of the Ancestors of Adam, Unearthing Heliopolis/Igbo Ukwu – The Celestial City of the Gods of Egypt and India which, she told me, was adopted by the World Igbo Congress in 2010.

To buttress their international acceptance, the second book of The Adam Trilogy, They Lived Before Adam, won the 2009 International Book Awards (Multi-cultural Non Fiction Category) in the USA. At the 2009 Harlem Book Fair in New York, it also won the Phillis Wheatley Award for Work that Transcends Culture and Perception as well as the Flora Nwapa Award for Excellence (dedicated to Nigerian-born Africa’s first female novelist). Max Rodriguez, director of Harlem Book Fair, said while presenting the awards: “As groundbreaking as Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus, Prof Catherine Acholonu’s They Lived Before Adam is pushing the limits of accepted human history and has the potential to redefine the parameters of knowledge.”

Acholonu seized every opportunity that presented itself to shed light on her research findings. In a paper she presented at the 2010 Nigerian National New Yam Festival held in Igbo Ukwu, Anambra State, on recent findings regarding the archaeological discoveries at Igbo Ukwu by British archaeologist Thurstan Shaw, Acholonu said: “In 1990, we began research on the African cultural phenomenon. Our intention was to challenge the misconception that Africa had no long history and that the continent had no contribution to knowledge, technology and global civilisations. Twenty years of research and five major publications later, we have more than enough evidence that Africa was not just the mother of humanity, but the mother of culture and of human civilisations.”

She maintained that Nigeria was not just the foundation of Black culture but the centre of the civilisation known today as Egypt, explaining that Egypt was initiated in 3100 BC by a Nubian called Menes whom Egyptologists have maintained that no one knew where he came from. “We have discovered that whenever researchers say that something cannot be known, or that it is a mystery, it is usually an indication that that thing has to do with the Black race, and the information is being intentionally withheld…. The Igbo Ukwu phenomenon is one such example,” she said.

Catherine Acholonu dedicated her life to the service of Igboland, Nigeria and Africa through relentless research efforts that yielded innumerable groundbreaking publications. By so doing, even if we sometimes disagree with her conclusions, I daresay she earned herself a place in the company of other eminent scholars whose pioneering works continue to shape our understanding of the Igbo past. May her memory not be lost like many others before her.

Owerri and its passing impressions

Onyebuchi Onyegbule

Passing through Owerri, the capital of Imo State, you get the impression of a city with a direction. That direction is beauty. There is orderliness, serenity, greenery, civil service mentality, hotels and what they do. Watching the city, you see the people – a relaxed, pleasure-loving folk without bloated appetite for material acquisition. The great thing about such trait is: give them what they want, they give you the service of your dream plus a space for glee. Quite a healthy mentality.

 

It’s not so with its neighbours. To its west is Onitsha. There, it’s about money but with dismal quality of life. A non-verdant city with fading high-rise buildings that increasingly make it look like an urban desert. I gather that Governor Obi did a lot to put things right but the heaps of rubbish, abandoned vehicles, disgusting hold-ups and noise won’t let go. What then is the pursuit of money without ease of life? Quickly pass by.

To its east is Port Harcourt – an oil city with not much to show for the big cash inflow. There, people erect buildings first, then remember roads later. When eventually a road is squeezed in, no two cars can pass from opposite directions. Port Harcourt is a typical example of Nigeria’s road-side development mentality. Behind the major streets are slumps. Its in-city waterways have become stagnant because of faulty construction works that blocked the outflows; now they’re dumping grounds for plastics – something that otherwise would have impressively added to the city’s beauty. A thought is that politics would have addressed this anomaly, but no. Well, it’s all about vision: you have it, you have it, you don’t, you don’t. 

To have a feel of what life should be, Owerri is it. Calabar is far and Uyo is just coming up but still off-route. To Owerri’s north is Aba. Maybe better to use the word ‘sorry’. But ironically, people from Owerri, PH, Uyo, even Calabar and Cameroon throng there because they get all they want at affordable price, so nobody minds.

But to relax, Aba moves to Owerri, Onitsha and Port Harcourt follow. That has made Owerri become a pleasure city, but also one of silly fun. Tales of abominable sex life abound. It’s spoken of naked women in brothels, of moneybags hiring the services of naked women to do various things. Worse still, teens join in droves; they play for a year or two, contract disease of sorts and die. Many are impaired and the few pollute others with endless tales of ritual killings.

You ask: is it the government’s affair or the people’s? Before the government, the people were. They own the land. How were they living? Through prostitution? Definitely not. Should they watch passively or have a voice on how their land is and should be? How can they enforce it? This is why they need to come together for a solution.

The government, the clergy, youths and traditional leaders should call this a serious challenge. Definitely, socio-economic arguments will come up as reasons, but why Owerri and not others? Why it should go profusely loose has to be understood and tackled. Certainly, if they get it right, they become the standard for others. The youths die, the money they seek to make eludes them. They bring disease and spread it, medicare is poor, so more die, more are corrupted – a no-win game for the people.

A time comes when a people stand to defend their values. A time comes when they draw a separation line between pleasure and obscenity. Part of obscenity is scourge that scorches; that’s not what they want and won’t have. Their part is to raise a voice and stand firm against it. It’s also a challenge to government to mistake obscenity for pleasure and give it silent treatment. Its silence encourages the acquisition and practice of unproductive skills by its youth. That should make it feel concerned. The imported disease they bring eats up budget; their eventual death is bad press because government failed to educate and provide viable alternatives.

Owerri is producing Igbo classics in music. That music comes from classical values, and to equate those values to obscenity is a disservice. Owerri is showing the direction of the next generation of cities; it’s one that adds quality to life and obscenity isn’t part of it. We know that when Governor Okorocha means something, he does it. We’re not saying he should go clubbing down the ladies; rather, a comprehensive approach to dissuade vice and put all on the track of development and honour is the expectation.

It’s about good news for humanity. Owerri has it. Nudity isn’t one of it, prostitution is way off it. As it came, so shall it go. The people and their government are equal to it.

Onyegbule, PhD, writes a weekly column in BusinessDay. He can be reached on buchionye@yahoo.co.uk