A lot have been documented and said within and outside the country about the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. However, the story of this first Governor General of Nigeria cannot be complete without the readers being given the benefits of knowing why this foremost African leader of Igbo descent from Onitsha in Anambra state rather spent the bulk of his later life in the northern part of Igbo land, precisely Nsukka in the present-day Enugu state, rather than his own home state or probably another notable city in Nigeria. Is it that he detested his paternal birthplace? In this Special Report, CHUKS NWEZE takes the readers through this somewhat puzzle that many Nigerians are not aware of.
His full names were Dr. Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Owelle of Onitsha, but was popularly known as ‘Zik of Africa’, which was a fitting appellation because of his pan Africanism.
Owelle was the chieftaincy title he got from his country home, Onitsha in Anambra state.
Zik was one of few Africans like the late Dr. Kwame Nkruma of Ghana, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and Nelson Mandela of South Africa, among others, that fought for the liberation of Africa from colonial rule following the balkanisation of the continent by the Europeans in 1885.
He was a nationalist who used many newspapers he established, especially the West African Pilot, among others, to push for Nigerian independence as well as other African countries.
This late elder statesman was known for his doggedness in fighting the British colonial administration for Nigeria to gain independence. His pan-African tendencies to unite the Continent, just the way the United States of America, the United Arab Emirate and the United Kingdom were, was the beginning of his sin against the West. Zik wanted Africa to speak with one voice in order to be liberated from the hegemony of West
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