BIAFRA : Death and Arthur Nwankwo's Prodigious Intellect

It appears the full statures of men are mostly unveiled when they are dead. Many who did not know the full length and breadth of Arthur Nwankwo's intellectual ability are coming to the knowledge of it now since February 1 when the fearless author and thinker took his last breath on earth.

Arthur, the prolific author (beware of the name you give to your children) who has been described by other brilliant writers as "unforgettable" and "the strongman of war" on account of his traditional title, "Ikeogu of Ajalli", and perhaps also due to the power of his intellect, was born about 77 years ago, on August 19, 1942.

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His academic background was in Arts and Political Science. He established at least two publishing companies one of which is the Fourth Dimension which published more than 1, 500 titles, making it the largest publishing company in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As has been hinted before, Arthur was a brave intellectual and literary warrior. His prose, through which he dished out his revolutionary ideas, is music to the ears and songs to the lips.

He was alarmed at the tail end of his life on earth, seeing the recklessness with which innocent blood was spilt in Nigeria today. "Nigeria has become a killing field of the innocent," he wrote later, "and God's judgement is upon the land. The killing of the innocent in any circumstance is a sin and the consequence is far-reaching. Nigeria is presently on that path."

If those who rule the country now and play God would hear, the late author had left an invaluable piece of advice to them and all of us: "I have always maintained that Nigeria's only safety valve lies in a roundtable discussion to fashion out a framework for the continued existence of Nigeria as a corporate entity... . Any other way leads to doom and self-destruction."

He fought intellectually in the Biafran Civil War, experienced it profoundly, and got very close to the late Biafran warlord, the Ikemba Nnewi, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. All his experiences and convictions about the emergence of Biafra - which has now become an indestructible ideology - and the Civil War are summed up in these words: "This period bore the promise of Biafra: The promise of the first technologically advanced black nation."

Arthur Nwankwo had hoped Nigeria would harness the great possibilities inherent in the black man which Biafra unveiled.