Meet the many Onyeamas of Enugu
complaints with seriousness throughout the large area called Agbaja.
Again, author Dillibe provides further insight into the executive administration of Onyeama as a Warrant Chief who quickly turned a dictator of Adolf Hitler’s type. “He was a power monger; a ruthless one. And he deployed his power without looking back. He curried the favour of the white man and was able to establish peace in those areas where he held sway. So while other parts of Igboland were resisting the Europeans incursion, the fear of Onyeama kept people in quickness of service.
“There was no trouble in the area he ruled at all. That suited the British well. They kept him in power for 23 years and he used the power and placed emphasis on education. He was able to influence his entire subjects to go to school and to Church.
“In fact, it was he who brought the Catholics into power in Igboland. Eke was the centre of Catholicism in Igboland extending to Ogoja; the whole of the area, through Onyeama’s influence. They gave him Ugwu Di Nso; his land there. He entrenched Catholicism in Enugu State.
“He was a no-nonsense man; he didn’t want to hear that you are not doing your work; you are lazy. He used to be very, very punitive. And he used to apply corporal punishments if anybody played truancy. He kept his whole family in check and he was able to pay for the education of the first Igbo medical doctor. And after him, my father, Dadi Umahi Onyeama became a judge of the International Court.”
Alhaji Mohammed Abas Onyeama, a legal practitioner in Enugu, is one of the grand children of the paramount ruler. His father, Alhaji Sulieman Onyeama, was among the famous five sons of the native ruler. Mohammed told Daily Trust that the name Onyeama evokes feeling of greatness once it is mentioned, although he added that it could also inspire a feeling of dislike or fear to some others depending on one’s standing.
Mohammed said: “My grandfather, the Okwuruoha of Agbaje was a great personality, an enigmatic colossus. He didn’t go to school, which is hard to believe for most people, but he had the highest respect and regard for education. Not many people who didn’t go to school appreciated education the way he did. And he trained a lot of people, his children and even people who were not his children, from other towns and villages. He made sure that they got sound education and he kept on hammering that as soon as you come out of school, you had to train other people. That was his greatest legacy.
“He accepted the Roman Catholic system because of their educational possibilities. As a matter of fact, he was the one that brought Roman Catholic to Northern Igboland and spread it up to the Middle-Belt; because I recall that St Peter and Paul Parish in Eke was controlling up to Roman Catholic Church in Mada and elsewhere in the Middle-Belt. That is a very colossal achievement for a man of his character.
“As the traditional ruler of Wawa land in those days, people had mixed feelings about him. Some people say he didn’t do well; he was terrible. Some people say he was nice; he brought civilization. And I think that he actually brought civilization to Northern Igboland.
“The cession of the coal mine to the English men, the stories of that abound; if you read the literature, you see what happened on that occasion. And he wasn’t doing those things because he was thinking personally or selfishly, the construction of the Milikin Hill Road, which he did singlehandedly; he was not doing it because he alone was going to use the road. He was doing it because it opened the frontiers of his people to actually get exposed to civilization. And a host of other things that he actually did.”
Does the name Onyeama open doors for members of the family? Mohammed believes there is no reason it should not open doors, though depending on where the individual wants the doors to open.
“Well, yes, depending on whom you are dealing with, as I said earlier on. If you meet intellectuals, doors are opened with very high expectations. And some people, when you meet them, you meet frustration because they are thinking that somehow, may be one of Onyeama’s activities or actions has inhibited them; I don’t know how that would have been possible - but these are human feelings. Basically, the good, the bad and the ugly of it all will affect you, but generally, his children, too, actually had a lot of reasons to make the name open doors.
“Take Justice Dadi Onyeama, for instance. These children projected the name to the point where it should be able to open doors. Having risen up to the World Court, there is no reason why if you identified with him, you won’t have doors opening. Then my own father, Alhaji Suleiman Onyeama, just like their father who brought Roman Catholic faith, my father brought Islam to Northern Igboland. As a matter of fact, yes, he spread Islam up to the old East Central states, and he rose to become Vice President of the Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs for Eastern Zone. He was a member of the World Muslim League. To that extent, depending on whom you are talking to, for instance, you still have doors opening. But I also think that doors opening has a lot to do with individual disposition, and where you are actually looking for the doors to open.”
But Warrant Chief Onyeama’s style of ruthless and dictatorial administration appears to be hunting his children many decades after he passed on. Dillibe confided to our reporter that there is an anti-Onyeama feeling to the extent that there is a sort of government policy, especially by the Enugu State government, to completely exclude anything Onyeama from what it is doing.
Several times the federal government had tried to give appointments or national recognition in form of post-humous national honours to few of the Onyeama family members, but the attempts were scuttled by “those who feel they should decide the fate of Enugu State.”
In the booklet produced by the Enugu State government during the Centenary celebration of Enugu under the then Governor Sullivan Chime, the name Onyeama was never mentioned anywhere. “And it was deliberate,” remarked Dillibe sadly. “How can you ignore the name that produced the first Nigerian judge to be called to the International Court?” he asked.
“And then when my brother Jeff Onyeama got a position through his friend - Chief of Staff, you saw the volcano it erupted. You saw the trouble everywhere, the infightings,” said Dillibe, who also added that when his father’s name, Justice Dadi Onyeama, was nominated for a national post-humous (CFR) honour, “the person who thought he had power over anything that happened in Enugu State at the time, after reading it, tore the list into shreds because it contained the name Onyeama.”
There has always been a rumour that Onyeama had 78 children but Dillibe said: “I think it was more like 64 identified. He had many wives, 56 wives. It’s a big family; the biggest compound in Igbo land. And I was told that he was the first Igbo man to go to England as a free man; not as a slave.”
Could it be that people are still afraid of Onyeama or they want to visit the sin of the father on the coming generations? Dillibe replied: “Chief Onyeama wielded power and he destroyed many powerful people. He cracked so many heads. He sent many to jail, many of them. We have enemies. We have enemies all round.”
One of the regrets Mohammed has about the Onyeama saga is that “the war really caused a lot of confusion in the family. First of all, it made members of the family to turn to Europe and America. A lot of them went there. There are some of my uncles I’ve never set eyes on over a long period of time - who are in the United States or United Kingdom - and they have forgotten about this place; may be, they are scared about the system here. The family is suffering from such kind of negative tendencies.
“And then the next thing one may want to talk about is that in a densely polygamous family like that, with the sudden demise of the king, a lot of ugly things happened which we have accepted as civilized persons to forget about. When the chief left, it was impossible for any single person to control the family as he did. So it introduced a lot of idiosyncrasies.”