Biafra: Good motive, wrong process – witness of Biafran surrender Chief Okeke explodes

Ochendo, Chief Simon Okeke was Chairman, Police Service Commission (PSC). An accomplished estate surveyor, in this interview with ENI CHIZARAM, reveals how his uncle provided shelter for the defunct Biafra Military Intelligence and named those who drafted the Biafra war surrender documents in 1970. He also spoke on his efforts to end Igbo marginalisation in the Police and gave his opinion on the agitations by IPOB/MASSOB. Excerpts.
The pomp of your 80 years is visible everywhere and I want to use this op-portunity to say very big congratulations to you on behalf of The AUTH-HORITY Newspapers. We celebrate you and wish you many more fruitful years. At 80, can we share your life experiences sir?
In the first place, I thank God for leading me through four decades of life with sound mind and body. When I look at some people my age and even those younger than me, some walk with aids, some of them are bent over, or stooping, some are even on wheel chairs suffering one ailment or the other. In African environment, generally it’s like that and that is why life ex-pectancy in Africa is around 50 - 60 years. If you clock 70, you are consid-ered to have done so much in terms of age. Given these, I have so many rea-sons to say thank you to God. Whatever I must have been considered to have achieved in life depends on good health and good family environment. When I consider what I have gone through in life from my childhood days in Amichi where I grew up and attended my primary school, then went to secondary school at Onitsha: Dennis Memorial Grammar School.
After that I was one of the 12 selected to go to high school at the University of Ibadan, but my father said I had to go to Awka and train as a teacher because he promised God that one of his children would be a teacher in thaanksgiving and that child was me. After crying, I went to Saint Mark’s College for my teacher training. From there to Enugu as a teacher, at the Union Boys Secondary School; I was one of the pioneer teachers there.
I taught Senator Ken Nnamani, Bishop Okoro, Senator Fidelis Okoro, Gen Ndiefo, and Engr. Ernest Ndukwe and secured a scholarship to London where I got a degree in Estate Management. When I returned, I worked with Knight Frank and Rutley, the first black to be employed by the biggest estate company in Britain. Eventually, I became the Chairman for Africa and Nigeria was the first branch that was opened after Britain. I retired in 1992 to start my own company which is called “Simon Okeke & Associates’’.
This year, Knight Frank and Rutely celebrated their 50th year anniversary and they invited me and I was the only founding member present. It was after I retired that I became the chair¬man of the Police Service Commission, finished it meritolously and now I am here doing what I like to do: writing. I write every day, I keep diary and everywhere I go, I keep a diary with me. Since I was in standard six in 1950 till today, I have been writing every day. I must summarize what I have done ev¬ery day and that is why anytime I want to write a book like when I wrote my autobiography “Just As I am”, I had so much material.
Writing the history of my family, my experiences in public service as a product of private service, I am compiling all my speeches because I have been compelled to turn it into a compendium. Writing keeps me busy so I thank God.
We gathered that you were present at the historic moment when the sur-render document that ended the Nigeria-Biafra war was drafted, signed and handed over to General Olusegun Obasanjo. Can you share the details of what transpired that day?
It was on the January 13th 1970 and news filtered around that the Com-mander of the 3rd Marine Commando was coming to Amichi, to the Office of the Directorate of Military Intelligence of Biafra, which moved from Enugu to Umuahia then, to Amichi. The building was my Uncle’s house.
On that very day in 1970, everybody was on alert and he came for them to commit the actual issue of ending the civil war into writing. On that day, apart from Colonel Benard Odogwu who was the Head of the Directorate of Military Intelligence occupying the entire building, they moved my uncle and his family out of the house to the boys’ quarters.
That day, people started arriving, dignitaries, the Chief Judge of Biafra High Court, Sir Louis Mbanefo; the Inspector-General of Biafra Police, Patrick Okeke; Col. Achuzie, one of the commanders of one of the contingents of Biafra; Brig. Amadi, who was commanding the 11th Division of the Army in the entire South and General Philip Effiong, the man Ojukwu handed over to before he left, among others.
I was there but I was not part of the drafting or signing, I was there as a member of the family. I got in¬volved when Obasanjo came but earlier before he came, all these people I mentioned came and drafted the document of surrender. They made the draft and typed it and waited for Obasanjo to come and when he came, they went up to the parlour in the first floor, executed the document, signed it and handed it over to Obasanjo. I was just a distant observer because these were the high-powered team of Biafra plus Obasanjo and his contingency that came representing Ni¬geria. They handed the document to him and after exchanging pleasantries he left for the venue of the Radio Biafra which was in Obodoukwu, in the present-day Imo state.
I followed them from behind until halfway to the boundary, myself and every other person left and they continued their journey. It was at the Radio Biafra that he made an announcement that the war had ended and
 Effiong also made an announcement. I was not there at the radio station but I heard it. So that was how the war ended and it was a very remarkable incident.
My uncle was Chief Benjamin Atu¬chukwu. It also turned out that during my 70th Birthday at Amichi with re¬spect to our earlier discussion, I took Obasanjo to the place and at that time my Uncle was still alive, he was about 91. He died three years ago. My uncle was always wishing that Obasanjo should come again and even told me to invite him. I mentioned it to Obasanjo that my Uncle was still alive and the house was still there and he also told me that he will come and see the place again after so many years. Infact it was when he came there that we took that photograph over there (poining to a photograph on the wall) with Gov Ngige, Chikason and that is me in the picture and that is my uncle. Obasanjo said the house should be called Centre for Peace, Reconcilia¬tion and Conflict Resolution.
Was that why Obasanjo made you Chairman of Police Service Commis-sion?
No! He didn’t even know about this incident before my appointment. He never knew anything about my be¬ing from Amichi or about my uncle’s house at all. I was made the chairman on 27th November 2001 and the issue of my telling Obasanjo was in 2004. I was in the plane with him going to New York for the UN General Assem¬bly when the issue of where I came from came up. So I told him it was Amichi and it was from that Amichi that he collected the symbol of surren¬der. He exclaimed. He said he thought it was Nnewi that he went to. He said he left Port Harcourt to Owerri then they escorted him to Nnewi, then they went zig-zagging and got to the place where they collected the docu¬ment, that he thought it was Nnewi, I said no it was Amichi.
At the time of this discussion I was already the chairman of Police Ser¬vice Commission. Infact that was my third year as the chairman. That was when he even knew where I was from, whatever made him to appoint me as the chairman, I don’t know. To be honest with you and I must tell you that I was more or less persuaded to take up the assignment.
I was just asked to submit my pa¬pers that I was among those consid¬ered for a federal political appoint¬ment. I asked what it was and when they said it was something that had to do with the police, I said God forbid, I will never but I was persuaded to take up the job by two principled people I respect a lot: the late Amadi Ikwe¬cheghe and Dr Alex Ekwueme.
Can we share your experiences at the PSC? Why the continued. Mar-ginalization of the Ndigbo in the Po¬lice?
It was tough; it was a really tough time I had, I must say. Being the first Chairman of the Police Service Com¬mission from the south, it had always being from the North. As at the time I came, the Igbos were nowhere. The question of marginalization was taken for granted; they were put on a spot that they will never climb up, for some mischievous reasons.
Most of the positions in the police were quotaed; I stopped quota. When you see any of them coming up, they must fabricate one story or the other and then level him or her on PDM. Then I asked them what is PDM and they said it is Pending Disciplinary Matter. They would just gang up one story or the other on the person once you reach Assistant Commissioner of Police or Deputy. Only one or two got to that level, like Ifejirika, then Eze-kwem after the war. Ezekwem got to the level of Deputy Inspector General (DIG), he was the only DIG the Igbos had. So apart from Ezekwem and If-ejirika, no Igbo man ever went up.
Igbo police officers were very much handicapped by the establishment and the authorities managing the police. So, when I came on board, in fairness I had to go back and request for all the files of those officers that were retired, dismissed or suspended. And I saw a clear obvious case of injustice and mal¬ice. I said no, then called them back and I had a big problem with that; seri¬ous problem. Then Inspector General of Police (IGP) went and reported me to the Commander-in-Chief; that I was calling back people who were retired from the police years back and who had mingled with bad people, armed robbers and so on, that am now call¬ing them back to come and serve in the police.
I kept on going to answer one case after another against me but I thank God because after all said and done, Obasanjo - no matter what anybody has to say about him - he listens to su¬perior argument. I want you to make that clear, irrespective of what anybody can say about him, he listens to superi¬or argument. Anytime I make a strong case that is incontrovertible, he will say okay, go ahead you are the chairman, you have the full power. But it wasn’t very palatable to the then IGPs.
There is another thing I must com¬mend Obasanjo for, which was part of my achievement. Those who served in the Biafra Police - you know when we were called back to Biafra from all parts of Nigeria, police officers came back and military officers also came back - at the end of the war, all those police officers who were in the Nige¬rian Police but served in Biafra Police were all dismissed. They weren’t called back, only very few of them and if you were dismissed, no retirement benefit, no pension, nothing.
I pleaded with Obasanjo when I saw that the military counterparts were given something like that, I now had something to hang on to for Obasanjo to consider about the Biafra Police who were dismissed. And he considered them eventually and instead of being dismissed, they were all retired with benefits and I made sure that I liaised with the Police Pension to make sure that the benefits were built into the budget. I also got Obasanjo to agree that where the affected officers had died, their next of kin should be paid the benefits and that was exactly what happened.
Then there is yet another thing that I got from Obasanjo. Like I said, Ndigbo were very, very down the ladder in the Police: no DIG, no AIG until I came on board. I got Obasanjo to give me six slots of DIGs for the police and what I had in mind was that anytime it was given, the appointment of who and who will be the DIGs in the police will be on zonal basis so that there will be an Igbo man in the team and that was how Onovo became a DIG and from there he became the IGP.
Obasanjo allowed it. In fact, I sat down with him and former Vice-Pres¬ident Atiku Abubakar to decide who and who should be appointed. I also made a case for the South South that South South had Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Delta and Edo in particular and they all had CPs and AIGs. Then I said in my mind that to appoint a DIG from them is not fair to Bay¬elsa and Rivers. I made a case and a very strong case which was accepted by Baba that it was better to appoint somebody from Bayelsa or Rivers because of the wealth or oil or rev¬enue we are getting from them. They only had one person in the police as a Commissioner of Police; so I made a case for that officer to be elevated to jump the level of AIG and become a DIG and it was accepted.
Who was that?
Mike Okiro. From there he became IG, and then I made a very strong ar-gument again about giving Rivers and Bayelsa a sense of belonging in the police by making their son DIG, oth¬erwise Mike Okiro would have ended up as AIG. All that and many more I did and I am very very proud of it.
•His views on greater Anambra, Biafra, continues next Sunday