Bianca Ojukwu Speaks On Life After Ojukwu's Death
14 hours ago
Ekerete Udoh, Nigerian journalist and a friend of the Ojukwus, interviews the widow of Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Bianca Ojukwu. She allows some insight into deeply personal, previously not explored by the media, matters of her life with one of the most prominent figures in Nigerian post-independence struggle for nation-building.
Bianca Ojukwu and late Chukwuemeka Ojukwu
In this part of the interview, Bianca Ojukwu speaks on coping with her life after husband’s death and her views on remarrying.
READ MORE: FULL INTERVIEW with Bianca Ojukwu on Vanguard
Bianca Ojukwu on her life after Ojukwu’s death
“It was almost another full year of condolence and commiseration, and when that was over, you now had to ease yourself into a new life. And I consider myself particularly lucky, because it was a transition into a new life, new opportunities, new experiences, because, after the mandatory period of mourning, I now took up the appointment as the Ambassador of Nigeria to the Kingdom of Spain, which has been particularly rewarding. I am not just the Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain, I am also Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the World Tourism Organization, which involves a lot of traveling. So, joggling the responsibilities of these two roles has made it a lot easier to cope.
“I consider myself lucky to have had him. He loved me tremendously. As I said in my tribute, he was not just a husband, he was also a friend, a mentor, and I was very protective of him. … We had such a strong bond, and I was involved in every aspect of his life. It was like two people living one life.
“It had been very challenging, but I would say that having known him so well, being able to decode, identify and to predict what his reactions would be to any circumstance made it a little easier for me. Because a lot of the organizations and communities that he was so deeply involved with feel they can count on me and expect me to play important roles – organizations like the Biafra War Veterans, among others, the Ofalas, the Igwes, the new yam festivals, and, of course, same of the institutions and research centers that he was linked with, especially those abroad, because there are so many Igbo groups abroad.
“When I saw him operate, I realized that he was cast in the mould of the revolutionaries, people like Che Guevara, Fidel Castro. He was very spartan in his way of life. He would always say to me: money is not something that you keep as a form of luxury but something you spend when you need it. He was not materialistic, money will come and go, but one’s ideological beliefs and core values remain sacrosanct. He was very much concerned about the enthronement of the ideology in the party.”
Bianca Ojukwu on staying with Ojukwu in his last hours
“I remember when doctors were asking me to leave the room when things got quite bleak, and I told them I could not leave. They thought I was getting too emotional. I told them if I didn’t leave him during the best of times, I couldn’t leave him now. I told them he was not going anywhere as long as I was holding his hands. The most traumatic point was when he could no longer hear me. Even when he was struggling to stay alive, whenever he heard my voice he would look up and smile. But when he could no longer hear me, I knew it was over, and that was very traumatic. I didn’t quite expect that the exit would be so swift.
“When they wanted to take him away, I refused and asked them to give me some time alone with him. I had some hours to reflect on our lives, and it was difficult to imagine that he was gone. Even to the Igbo nation itself, they are finding it difficult to believe that he is gone. While he was in exile, they knew he would be back at some point. But, unfortunately, this is a final exile, and it is hard to endure. It has not been easy, because my role was almost like an appendage.
Bianca Ojukwu on prospects of remarrying
“People marry, I think, not just because they need to come together, live together, raise family together. It is a rite of passage, and I think I have fulfilled my part. … I have gone through marriage, lived with what I consider a wonderful man who gave me 23 years of happiness, of fulfillment. I literally felt I was the luckiest woman to have had a man who gave me utter dedication and, above all, wonderful children. So my pledge to him is that I will devote my life to taking care of our children, raising them properly, teaching them those ideals that he cherished and held very dear and trying to carry on his legacy. So I don’t have any compelling need to remarry. And, in any case, my time is very limited; so I am trying to channel it properly towards raising my children.”
Bianca Ojukwu on her personal life since her husband’s death, and handling men’s romantic interest in her
“Nigerian men are not aggressive. They may be aggressive in business, in their career pursuits, but in that particular area of aggressively pursuing a romantic interest, I have been very impressed by the level of decency and decorum they project. … They have treated me with a lot of respect, deference. They have been protective in a way as if to say this is a treasure that we must protect. …
“My husband’s friends call me regularly to see how I am doing. I mean a lot of widows complain that that they have issues with people proposing to them. But in my own case, I must say that I have been lucky to have wonderful support system based on respect and a sense of protection. If that is a function of the respect they had for my husband, I don’t know.
“When I travel abroad, I also meet Nigerian men who are respectful. I believe that it also depends on the woman’s attitude. Sometimes, we lay blame at the doorstep of the men. But the fact is, that if you are engaged in your work, if you are a woman who has a sense of purpose, regardless of the fact that you operate in a terrain that is dominated by men, once you can hold your own, it will be difficult to fall into that quagmire where you feel you are being propositioned, or your gender is playing a derogatory role.
“Once you are not making excuses for bad performance, or not looking for a man to cover for you, for your inadequacies, once you are able to let you work speak for you, it’s a lot easier to survive and live a life of dignity. And once you don’t present yourself as a weak and defenseless woman, one to be pitied and really cuddled by a man just by a virtue of being of a weaker sex, then it’s much easier to live a life that is not being truncated by those pressures.”
ALSO READ: Bianca Ojukwu on the relationship between herself and her in-laws after husband’s death
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (4 November 1933 – 26 November 2011) was Nigerian military officer and politician. Ojukwu served as the military governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria in 1966, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970, and Nigerian politician from 1983 to 2011. His wife Bianca Ojukwu has been appointed Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain
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Sunday, November 23, 2014
Bianca Ojukwu Speaks On Life After Ojukwu's Death
14 hours ago
Ekerete Udoh, Nigerian journalist and a friend of the Ojukwus, interviews the widow of Dim Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Bianca Ojukwu. She allows some insight into deeply personal, previously not explored by the media, matters of her life with one of the most prominent figures in Nigerian post-independence struggle for nation-building.
Bianca Ojukwu and late Chukwuemeka Ojukwu
In this part of the interview, Bianca Ojukwu speaks on coping with her life after husband’s death and her views on remarrying.
READ MORE: FULL INTERVIEW with Bianca Ojukwu on Vanguard
Bianca Ojukwu on her life after Ojukwu’s death
“It was almost another full year of condolence and commiseration, and when that was over, you now had to ease yourself into a new life. And I consider myself particularly lucky, because it was a transition into a new life, new opportunities, new experiences, because, after the mandatory period of mourning, I now took up the appointment as the Ambassador of Nigeria to the Kingdom of Spain, which has been particularly rewarding. I am not just the Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain, I am also Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the World Tourism Organization, which involves a lot of traveling. So, joggling the responsibilities of these two roles has made it a lot easier to cope.
“I consider myself lucky to have had him. He loved me tremendously. As I said in my tribute, he was not just a husband, he was also a friend, a mentor, and I was very protective of him. … We had such a strong bond, and I was involved in every aspect of his life. It was like two people living one life.
“It had been very challenging, but I would say that having known him so well, being able to decode, identify and to predict what his reactions would be to any circumstance made it a little easier for me. Because a lot of the organizations and communities that he was so deeply involved with feel they can count on me and expect me to play important roles – organizations like the Biafra War Veterans, among others, the Ofalas, the Igwes, the new yam festivals, and, of course, same of the institutions and research centers that he was linked with, especially those abroad, because there are so many Igbo groups abroad.
“When I saw him operate, I realized that he was cast in the mould of the revolutionaries, people like Che Guevara, Fidel Castro. He was very spartan in his way of life. He would always say to me: money is not something that you keep as a form of luxury but something you spend when you need it. He was not materialistic, money will come and go, but one’s ideological beliefs and core values remain sacrosanct. He was very much concerned about the enthronement of the ideology in the party.”
Bianca Ojukwu on staying with Ojukwu in his last hours
“I remember when doctors were asking me to leave the room when things got quite bleak, and I told them I could not leave. They thought I was getting too emotional. I told them if I didn’t leave him during the best of times, I couldn’t leave him now. I told them he was not going anywhere as long as I was holding his hands. The most traumatic point was when he could no longer hear me. Even when he was struggling to stay alive, whenever he heard my voice he would look up and smile. But when he could no longer hear me, I knew it was over, and that was very traumatic. I didn’t quite expect that the exit would be so swift.
“When they wanted to take him away, I refused and asked them to give me some time alone with him. I had some hours to reflect on our lives, and it was difficult to imagine that he was gone. Even to the Igbo nation itself, they are finding it difficult to believe that he is gone. While he was in exile, they knew he would be back at some point. But, unfortunately, this is a final exile, and it is hard to endure. It has not been easy, because my role was almost like an appendage.
Bianca Ojukwu on prospects of remarrying
“People marry, I think, not just because they need to come together, live together, raise family together. It is a rite of passage, and I think I have fulfilled my part. … I have gone through marriage, lived with what I consider a wonderful man who gave me 23 years of happiness, of fulfillment. I literally felt I was the luckiest woman to have had a man who gave me utter dedication and, above all, wonderful children. So my pledge to him is that I will devote my life to taking care of our children, raising them properly, teaching them those ideals that he cherished and held very dear and trying to carry on his legacy. So I don’t have any compelling need to remarry. And, in any case, my time is very limited; so I am trying to channel it properly towards raising my children.”
Bianca Ojukwu on her personal life since her husband’s death, and handling men’s romantic interest in her
“Nigerian men are not aggressive. They may be aggressive in business, in their career pursuits, but in that particular area of aggressively pursuing a romantic interest, I have been very impressed by the level of decency and decorum they project. … They have treated me with a lot of respect, deference. They have been protective in a way as if to say this is a treasure that we must protect. …
“My husband’s friends call me regularly to see how I am doing. I mean a lot of widows complain that that they have issues with people proposing to them. But in my own case, I must say that I have been lucky to have wonderful support system based on respect and a sense of protection. If that is a function of the respect they had for my husband, I don’t know.
“When I travel abroad, I also meet Nigerian men who are respectful. I believe that it also depends on the woman’s attitude. Sometimes, we lay blame at the doorstep of the men. But the fact is, that if you are engaged in your work, if you are a woman who has a sense of purpose, regardless of the fact that you operate in a terrain that is dominated by men, once you can hold your own, it will be difficult to fall into that quagmire where you feel you are being propositioned, or your gender is playing a derogatory role.
“Once you are not making excuses for bad performance, or not looking for a man to cover for you, for your inadequacies, once you are able to let you work speak for you, it’s a lot easier to survive and live a life of dignity. And once you don’t present yourself as a weak and defenseless woman, one to be pitied and really cuddled by a man just by a virtue of being of a weaker sex, then it’s much easier to live a life that is not being truncated by those pressures.”
ALSO READ: Bianca Ojukwu on the relationship between herself and her in-laws after husband’s death
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (4 November 1933 – 26 November 2011) was Nigerian military officer and politician. Ojukwu served as the military governor of the Eastern Region of Nigeria in 1966, the leader of the breakaway Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970, and Nigerian politician from 1983 to 2011. His wife Bianca Ojukwu has been appointed Nigerian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain
Join Our BBM Channel: C004B286D
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Patoranking Bags First Endorsement Deal [PHOTO]
Patoranking has bagged his first endorsement deal in his music career… He shared the good news on instagram this morning “Work in silence and let the world shout your praises. First major endorsement deal signed, sealed, and delivered,” he captioned. He didn’t reveal the company he signed with.
Big Congrats To Him!
Monday, November 17, 2014
NEW JOINT: Olamide ft. Don Jazzy – Skelemba (Official Video) | Watch
Tonto Dikeh Steps Out In Green & Black ensemble Outift [PHOTOS]
Tonto dikeh rocked this outfit to an interview in a radio station.
Hit or miss?
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Yourself
Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Yourself
By Jiga.
Over the famous Greek temple at Delphi was inscribed the motto, ‘Know thyself’. But according to Ben Franklin, this is easier said than done. “There are three extremely hard things,” he wrote: “steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” To help you with this difficult task, here are ten details about yourself that may have slipped your notice.
10
Your stomach is smarter than you think
Your stomach has more neurons than many animals have in their actual brains; its collection of neurons is so complex, that some call it a “second brain” for humans. While other parts of the body – the palms of your hands, for instance – also have high levels of neurons, your stomach is unique in that it can effectively think for itself, meaning that you can digest food without having to think about it. Ever been nervous, irritable, or content for apparently no reason at all? Ever found yourself unable to concentrate after an enormous meal? Chances are, your stomach is partly to blame – all the more reason to eat wisely.
9
You are as hairy as a chimp
This statement might seem to be untrue as soon as you glance in the mirror (unless you suffer from hypertrichosis), but you are indeed as hairy as most other primates. Just like chimps, we have hair all over our bodies – only it’s much finer and shorter than that of our furry cousins. Per square inch of our body we have an average of 500-1000 hair follicles.And the hairiest creature? The sea otter puts all other animals to shame, with nearly a million hairs per square inch.
8
You are a miracle
Biology teachers often begin the year by applauding their students: “Well done,” they say. “You’ve already done the hardest thing you will ever have to do.” When the students look bemused, the teacher will explain. Everybody began as a perfectly symmetrical ball of cells – yet we’ve all ended up having a front, a back, and sides. How can a spherical cell end up forming orifices as complex as eyes, ears, and nostrils? It has to flatten, twist, and push itself into shape. This forms the first orifice you have – your anus. Typically, this becomes the biology teacher’s second joke: All humans start as arses – it’s just that some remain as arses for their whole lives.
7
You are part-virus
One of the bigger surprises unearthed by the Human Genome Project was exactly how much of our DNA has been contributed by viruses. Viruses can’t reproduce on their own – so some viruses have to insert their DNA into a host cell in order to be copied. If the virus inserts itself into a sperm or egg cell, then the resulting offspring may carry the virus DNA in every one of its cells. This has happened so often in human evolution that no less than 9% of our genome is directly derived from viruses.
6
You can’t tickle yourself
…unless you have schizophrenia. Tickling is thought to be a key part of human bonding, especially between children and their parents. When we grow up, we may come to dislike being tickled – but most people never overcome the nervous twitching and laughing that comes with another person touching us in a certain way. Yet – as we all know – we can’t tickle ourselves, since our brain knows exactly what to expect. For schizophrenics, however, it isn’t so easy to recognize the touch as belonging to themselves – many will laugh just as hard from a feather guided by their own hand.
5
Your body is younger than you are
You are changing all the time. You inhale, you exhale, you eat, and you excrete. You take in molecules and expel others constantly. If you are over the age of puberty, then it is likely that not a single part of your body ever belonged to your baby self. This leads to an interesting problem, still hotly debated by philosophers: if every part of you is different today, are you still the same person you were at birth?
4
You are partially blind
Unfortunately, your eyes have a design fault: both of them have a blind spot. This blind spot is large enough to cause problems for those who lose sight in one eye. Thankfully for most of us, the fact that we have two eyes means that the blind spots go unnoticed.
3
You can count without counting
When you are presented with groups of up to four objects, you don’t need to count them to figure out how many there are. For these small groups, you have an instinctive grasp of the number of items. Members of the Piraha tribe in Brazil don’t have any numbers in their language, and so they’re unable to count – yet even the Piraha are able to comprehend numbers up to four.
2
You may have no free will
It’s often a very violent debate: are you free to make your own decisions, or are your decisions shaped by forces beyond your control? Many arguments have been put forward on both sides of the debate, but here I will focus on the experiment carried out on a patient by Benjamin Libet.Libet, while observing the patient’s brain, told him to move his hand whenever he wished. Libet found that the brain registered a desire to move the hand, even before the man himself was aware of this desire. This suggests that we may act impulsively, without actually making a decision. It only seems to us afterwards that we did something from our own free will, since we rationalize our action after it happens.
1
You have stripes
Many mammals have stripes: cats can have very clear lines, or patches, which develop as certain cells start expressing different genes, and then pass the variation on to other cells. Humans are no different – it is simply that our stripes are usually invisible. You can usually only see these stripes – called Blaschko’s Lines – when a disease affects one type of cell, but not a neighbouring type.
Top 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Yourself
By Jiga.
Over the famous Greek temple at Delphi was inscribed the motto, ‘Know thyself’. But according to Ben Franklin, this is easier said than done. “There are three extremely hard things,” he wrote: “steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” To help you with this difficult task, here are ten details about yourself that may have slipped your notice.
10
Your stomach is smarter than you think
Your stomach has more neurons than many animals have in their actual brains; its collection of neurons is so complex, that some call it a “second brain” for humans. While other parts of the body – the palms of your hands, for instance – also have high levels of neurons, your stomach is unique in that it can effectively think for itself, meaning that you can digest food without having to think about it. Ever been nervous, irritable, or content for apparently no reason at all? Ever found yourself unable to concentrate after an enormous meal? Chances are, your stomach is partly to blame – all the more reason to eat wisely.
9
You are as hairy as a chimp
This statement might seem to be untrue as soon as you glance in the mirror (unless you suffer from hypertrichosis), but you are indeed as hairy as most other primates. Just like chimps, we have hair all over our bodies – only it’s much finer and shorter than that of our furry cousins. Per square inch of our body we have an average of 500-1000 hair follicles.And the hairiest creature? The sea otter puts all other animals to shame, with nearly a million hairs per square inch.
8
You are a miracle
Biology teachers often begin the year by applauding their students: “Well done,” they say. “You’ve already done the hardest thing you will ever have to do.” When the students look bemused, the teacher will explain. Everybody began as a perfectly symmetrical ball of cells – yet we’ve all ended up having a front, a back, and sides. How can a spherical cell end up forming orifices as complex as eyes, ears, and nostrils? It has to flatten, twist, and push itself into shape. This forms the first orifice you have – your anus. Typically, this becomes the biology teacher’s second joke: All humans start as arses – it’s just that some remain as arses for their whole lives.
7
You are part-virus
One of the bigger surprises unearthed by the Human Genome Project was exactly how much of our DNA has been contributed by viruses. Viruses can’t reproduce on their own – so some viruses have to insert their DNA into a host cell in order to be copied. If the virus inserts itself into a sperm or egg cell, then the resulting offspring may carry the virus DNA in every one of its cells. This has happened so often in human evolution that no less than 9% of our genome is directly derived from viruses.
6
You can’t tickle yourself
…unless you have schizophrenia. Tickling is thought to be a key part of human bonding, especially between children and their parents. When we grow up, we may come to dislike being tickled – but most people never overcome the nervous twitching and laughing that comes with another person touching us in a certain way. Yet – as we all know – we can’t tickle ourselves, since our brain knows exactly what to expect. For schizophrenics, however, it isn’t so easy to recognize the touch as belonging to themselves – many will laugh just as hard from a feather guided by their own hand.
5
Your body is younger than you are
You are changing all the time. You inhale, you exhale, you eat, and you excrete. You take in molecules and expel others constantly. If you are over the age of puberty, then it is likely that not a single part of your body ever belonged to your baby self. This leads to an interesting problem, still hotly debated by philosophers: if every part of you is different today, are you still the same person you were at birth?
4
You are partially blind
Unfortunately, your eyes have a design fault: both of them have a blind spot. This blind spot is large enough to cause problems for those who lose sight in one eye. Thankfully for most of us, the fact that we have two eyes means that the blind spots go unnoticed.
3
You can count without counting
When you are presented with groups of up to four objects, you don’t need to count them to figure out how many there are. For these small groups, you have an instinctive grasp of the number of items. Members of the Piraha tribe in Brazil don’t have any numbers in their language, and so they’re unable to count – yet even the Piraha are able to comprehend numbers up to four.
2
You may have no free will
It’s often a very violent debate: are you free to make your own decisions, or are your decisions shaped by forces beyond your control? Many arguments have been put forward on both sides of the debate, but here I will focus on the experiment carried out on a patient by Benjamin Libet.Libet, while observing the patient’s brain, told him to move his hand whenever he wished. Libet found that the brain registered a desire to move the hand, even before the man himself was aware of this desire. This suggests that we may act impulsively, without actually making a decision. It only seems to us afterwards that we did something from our own free will, since we rationalize our action after it happens.
1
You have stripes
Many mammals have stripes: cats can have very clear lines, or patches, which develop as certain cells start expressing different genes, and then pass the variation on to other cells. Humans are no different – it is simply that our stripes are usually invisible. You can usually only see these stripes – called Blaschko’s Lines – when a disease affects one type of cell, but not a neighbouring type.
Friday, November 14, 2014
ISIS Introduces New Currency [PHOTOS]
The Islamic States are planning to mint their own currency in gold, silver and copper, the group said Thursday. Its aim is to stay away from the “tyrant’s financial system,” ISIS said in a statement yesterday.
Lil Kesh Explains Why He Dropped ‘Female Version Of Shoki’ [READ]
Lil Kesh who is signed under Olamide’s YBNL record label thrilled fans with the debut release of his hit single Shoki. It was such a huge success that the song featuring Davido was released almost immediately after. To appreciate his female fans, Lil Kesh released the female version of Shoki featuring top notch female rapper and singers, Eva, Cynthia Morgan and Chidinma.
"No Ass or Hips Can Save My Life" - Tonto Dikeh
Actually I can’t really say the reason why Tontolet wrote that. Maybe some random girls are trying to snatch her husband.
Time will tell.
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