Great Igbos: Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe (1904-1994)
Author: Amechi MadukwePosted on Oct 08 2009
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The late Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe or ‘Zik’ was Nigeria’s first president. Before that he was a major player in the Nigerian independence movement and a founder of Nigeria’s first purpose-built university, the University of Nigeria at Nsukka. Journalist, author, publisher and politician, Zik’s achievements were many throughout a long and active life.
Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe was born on November 16, 1904 in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria (now Niger State). His parents hailed from Onitsha, and young Benjamin was raised largely by his paternal grandmother in Onitsha from whom he absorbed ancient Igbo customs and folklore. He had his secondary schooling in Lagos before going to America. Azikiwe studied political science at Howard and Lincoln universities in the 1920s and 1930s. During his time in the U.S, he dropped the Christian name Benjamin, and acquired the nickname “Zik”. Having been tutored in the culture of the Igbo’s by his grandmother and other relatives, Azikiwe came to recognize the dichotomy of the two worlds in which he was part; that of the contemporary educated African and tribal traditions. He vowed never to sacrifice one for the other.
In 1937, Azikiwe returned to Lagos founding his own paper the West African Pilot. On the political front, Zik was a founding member of the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, the dominant political party in the East. Azikiwe became Governor of the Eastern Region in 1954.
Zik was briefly president of the Nigerian Senate in 1959-60. On October. 1, 1960, Nigeria became independent, and Dr Azikiwe was appointed governor-general. Three years later Nigeria became a republic, and Dr. Azikiwe was named its first president, a position he held until Jan. 15, 1966 when a military coup deposed the civilian administration. Zik was out of the country at the time and did not return to Nigeria for many months.
In the Nigerian civil war (1967-1970), Azikiwe at first reluctantly supported Biafra, but in August 1969 he controversially switched sides and came out in favour of a united Nigeria. After the war he lived quietly, mainly concentrating on his many business ventures.
Azikiwe was the Nigeria People's Party (NPP) presidential candidate in the elections of 1979 and 1983. In 1989 some malicious people from Onitsha spread a false story that Zik had died, it was reported widely on places like BBC World Service and newspapers across the world. This meant that when he did eventually pass on, Western journalists were reluctant to report it.
The people of Onitsha never forgot their most famous son, and in later years he was made the ‘Owelle of Onitsha’, Dr Azikiwe died at the university hospital named in his honour at Nsukka on May 11, 1996 following a long illness.
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