Remembering Alex Ekwueme amid growing anxiety, security concerns

By Chief Handel Okoli As Nigeria inches towards another general election, against a backdrop of political tension, growing anxiety, and genuine national security concerns, certain aspects of the life and times of one of our finest statesmen have assumed renewed significance. The ideas, convictions, and political philosophy of Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, GCON, former Vice-President of Nigeria, deserve serious reflection as we consider the kind of country we wish to build.

Dr. Ekwueme was born on 21 October 1932. Had he not passed away on 19 November 2017, he would have celebrated his 94th birthday on Wednesday, 21 October 2026. His death elicited an avalanche of tributes and encomiums from across Nigeria, reflecting the profound respect he commanded among people of different ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds.

Even before his death, the late Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, had drawn national attention to Ekwueme’s enduring contributions in his 2013 book, The Legacies of Dr. Alex Ekwueme to Government and to Political and Social Development of Nigeria. Among the legacies highlighted were his formidable intellectual credentials as an asset in governance; his commitment to a strong multiparty system, constitutionalism, and the rule of law; his advocacy for the restructuring of the Nigerian federation; his proposal for the equitable distribution of political offices among the six geopolitical zones; and his remarkable public-spiritedness and philanthropy, which I once described as Ekwueme’s extravagant philanthropy.

Yet, perhaps the most compelling of his legacies, and certainly one of the most relevant to Nigeria’s present political circumstances, was his altruistic and pragmatic approach to national integration. This is one of the fundamental challenges the Buhari administration failed woefully to address. Rather than build upon the emerging spirit of national reconciliation and integration, the administration, in my view, took the country in the opposite direction.

President Jonathan had handed over the report of the National Conference to President Buhari, but the latter apparently had other priorities. An important opportunity to confront Nigeria’s unresolved national questions and build a more inclusive federation was consequently lost. Ekwueme understood that the survival of Nigeria as a united nation depended, to a considerable extent, on addressing the fears of domination, exclusion, and marginalisation among its constituent ethnic and regional groups.

THE QUEST FOR NATIONAL INTEGRATION Following the end of the Nigerian Civil War in 1970, the urgent questions of national reconstruction, reconciliation, and the restoration of confidence among the country’s diverse peoples occupied a central place in political discourse. These concerns became particularly prominent during the formation of political parties in 1978, as Nigeria prepared for a return to civilian rule.

The political parties recognised, to varying degrees, the need to accommodate the country’s complex ethnic and regional composition. The National Party of Nigeria (NPN), which eventually won the presidential election, adopted a political arrangement that reflected the importance of balancing interests across the North and the South in the distribution of key political offices.

It was within this political atmosphere that Dr. Alex Ekwueme emerged as the NPN’s vice-presidential candidate, alongside Alhaji Shehu Shagari as its presidential candidate. The significance of the Igbo presence in the vice-presidential calculations of the major political parties of the period deserves particular attention. With the exception of the Nigerian People’s Party (NPP), whose presidential candidate, Dr.

Nnamdi Azikiwe, chose Professor Ishaya Audu as his running mate, the other major parties also featured Igbo politicians as their vice-presidential candidates. These choices were politically significant. At the very least, they reflected an awareness of the need to broaden the political coalitions upon which the Nigerian federation rested and to reassure the Igbo people that, despite the devastation of the Civil War, they remained an integral part of the Nigerian project.

It would, however, be a mistake to regard these political arrangements as merely symbolic. They raised a fundamental question about the future of Nigeria: could the country achieve genuine reconciliation and lasting unity without creating a political environment in which every major ethnic and regional group had a fair opportunity to participate in national leadership?

The prospect of an Igbo man ascending to the presidency subsequently became a subject of considerable political sensitivity. It has been suggested that apprehensions about Dr. Ekwueme’s possible emergence as President, particularly in the context of political succession under the Shagari administration, formed part of the considerations surrounding the military coup of December 1983.

While such claims require careful exa