Are you interested in knowing about the unique man for whom the street housing the US Consulate General in Victoria Island, Lagos is named? Come, let us tell you about an American of culture and ideas whose second home is Nigeria.
It isn’t every diplomat that get streets named after them in the country where they served a tour of duty. But Ambassador Walter ‘Omowale’ Carrington, who clocks 90 today, isn’t an ordinary man. God broke the mould when he made him. Affable, courageous, sincere and focussed, he appreciates everything Nigerian so much so that his better half, Arese, is from the ancient Benin City.
“That is the most fortunate thing that happened to me. I met her during the very first diplomatic function that I attended when I came in as Ambassador to Nigeria. When you arrive in a country as an Ambassador, you are firstly restricted to your community until you present your credentials. So, after I presented my credentials, I went to attend my first diplomatic function and saw this beautiful woman. I had gone there with a friend, and I said to him, ‘did you see that girl.’ And the rest is history. It is true in my case that most black Americans come to Africa to seek their heritage. I came and found my destiny,” he recalled of how he met the University of Ibadan trained medical doctor, Arese Ukpoma Carrington.
In 2016 when the Oba of Benin, Omo n’Oba n’Edo, Uku Akpolopkolo Erediauwa joined his ancestors, the diplomat didn’t forget to play his role as an in-law.
“I extend my condolences to His Royal Highness, Eheneden Erediauwa, the royal family, palace chiefs and the Benin Traditional Council. Late Oba Erediauwa lived an exemplary and selfless life not only as a civil servant but also as a leader and the king.
“As the traditional burial rites begin, may the people of the land of my in-laws be comforted… Arese and I will keep the people of Benin in our hearts and prayers,” he said in a statement.
Carrington’s cherished affair with Africa and Nigeria began in the 1950s, specifically 1952 when he came to Dakar, Senegal as a delegate of the NAACP ((National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Youth Council. His sustained relationship with Nigeria, however, began in 1959, the eve of the country’s independence.
The man born on July 24, 1930, in New York City led a group of students on a program called The Experiment in International Living. They spent a summer living with Nigerian families in Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Kano and Kaduna. On that occasion and subsequent visits when he was an official of the Peace Corps, he met many of the country’s leading lights.
All these happened after he had graduated from both Harvard College (1952) and Harvard Law School (1955) and practising Law in Massachusetts. He had also served on the three-member Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination becoming, at the age of 27, the youngest person to be appointed a commissioner in the state’s history.
Carrington returned to Africa in 1961 as one of the first overseas Directors of the Peace Corps. In 1967, he evacuated young Americans as Biafran troops advanced towards Benin City. Meanwhile, eight-year-old Arese and members of her family were stranded following an ill-timed holiday to their Benin home from Lagos, during the early days of the Civil War.
After the Peace Corps, Carrington’s professional career continued to revolve around Africa. He became a highly respected American specialist on Africa and America’s policy toward the Continent. In the 1970s, as Executive Vice President of the African-American Institute in New York, he oversaw programs that provided scholarships to hundreds of Nigerians for study in the United States. He served as publisher of the Institute’s magazine, Africa Report, which was then the leading publication on African affairs in the United States. He reported on Nigeria’s post-war efforts of reconstruction and rehabilitation. He later taught African Politics and American Foreign Policy at several universities in the United States. He has written and lectured widely on Africa and the status of African-Americans in the United States and hosted a television series, The African World. He has worked on African issues as a top staff aid in the US Congress and at the leading African-American think-tank, the Joint Centre for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC.
In 1980, President Jimmy Carter appointed Carrington as Ambassador to Senegal. 1n 1993, President Bill Clinton appointed him Ambassador to Nigeria. He arrived in Lagos a few months after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 elections presumed won by the late Chief MKO Abiola. The invalidation caused massive social unrest, finally leading to Babaginda handing power over to an interim civilian president, Chief Ernest Shonekan. Carrington arrived just in time to be the last diplomat to present his credentials to the new president because two weeks later, General Sani Abacha sent Shonekan packing in a bloodless coup.
In the four years, he served as Ambassador of the United States to Nigeria; the diplomat was an outspoken champion of human rights and Nigeria’s return to democracy and civilian rule. Despite threats to his person and family, which included assassination attempts, Carrington continued to call for the end of military rule throughout his tour in Nigeria and after returning to the United States.
He was an uncommon diplomat who openly identified with Nigerians such that they fondly named him Omowale – “the child who has returned.” After his tour of duty in Nigeria ended, Carrington continued to remain involved, doing his best to enable the country to return to democratic rule.
After the return to civilian rule in 1999, the area in Lagos on which the American and a dozen other diplomatic missions are located was renamed “Walter Carrington Crescent.” In 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo conferred upon him the national honour award of “Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR).”
In 2010 Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos hosted a State banquet in honour of Carrington’s 80th birthday. A collection of his Nigerian speeches, ‘A Duty to Speak: Refusing to Remain Silent in a Time of Tyranny’, was published in Nigeria that same year. It was launched as part of his birthday celebrations.
Three years ago, Governor Akinwumi Ambode’s administration also hosted the public presentation of Arese’s book, ‘Defend the Defenseless’. Though billed as a book event, it was more a celebration of the Carringtons for their role in Nigeria’s recent history. The world and its wife attended the event.
Earlier in 2011, the United States Consulate in Lagos established the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative (CYFI). It is described as follow on the embassy website: (http://nigeria.usembassy.gov/cyfi.html)
The Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative, CYFI, is a dynamic youth-based initiative launched in 2011 by the US Consulate General, Lagos. CYFI brings together Nigerian youth of exceptional vision, skills and experience to design and implement projects that have a positive impact on Nigerian society. Former Ambassador to Nigeria, Walter Carrington, was a champion of civil liberties, democracy and closer ties between the US and Nigeria. CYFI fellows are committed to putting the ideals of Walter Carrington into practice.
Ambassador Carrington remains keen on matters Nigeriana; hopeful that the country would get its act right and take its rightful place in the comity of nations. As he clocks 90 today, all of us at TCN wish him continued good health. Happy birthday, esteemed diplomat and lover of Nigeria.
