Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria

Nnamdi Azikiwe (1879-1958)

Dr. Azikiwe, an Ibo from southeast Nigeria, managed a fair Government that was in control for an insignificant three years previously the local strains that have denoted the nation's legislative issues as far back as prompted the first of numerous military upsets. Be that as it may, as a legal counselor, political researcher, writer, political dissident, President and for a long time Nigeria's senior statesman, Dr. Azikiwe overshadowed the issues of Africa's most crowded country, achieving the uncommon status of a really national legend who came to be respected over the provincial and ethnic lines isolating his nation. 

Following quite a while of tumult for nationhood, Dr. Azikiwe moved toward becoming Governor General of the Nigerian Federation at autonomy from Britain in 1960, and President in 1963, when the nation was announced a republic.

While in office, he presented all inclusive grown-up suffrage and moved to broaden tutoring all through the nation. 

At the point when Nigeria's affable war emitted in 1967, after an unfortunate endeavor at severance drove by the Ibo general Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, Dr. Azikiwe broke positions with pioneers from his own ethnic gathering who upheld the offer to shape an autonomous country called Biafra. 

EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND 

Azikiwe was conceived in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria. His folks were Igbo; his dad Obed-Edom Chukwuemeka Azikiwe, a representative in the British Administration of Nigeria and his mom was Rachel Chinwe Azikiwe. Nnamdi signifies "My dad is alive" in the Igbo dialect. In the wake of learning at Hope Waddell Training Institute, Calabar.

also, Methodist Boys High School Lagos, Azikiwe went to the United States. While there he went to Howard University, Washington DC.

He landed in the United States in 1925, where he went to a few schools. Azikiwe earned numerous declarations and degrees, including lone ranger's and graduate degrees from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania and a moment graduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

He acted as a teacher at Lincoln before coming back to Nigeria.

In 1934 he went to the Gold Coast (now Ghana), where he established a patriot daily paper and was a guide to Kwame Nkrumah (later the primary leader of Ghana) before coming back to Nigeria in 1937. There he established and altered daily papers and furthermore turned out to be specifically associated with governmental issues, first with the Nigerian Youth Movement and later (1944) as an author of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC).

Profession and Heroic Works

Because of distributing an article on 15 May 1936, entitled "Has the African a God?" composed by I. T. A. Wallace-Johnson he was conveyed to trial on charges of subversion. In spite of the fact that he was discovered liable of the charges and condemned to a half year in jail, he was cleared on claim. He came back to Lagos, Nigeria, in 1937 and established the West African Pilot, which he utilized as a vehicle to cultivate Nigerian patriotism. He established the Zik Group of Newspapers, distributing various daily papers in urban communities the nation over. Azikiwe wound up plainly dynamic in the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM), the main truly patriot association in Nigeria. In any case, in 1941 he supported Samuel Akinsanya to be NYM contender for an empty seat in the Legislative Council, however the official chose Ernest Ikoli. Azikiwe surrendered from the NYM blaming the NYM generally Yoruba initiative for victimization the Ijebu-Yoruba individuals, Ibos and some Ijebu individuals with him and in this manner part the NYM along ethnic lines.

After an effective news coverage endeavor, Azikiwe went into governmental issues, helping to establish the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC) close by Herbert Macaulay in 1944. He turned into the secretary-general of the National Council in 1946, and was chosen to Legislative Council of Nigeria the next year. In 1951, he turned into the pioneer of the Opposition to the legislature of Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region's House of Assembly subsequent to losing the four-cornered races to the Action Group. In 1952, he moved toward the Eastern Region, and was chosen to the position of Chief Minister and in 1954 wound up plainly Premier of Nigeria's Eastern Region. On 16 November 1960, he turned into the Governor General, with Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister. Around the same time turned into the main Nigerian named to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. With the announcement of a republic in 1963, he turned into the principal President of Nigeria. In the two posts, Azikiwe's part was to a great extent stylized.

Azikiwe and his non military personnel associates were expelled from control in the military upset of 15 January 1966. He was the most noticeable government official to get away from the spate of deaths following the upset. Amid the Biafran (1967– 1970) war of withdrawal, Azikiwe turned into a representative for the incipient republic and a counselor to its pioneer Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. He changed dependability back to Nigeria amid the war and openly spoke to Ojukwu to end the war in leaflets and meetings distributed at the time.

After the war, he filled in as Chancellor of University of Lagos from 1972 to 1976. He joined the Nigerian People's Party in 1978, making unsuccessful offers for the administration in 1979 and again in 1983. He exited legislative issues automatically after the military upset on 31 December 1983. He kicked the bucket on 11 May 1996, at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, in Enugu, Enugu State, after an extended disease. He was covered in his local Onitsha.

Accomplishment and Personal Life

He was drafted into the esteemed Agbalanze society of Onitsha as Nnayelugo in 1946, a standard acknowledgment for Onitsha men of noteworthy achievement. At that point, in 1962, he turned into a moment rank red top chieftain or Ndichie Okwa as the Oziziani Obi. In 1972, he was introduced as the Owelle-Osowa-Anya of Onitsha, making him a first-rank, inherited red top aristocrat or Ndichie Ume.

In 1960, Queen Elizabeth II selected him to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom. He was consulted with the most noteworthy national respect of Grand Commander of the Federal Republic (GCFR) by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, in 1980. He has gotten fourteen privileged degrees from Nigerian, American and Liberian colleges, which incorporate Lincoln University, Storer College, Howard University, Michigan State University, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Lagos, Ahmadu Bello University, University of Ibadan, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and University of Liberia.

He was an individual from numerous associations and social orders, including Anti-Slavery Society for the insurance of Human Rights; Phi Beta Sigma organization (Mu Chapter); West African Students' Union; Onitsha Improvement Union; Zik's Athletic Club; Ekine Sekiapu Society of Buguma, Kalabari; St. John's Lodge of England; Royal Economic Society; Royal Anthropological Institute; British Association for the Advancement of Science; American Society of International Law; American Anthropological Association; American Political Science Association; American Ethnological Society; Amateur Athletic Association of Nigeria; Nigerian Swimming Association, Nigerian Boxing Board of Control; Nigerian Cricket Association; Ibo State Union; Nigerian Table Tennis Association; Nigeria Olympic Committee and British Empire and Commonwealth Games Association

Amid his lifetime, he held a few political posts, particularly in Nigeria. They incorporate Executive Committee Member of Mambili Party, Accra (1935– 37); General Secretary of National Council of Nigerian and the Cameroons (1944– 45); President of the NCNC (1946– 60); Vice-President of the Nigerian National Democratic Party (1947– 60); Member for Lagos in the Legislative Council of Nigeria (1947– 51); Member for Lagos and Leader of the Opposition in the Western House of Assembly (1952– 53) Member for Onitsha in the Eastern House of Assembly (1954– 60); Minister of Internal Affairs (Jan.– September 1954); Minister of Internal Affairs, Eastern Region (1954); Member of His Excellency Privy Council, Eastern Nigeria (1954– 59); Primer of Eastern Nigeria (1954– 59); President of the Senate of the Federation (January– November 1960); Governor-General and Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria (1960– 63); President of the Republic of Nigeria (1963– 1966); and Chairman and Presidential applicant of the Nigeria People's Party (1978– 83).

Azikiwe was effectively engaged with sports at each phase of his life, and he was fruitful in a considerable lot of the occasions that he took an interest in. They incorporate Welterweight Boxing Champion Storer College (1925– 27); High Jump champion, Howard University Inter-Scholastic Games (1926); Gold Medalist in Cross Country, Storer College (1927); Back-stroke Swimming Champion and No. 3 swimmer in Freestyle Relay group, Howard University (1928); Captain, Lincoln University Soccer Team (1930); Winner Two Miles Run, Central Inter-Collegiate Athletic Association Championships at Hampton Institute Virginia (1931); Bronze Medalist, Richmond Cross Country Marathon (1931); Gold Medalist in the 1,000 yard run, One Mile Run and Three Mile Run, Catedonian Games in Brooklyn, NY (1932); Silver Trophy victor in the Half Mile race, and Silver Cup victor in the One Mile Race, Democratic Field Day Championships, New Haven, Connecticut (1933); Runner-up (with G. K. Dorgu) at the Lagos Tennis Men's Double Championships (Division B 1938); stay man for the ZAC group which won the 50 yards Freestyle Relay at the Lagos Swimming Championships (1939).

He won letters in games (Lincoln University) and crosscountry (Storer College and Lincoln University), swimming (Howard University), and football (soccer) (Lincoln University); entered to contend in the Half-Mile Race and One-Mile keep running at the British Empire Games to speak to Nigeria, yet was dismissed by the A.A.A. of Great Britain on specialized grounds (he dropped his English Christian name, "Benjamin"); and established (with M. R. B. Ottun) of the Zik's Athletic Club to advance sports, boxing, cricket, football, swimming and tennis in Nigeria.

Passing

Nigeria's first President and a lively champion of African autonomy from European frontier govern, passed on Saturday in a healing center in his local eastern Nigeria after a long disease. He was 91.

The people of Nigeria believed that he is the hero, leader, father of nation, first president  of Nigeria.