Recently, Dr. Nzeribe (Zeri) Ihekwaba made history. He was sworn in as the City Manager for t Homestead; a city within the greater Miami Metropolitan corridor. The city of Homestead, described as “uniquely situated as the gateway to the Everglades and Biscayne National Parks and the Florida Keys,” is in fact a suburb of Miami, and runs about forty kilometers Northwest of Key Largo. 

For many Nigerians, this is just too much information. But it does make sense. It just tells the tale of migrations, and where migrancy has taken many of us in that African, Nigerian and specifically Igbo diaspora – far from home: in unimaginable distances, where we take roots, and seem indeed to continue to thrive. This is literally, the tail-end of the United States.

What makes Dr. Ihekwaba’s journey and appointment quite unique and remarkable is the circumstance in which it is cast: although it is a majority Hispanic/Latino city, with a substantial Black/African population, Dr. Ihekwaba is the first African/American in its history to be so appointed, and to occupy the very challenging and clearly powerful seat of the city manager of this uniquely located city since its founding in 1913 – over 110 years ago.

Dr. Ihekwaba’s appointment is thus, in fact, a glass-ceiling smashing event. It reflects the powerful consequences of contemporary transitions in Black life. Nonetheless, Zeri is a thorough “Pitakwa” guy. He was born in the city of Port Harcourt in 1961 in very crucial ways. It also feels very oddly predetermined. Dr. Ihekwaba’s own father, Mr. Francis Umelo Ihekwaba, was a famous mayor of the city of Port Harcourt, from 1961-1966. 

Nzeribe was born in the year his father became the mayor of Port Harcourt. And so now, it does seem that he is fated to the same task of city building and governance, and in that tradition of public service to which he was born. He is doing this, not in Nigeria, but in America, where his incredible skills and talents have been appropriated and put to use. Let’s put this in some context: only just a generation ago, those Nigerians who went out in search of the so-called “golden fleece,” returned home to serve the land that gave them life and possibly meaning.

They were called, “been-tos.” I remember a story once told to me by the famous Nigeria scholar and literary critic, MJC Echeruo. Years later, an Emeritus Professor of Modern Letters at the University of Syracuse in up state New York, Echeruo had studied at the University College, Ibadan; rejected a post as the first Nigerian graduate officer of the Customs and Exercise, opting for what was then a more distinguished job as Assistant Lecturer of English at the new established University of Nigeria, Nsukka when it opened in 1960. From Nsukka, went to Ithaca, New York, where he studied and earned the PhD in English at Cornell. 

Now, here is the point of this story: the following day, after defense of his doctoral thesis at Cornell, Echeruo on a flight back to Nigeria. Not a day more. He had sent ahead, a shipload of his stuff, and so did not find it necessary, or inviting, to stay a day longer. He had responsibility, and a new nation, just newly decolonized waiting for his return. All hands were to be on deck, on that task of nation-building. Of course, he later had a very distinguished career as the first Nigerian Professor of English at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and the University of Ibadan, where he was also the first Nigerian to Chair the department of English, and later also the first to be Dean of the Postgraduate School of the University of Ibadan.

From Ibadan, he became the founding President of the old Imo state University, which comprises now of the Imo and Abia state Universities at Owerri and Uturu, respectively. Now, here is the point of this story: just a generation later, Nzeribe Ihekwaba would follow the same path, but the road to return would be clogged, and the possibility for a distinguished career in Nigeria was radically, incrementally diminished, and even possibly meaningless. Professional standards had collapsed. Merit had long been thrown out of the window. The work environment was in decay, particularly in the public service. Mediocrity was rampant, and so was its fall-out, corruption. The worst was lording it over the finest, and what seemed like a brazen, and very bizarre inversion of value had become very normalized. 

It was no longer talent and experience that earned you a good job, it was connections, and a note from an Army General, and soon enough, a politician. There was very little motivation for real public service. The pay was poor. Those who had returned a generation earlier were disillusioned and were rapidly fleeing Nigeria by the 1990s under military rule. They did not glimpse a future, nor the point of it all. Yet, many had traveled out of Nigeria, hoping to return, settle, make a life for themselves, raise their families, and contribute to the growth and development of contemporary Nigeria. Nzeribe Ihekwaba was one of those who hoped to sharpen his skills and return to the urgent task of nation-building. After High school at the St. Augustine Grammar School, Nkwerre, Dr. Nzeribe Ihekwaba went to study Civil Engineering at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. 

After a brief stint of work in Jos, Zeri left to pursue a doctoral in Structural and material Engineering at Queens University,  Kingston, Ontario, Canada, where he earned a PhD in 1996. Brilliant, highly driven and very proficient, Dr. Ihekwaba soon after came to Georgia, then Florida, and had since worked in various capacities, as Director of Public Works for the City of Miami,  Assistant City Manager, and then Deputy City Manager for Miami, until he was only just quite recently tapped as the City Manager of Homestead. Two weeks ago, I went to a party in Miami, organized in his honor and as much in celebration of the achievements of his wife, Judge Chiaka Ihekwaba, a judge of the Miami Dade County Court, by his friends in the Nigerian Community of Miami. 

The testimonies bear an account of a high achieving, high-performing, and high-minded Nigerian couple, laying the grounds in an inspiring way, and in ways that debunk that notion of Nigerians as coming from some “shithole” place. It was a scurrilous talk by the former American president, Trump. And it justifiably bruised the ego of many a Nigerian settler or expat in the United States. Well, it is not news that Nigerians are highly talented, and high-functioning professionals, embracing the vast opportunities of this American life. Nigerians no longer return, as did Dr. Echeruo in 1965. Now, they stay put to make the most of this American life. Yet again, Zeri Ihekwaba is a through-going Nkwerre man, whose experiences are much needed in his natal home, to bridge the chaos of city development in the great cities of the East. Last weekend, Mr. Alex C. Otti, the current “action governor” of Abia State visited the Unted States, and gave a public lecture at Johns Hopkins University. 

I hope he saw for himself, and assessed the quality of the environment in which a university must function. I hope he took some lessons and visions for properly redesigning,  equipping, and repositioning the Abia State University. I hope he took a measure of the city of Baltimore, and could see how it functions like a well-oiled engine. That is the kind of work that the likes of Zeri Ihekwaba are tapped to do: to design and keep very complex systems in these giant human arenas, not only working, but functioning like well-oiled machines. Alex Otti would do well to look in the direction of the likes of Dr. Nzeribe Ihekwaba, to help him reimagine the great cities of Aba and Umuahia. 

Indeed, a prolific contributor to the public discourse of Nigeria in Nigerian newspapers,  Dr. Ihekwaba is clearly attuned to that need, and that possibility, at least in my conversations with him, of productive partnerships between the city of Homestead and the cities in Nigeria of which he is very passionate – Port-Harcourt, Aba, Owerri, Umuahia, etc. Dr. Ihekwaba’s appointment at Homestead, quite clearly represents that important bridge across the Atlantic which ought ultimately to be mutually beneficial between the two worlds that have nurtured him.