Without any iota of doubt, the name, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, rings a bell across the length and breadth of Nigeria with reverberating intensity.
He meant so many things to different people, qualifying eminently as a man of many parts. By all parameters, he was a most accomplished man, a business mogul, industrialist and an unparalleled philanthropist. He was a legendary personality, a quintessential Igbo leader, an astute political chieftain and a true Nigerian patriot with the profound legacies of touching countless lives in extraordinary ways.
My initial close encounter with Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu was towards late 1994 and early 1995. Then, as a young Immigration officer, I had been redeployed from Ogun State Command to Imo State Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service. Shortly after settling down in my new command of deployment, I was engrossed with the establishment of a football club which I conceived as a platform to promote the image of Nigeria Immigration Service in the state. After assembling a team of some young talented players comprising mostly of Immigration officers and a few infusions of non-staff, and engaging a qualified football coach, we formally registered the Immigration Die-hard Football Club, as it was called, to compete for laurels in the Imo State Amateur Football League Division 1. In its first season, the team was able to prove its mettle as one of the top flight clubsides, along with the Police Machine team, which dominated amateur football before this time in the state.
Part of my strategies for building a formidable football club was to secure robust sponsorship of the team through the appointment of patrons from amongst some eminent sons of the state who had the wherewithal to support the club financially.
The first name that came to my mind was Chief Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Iwuanyanwu, the Ahaejiagamba Ndi Igbo. His reputation as a philanthropist was quite unprecedented across Igbo land. By this time, all over the country, his fame as a sports financier was only comparable to Chief M.K.O. Abiola, the acclaimed Pillar of Sports in Africa. As Chief Abiola was impacting heavily on Nigeria football through the sponsorship of the formidable Abiola Babes Football Club of Abeokuta, Chief Iwuanyanwu’s own club, the Iwuanyanwu Nationale Football Club was, from across the river Niger, doing fantastic things in the field of football not only in Nigeria, but on the African continent.
Thus, it was natural that in my calculations for the appointment of a grand patron for the newly formed daredevil amateur Immigration Die-hard Football Club of Owerri, my instinct obviously favoured the foremost sports financier and unrivalled philanthropist in the state, Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu. For the position of patron of the budding club, I opted for a young businessman and a prominent figure in Imo State, Prince Vitalis Orikeze Ajumbe.
Expectedly, Chief Iwuanyanwu wholeheartedly accepted to offer staunch support to the Immigration Die-hard Football Club of Owerri. He promised to do all that he could to facilitate the realisation of the objectives of the new clubside, especially after learning that serving Immigration officers formed the nucleus of the enterprising team.
A second opportunity I had to get very close to Chief Iwuanyanwu was akin to the first. This time, I was making attempts to initiate a foundation in memory of Nigeria’s foremost banker, the late Chief Collins Obih, who was a very close friend of the prominent business tycoon. This took place in the early part of the second half of the 90s.
As a biographer of the late Chief Collins Obih, the Ochiagha Dikenafai, I am privileged to have ample information about the iconic banker’s numerous intimate friends and associates. Chief Iwuanyanwu was one of them. In choosing eminent and successful Nigerians to serve as patrons of the foundation aimed at not only immortalising the man reputed as the Father of Nigerian banking, but at promoting the unique ideals that he stood for in his lifetime, Chief Iwuanyanwu’s name naturally emerged as one of the most fundamental and inevitable choices.
As a man who always stood up to identify with virtually all positive and laudable endeavours which had the potential and capacity to impact meaningfully on society, Chief Iwuanyanwu was the first along with Dr. Alex Ekwueme, the Second Republic Vice President of Nigeria, to accept my request to have them function as patrons of the proposed late Chief Collins Obih Foundation project.
On the occasions I visited Chief Iwuanyanwu in the mid-90s, even as a young civil servant in my early 30s, I encountered practically what the famous man prominently stood for. Beyond his extensive successes in all facets of life, he was exceptional with his gift of giving; his extraordinary habits of touching and affecting lives in the most profound ways.
To adequately understand what he truly represented in his lifetime needed the presence of any observer in his office on Monday which was his official visiting day in Owerri. His office, which was just beside his then residence in the Orji area of the Imo State capital, was usually filled with people, almost to a choking level, as scores of people thronged there to solicit for favours on a wide range of needs. The visitors comprised of the high and mighty, the poor and the needy, the middle class, academics, sports men and women, etcetera. They came from different parts of the state and beyond. Apart from the scores he would meet on a one-and-one basis, he usually attended to the majority in large batches or groups. They took their turns to narrate to the renowned philanthropist the stories precipitating their visits. He would urge everyone to be brief as he listened to their respective stories. He offered immediate cash gifts to those who needed such assistance while relevant aides were on hand to take charge of those whose needs and expectations had to follow some processes and procedures before being satisfied. The latter categories were mainly those who needed employment, scholarships, business-related needs and so on. Chief Iwuanyanwu was there for everyone, irrespective of whether he knew the fellow or not. In fact, he did not know the vast majority of Nigerians who came to solicit for his assistance. He would simply listen to you and offered to render the help he could without bothering to know the fellow’s name or where he came from. What mattered to him was that you’re a Nigerian, an Igbo in dire need.
The trend of activities did not change substantially after the relocation of his office to the Glass House- as Chief Iwuanyanwu’s landmark office edifice is known and called. My visit to him in his office many years later did not reveal any remarkable difference, even as it was not the beehive that prevailed when the economy was more buoyant, and he was younger and stronger.
Without mincing words, Chief Iwuanyanwu was the greatest philanthropist, foremost sports financier and one of the most famous entrepreneurs and influential political juggernauts to emerge from Igbo land. Essentially, he was stupendously rich, successfully building one of the most extensive business conglomerates under the Hardel and Enic Group of Companies. His business interests extended to construction, banking, real estate, shipping, aviation, media, printing and publishing, advertising, insurance, hospitality, confectionery and so on.
Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu was not just fantastically wealthy, he created so much impact and contributed enormously to national development through his vast business investments, monumental philanthropism, and as a phenomenal sports financier. He was a trailblazer, who did quite a number of things differently, leaving behind historic legacies in both living memories and the annals of our country. As a newspaper publisher, he championed a new era in the essential industry, when his Champion newspaper outfit became the pioneer in launching on the newsstands somewhat of colour publications. Though, they were not full colour print at the onset, but the shaded colour of the Champion newspaper was a refreshing improvement and an attractive milestone away from the conventional black and white colours which dominated the newspaper industry at the time.
Chief Iwuanyanwu also made history when he founded the Iwuanyanwu Nationale Football Club of Owerri by assuming sponsorship, and reforming-cum-rebranding of the Imo State-owned Spartans Football Club. Iwuanyanwu Nationale F.C. would eventually become the longest surviving privately-owned clubside in Nigeria. The club campaigned for and won national and continental honours and titles before it eventually fizzled out.
In fact, the stature and place of Chief Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu as an exceptional achiever and foremost Igbo leader cannot be contested. Little wonder, his ascendance to the office of President General of Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo at the death of his predecessor, Professor George Obiozor, was seamless. His emergence received widespread acceptance and support. In fact, majority of Ndi Igbo were only concerned about the possibility of getting his consent to occupy the revered office of the apex sociocultural body of Igbo people, considering his age at the time.
Beyond this, his foremost position in Igbo land could be gleaned from the fact that he was the most capped and honoured Igbo man in history. He did not only earn three prestigious national honour awards of the Commander of the Order of the Federal Republic (CFR), Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) and Member of the Order of the Federal Republic (MFR), he was conferred the equally prestigious and unprecedented title of Ahaejiagamba of Igbo land by traditional rulers from seven Igbo-speaking states in the country. He also bagged numerous chieftaincy titles from several communities across Igbo land.
From the 80s until his death this year, Chief Iwuanyanwu stood stoically as a great ambassador for Igbo land and people. He loved his people greatly and his people loved him beyond measure. The evidence of the massive goodwill he enjoyed in his lifetime will be made even more manifest as he is interred today in his hometown of Atta, in Ikeduru Local Government Area of Imo State. Nigerians from all walks of life and all strata of society are expected to converge on the sleepy countryside in unprecedented numbers to bid farewell to one of the greatest businessmen, philanthropists and political leaders to come from the most populous country in Sub-Saharan Africa. It’ll be obvious to the world that a colossus, a distinguished Nigerian and a noble and celebrated Igbo son would be despatched to his creator today. Iwuanyanwu’s funeral today will be a loud testament to the exceptional and worthy life of achievement and impact which he lived.
I join millions of appreciative Nigerians in echoing;
Adieu, Chief Engr. Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Iwuanyanwu!
Gaa nke oma, Ahaejiagamba Ndi Igbo!!
May God Almighty forgive your shortcomings and grant your soul eternal glory!!!
Joachim OLUMBA (Retd CIS), KSJI
(Emetumba-Dikenafai & Omekannaya-Nchoke)
