Lagos lawyer, and scion of the Ernest Ikoli family, Chief Anthony George-Ikoli SAN at the weekend extol the virtues of the late Prof George Obiozor, the President General, Oha na Eze Ndigbo whose death was announced midweek, calling it “the uprooting of an Iroko,from the dwindling offerings of the forest”.
The late Prof Obiozor was a former Director-General of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs. He also served as Nigerian Ambassador to the United States, Israel, and High Commissioner to the Republic of Cyprus.
George-Ikoli said: “The Ogene Ndigbo; Professor George Obizor, has journeyed to The Land behind the blighted barn. A griot in the truest sense of that word has returned to the abode from whence he came; the Achebe’s “Wanchinchi” land of the wizened and white haired spirit men”.
Ikoli is the first Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) from Bayelsa State and a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice.
He said Prof Obiozor, “a rich library has succumbed to the immutable law; the ravaging and unstoppable journey of time, that all flesh shall travel. A rich feast for the cleansers of the land”.
“His market days here were profitable; his wares were ideas and from sunup on Eke , through Nkwo to dusk on Orie, the teacher of Professors, “currencied “service to Nigeria through his ndigboness. I had the privilege of making his acquaintance at an oil and gas conference in America; and on learning that we shared the same name; that royal name of kings, George, and more still that I am the inheritor, guardian and tenderer of the Ernest Ikoli flame, he became expansive still. His rich and unpretentious voice cadenced in reminiscences of an Ikoli Nigeria; now becoming a suffocated and suffocating land, that was even then gradually fading and capable of being experienced only in the withering dreams of the now arthritic avatars”, he stated further.
He wondered: “Were his labours done, or indeed, did and has this land, that “was once a country “felled” another guiding hand? Maybe so; but only the welcoming party at the wanchinchi land can tell us;
His candle was not snuffed out at dawn by the willowing wind, but he became an elder and gave commodious shoulders for the questioning quests of the disoriented Ndigbos. Unrequited, his wailings at dusk may have been, but he will be triumphant in the company of the denizens of the land of the Wanchichis; for whilst he graced this land of Nigeria; he danced, gracefully and like a true warrior, to the pulsating beat and call of the ikoro, searching, and seeking answers to the roiling issues of the market land;
Now the beat has been muted, but the quest of Ndigbo remains in flight, and matching; the flywisk has dropped from the veined hands of Prof George Obiozor, and Ndigbo asks; whence come another for his big shoes to claim. Kachifo sir”.
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