By Uche Obiozor
Today, August 15, 2025, Professor George Achulike Obiozor would have been 83 years old, having been born on August 15, 1942. If he were to be alive today, the newspapers would have been awash with goodwill messages eulogizing him and wishing him longer life. That can no longer happen but we can do well by creating a scenario and ask the following question: What would have been his position on things happening today were he to be alive?
Professor George Obiozor devoted his entire career as a scholar, diplomat and public servant working for the peace, unity and political stability of not only Nigeria and African but indeed the entire mankind. In the specific context of Nigeria, he was a great patriot, whose love for the nation and his people knew no bounds. He was a strong advocate of a fair and ideal society anchored on credible leadership and good governance. He also demonstrated an unalloyed zest for strengthening our capacity to actualize Nigeria’s manifest destiny. Professor Obiozor was an erudite scholar, intellectual and diplomat who served Nigeria, Ndigbo and humanity with uncommon dedication, commitment, integrity and selflessness. He was one leader who had the courage of his conviction and always expressed his views on national issues with boldness, clarity, candour and a high sense of responsibility.
Professor Obiozor was one of the few intellectuals the “Khaki Boys” took into confidence after they had discovered in him a man of his own mind, bold and with the courage to speak truth to power. He was Special Adviser to one of Nigeria’s vibrant minister of Foreign Affairs, General Ike Nwachukwu and later Special Assistant to Nigeria’s first military president, Ibrahim Babangida; before he was appointed to head one of the nation’s most strategic institutions, the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. That was at a time the country needed to keep a close watch on how the rest of the world saw and related to it. During that period, Obiozor took part in every major negotiation to either bring peace to Nigeria internally or make powerful nations and their allies keep giving her the benefit of doubt. It was, therefore, not for nothing that directly after the military era, the new civilian government that emerged drafted him to represent the country in two key strategic mission abroad; initially as Ambassador to Israel (1999 to 2003) and later the United States of America between 2004 and 2008”.
Among his kinsmen, Professor Obiozor was a thorough breed Igboman. Despite the fact that he was educated in some of the best educational institutions abroad, he never pretended over his “Igboness”. He did not show any of the mannerisms of a “Been To”. In fact, he deliberately developed an accent that immediately gave him out as an Igbo, unlike some of his contemporaries who struggled to be seen as more Oyibo than the Oyibo themselves. He was at home with both the low and the mighty.
On January 9, 2021, his Igbo kinsmen found him worthy of being made to lead them as their head of the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization, the Ohaneze Ndigbo. Given his unashamed Igboness, some people outside feared that he was going to play the irredentist card. But they were proved wrong. Professor George took to his assignment as the president-general of Ohaneze Ndigbo from a nationalist and patriotic vista. As a matter of fact, he took up that mantle at a time some restive Igbo youths – the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), to be specific – were neck deep into their advocacy for a separate Igbo nation in the form of “Biafra”.
So, the question was: How would a fellow known for his nationalistic and patriotic candour cope with a separatist movement by his own kinsmen who, on the other hand, he loved and cherished so much. But that was not a problem at all for him. He was not in any quagmire. He was as forthright in telling the rest of Nigeria that his Igbo kinsmen are committed to the unity of Nigeria as he was in admonishing the former that they are better off in a larger, united and peaceful Nigeria. His buzz phrase was “Igbo Are Not At War With Nigeria”.
Once asked on national television how he was coping with the two apparently antithical ends, he said: “the IPOB boys are our children and we cannot deny them” but he quickly gave a caveat, which was that the agitators should “listen to good counsel from their elders”. Probed further as to whether Ohaneze Ndigbo which he led believed in the agitation for Biafra, Professor Obiozor gave an answer which many analysts promptly dubbed as “classical” description of the existential challenges confronting Nigeria. He had said: “There is Biafra in anyone looking for justice,” explaining further that “so long as injustice is meted to people in any part of the country, sentiments like Biafra are bound to arise irrespective of tribe, religion or geography”.
Back to the question we posed earlier, what would have been Professor Obiozor’s response to the questions above were he still alive and confronted with the same issues? One can state without any fear of contradiction that he would have given precisely the same answers but would have most probably added that there is a silver lining in the horizon. Even though he was not into partisan politics, “Prof”, as many of us fondly called him, would have acknowledged the efforts being made under the current dispensation to address the issue of injustice. He would have, for example, acknowledged the coming up of the Southeast Development Commission (SEDC) under the President Tinubu administration to address the peculiar needs of the people of the Southeast.
He would have acknowledged the fact that unlike the time he gave those posers, the Southeast is no longer as volatile as it used to be, thanks to the efforts of state governments especially his home state, Imo. Professor Obiozr did not witness the removal of fuel subsidy and its consequences but he would have unequivocally stated that it was the only way to go. He would have acknowledged that Nigerians are passing through hardship, but he would have reminded his Igbo kinsmen, for example, that they once manufactured Ogbunigwe and refined crude oil with little or nothing.
Professor George became a direct victim of the spate of contrived insecurity in his home state, Imo, with the razing of his country home in Awo-Omama on March 21, 2022, about nine months before his death. But were he to be alive today, Prof would have given kudos to his friend and mentee, Senator Hope Uzodimma, the governor of the state who, out of sheer determination and forthrightness, returned normalcy to his home town, Awo-Omama and other parts of the Oru-East local government area which were so volatile that many were scared to attend his funeral. Professor Obiozor would have felt quite vindicated seeing that the roads linking the state capital, Owerri, with all the main geo-political blocs in the state no longer pose nightmares to residents; with rehabilitation works also going on in nearly every nook and cranny of the hinter lands.
Professor George Obiozor, as already noted was not a politician but from him came one of the most famous theories on politics. He described politics, to paraphrase him, as a concentric circle of intrigues wherein the last set of conspirators emerges victorious. Were he to be alive today and asked if he still found his postulation relevant, he most probably would have said, “the conspirators are becoming even more audacious”.
• Obiozor is the General Manager, Imo Transport Corporation.
