In 2008, to further draw attention to the importance of reading to personal and national development, we decided to have prominent people read to children.
To kick off this phase of our work, we were looking for a role model. The individual had to be someone who understood what the Rainbow Book Club was trying to achieve and was willing to lend his/her weight to our ‘Get Nigeria Reading again!’ campaign, which had launched three years earlier.
Chief Emeka Anyaoku was one of those people whom I admired from afar. His remarkable career included time in Nigeria’s Foreign Service, a stint at Nigeria’s permanent mission to the United Nations in New York, serving as Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Shagari regime and an exemplary 34-year career within the Commonwealth, where he rose to the apex. Now in retirement, Anyaoku assumed the role of elder statesman, at home and abroad. My team and I decided he was the perfect fit.
My brother and friend, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, established the link for me through Chief’s son-in-law, Ayo Ighodaro. Chief Anyaoku graciously agreed accepted our proposal.
So, in commemoration of World Book and Copyright Day (April 23rd) 2008, Chief Anyaoku read a few pages of Achebe’s Things Fall Apart to a hall full of children at the UN House in Abuja. He also handed over certificates to winners of our annual essay competition. The then UNESCO Director/Country Representative (and happy host) Dr Abhimanyu Singh, mentioned to me that Chief Anyaoku was someone he had long hoped to meet.
Commenting on our work at the time Anyaoku wrote ‘I am an admirer of what the Rainbow Book Club is doing’. He matched his admiration with action by making himself available when we needed him. One such occasion was when we decided to shoot a TV advert encouraging reading. Chief agreed to participate, welcoming me and my TV crew into the living room of his Ikoyi home, to record him reading.
When Reverend Jesse Jackson delivered the keynote address at our 2011 Book Festival in Port Harcourt, Chief chaired the occasion. When I put together an anthology of fifty Nigerian authors in commemoration of Nigeria’s 50th independence anniversary in 2010, Chief Anyaoku graciously took my request to then President Jonathan to write the foreword, and he did. Two years later, when the African Union turned fifty, and I produced a similar anthology of fifty African authors, Chief wrote the foreword for me.
When we put in the bid for Port Harcourt to be World Book Capital 2014, Chief encouraged us and when we got the nomination, he was one of the first people I informed. In the course of this year-long project, I was frustrated to the point of resignation, but Chief counselled me otherwise and even attempted to intervene. We went ahead and completed the project.
When I need to see him, Chief usually gives me an appointment on any week day except one day, when, I gathered, he goes to the Lagos Metropolitan Club for the popular weekly lunch of its members. These visits, when I update him on our work – always over a cup of tea – double for me as a lesson in history as well as current affairs.
During one of those visits, eight years ago, Chief gave me a gift – an autographed copy of his memoir, The Inside Story of the Modern Commonwealth. Two years earlier, I had purchased his biography Eye of Fire: A Biography of Chief Emeka Anyaoku, by Phyllis Johnson. These books give the reader an insight into the life of the boy from Obosi who rose to head the 2nd largest global association of independent states (and held that position for ten years). In the introduction to the biography, Mandela describes Anyaoku as a ‘Master of Quiet Diplomacy’. He adds ‘the Chief also brings to the international arena that great African tradition of consensus building, that has positioned him in a key role as builder of bridges across people and nations.’ Indeed, a priority of the Commonwealth, under Anyaoku, was strengthening of intra-Commonwealth relations as well as the promotion of democracy and good governance. Emeka Ayaoku was instrumental to the eventual dismantling of the apartheid structure and establishment of democracy in South Africa.
I cannot talk about Chief without mentioning the very amiable Mrs Bunmi Anyaoku (nee Solanke). The couple got married in 1962, a year after they met and six months after he proposed on her 21st birthday. The wedding was described in a leading paper at the time as ‘an inter-tribal wedding of one of Nigeria’s most eligible bachelors, and a beautiful young lady educated in an English boarding school and Pitman College, London.’ This union is blessed with a daughter and three sons.
Anyaoku continues to serve his country. Such service, in recent times, includes chairing the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations (2000 – 2015). He was part of the team, along with Kofi Annan, who got the leading parties to commit to peaceful polls prior to Nigeria’s 2015 elections. Today, he is a strong voice in the call for re-structuring.
As we prepare for another election, Nigeria, pause and raise your glass to toast a national treasure, Eleazar Chukwuemeka Anyaoku, who turns 86 today!