A former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Professor Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, has recalled the case of a former Minister of Information and National Orientation who, he says, quietly refused an instruction from the Presidency to attack the novelist Chinua Achebe, and was dropped from the cabinet in the reshuffle that followed.
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In a post published on Saturday, 26 September 2026, he set out the episode under the heading “Emeka Chikelu: The Minister Who Refused to Give Up on His Values.”
The account begins with the 2003 general election.
“In June 2003, Njikoka/Anaocha/Dunukofia Federal Constituency in Anambra State elected a young man to the House of Representatives. His name? Emeka Chikelu,” he wrote.
He described the new legislator as a graduate of the University of Maiduguri and the University of Buckingham, and noted that his father, Owelle Gilbert Chikelu, had worked with General Olusegun Obasanjo as a federal permanent secretary and would later serve the country as an ambassador.
“In July 2003, President Obasanjo tapped Emeka Chikelu as Minister of Information and National Orientation.”
The appointment coincided, he wrote, with the onset of the crisis in Anambra State.
“It was at the beginning of a period of mayhem in Anambra State, orchestrated by Obasanjo’s acolytes, including the abduction of the governor, acts of untold violence, arson, assassination. Through it all, the President barely spoke.”
It was against that background, he wrote, that the novelist declined a national honour.
“In the midst of this, in 2004, President Obasanjo offered a high national honour to acclaimed writer, Chinualumogu Achebe. Achebe declined, memorably telling the president in November 2004: ‘Nigeria’s condition today under your watch is too dangerous for silence. I must register my disappointment and protest by declining to accept the high honour awarded me in the 2004 honours list.'”
He noted that the novelist was from Ogidi, in the same state then in crisis.
What followed is the substance of the account.
“Following this, the Presidency sought to instruct the Minister of Information to do the dirty on Achebe. He quietly declined, reminding them by his powerful example that a job may have a sell-by date but grounded values do not.”
“In a reshuffle early in the following year, Obasanjo removed Emeka Chikelu as Minister and found himself people whom he could trust to say or abuse anyone whom he wanted in the way he desired,” he wrote.
He drew the line forward to the present.
“Today, his acolytes in power in different parts of Nigeria, including especially Anambra State, shamefully re-enact the Obasanjo playbook, forgetting that they will not be in power forever. Those who credit them with knowing better mistake the book cover for its contents.”
He closed with an assessment of the former minister’s record.
“Given a choice between high office vs. his values, principle, and decency, Emeka Chikelu chose the latter. Unlike many of his peers and predecessors in high office, Emeka Chikelu has never been associated with any scandal.”
“There are very few of him left.”
The post drew responses within minutes of publication. One reader described the former minister as “one of the best persons to occupy that position of information minister.” Another asked where he is today, thanking the author for what he called an inspiring story.
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