Remembering Zik in a Season of Mourning

By Max Amuchie/Business Day

On Tuesday, May 11 Nigeria was in a mourning mood. Many official activities had been either suspended or scaled down to observe the one week of national mourned declared by the government for the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, who died five days earlier in Aso Rock.

May 11 every year is set aside by Ohanaeze Ndigbo to remember the father of modern Nigeria, Nnamdi Azikiwe, who died on that day in 1996. This year’s Zik symposium organized by Ndigbo Lagos took place at the Lagos Resource Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, a smaller venue compared to the more elaborate outing that the Zik memorial has been known for over the years.

Kalu Onuma, administrative secretary of Ndibgo Lagos, explained that the organizers opted for the Lagos Resource Centre instead of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) in diference to the mood of the nation. Before Mbazulike Amechi, a member of the pre-independence Zikist Movement, who was guest speaker, mounted the rostrum, there was a film show on Azikiwe’s exploits as a nationalist and sports man. At the end of the film, many people in the audience shook their heads apparently disappointed about how Nigeria has followed a wrong development trajectory different from the dreams of the founding fathers like Zik. Amechi’s lecture was thought provoking as it was magisterial.
Nnamdi Azikwe

Amechi, popularly known as the ‘The boy is good’ in the days of the fight for Nigeria’s independence, talked about Zik’s background and how his cosmopolitan upbringing shaped his worldview. “Because he was born in the North, educated in the East and the West and could speak Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa and Efik Languages, Zik grew up and saw himself simply as a Nigeria child. We may mark this for Zik’s liberal attitude towards One Nigeria and his consuming passion for the unity of the country. His taking part in congregational prayers and modes of worship in the different Christian dominations also helped to prepare him for an enlightened liberal attitude to religion and human relations. Infact when he assumed the mantle of national leadership, he took time to study the Islamic Q’uran and he could quote the chapters and verses of the Q’uran as Muslim Maitama Sule of Kano can quote the Christian Bible.

“After his secondary education in Nigeria, Zik found his way to America in quest of the golden fleece. After harsh and daunting experiences in Storer College, Pittsburgh, he studied at the Howard and Lincoln Universities where he acquired degrees in political science,” he said.

He told the audience about Zik’s contribution to Nigerian journalism with his chains of newspapers. He declared: “Dr. Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in 1935 after a brief spell in Ghana (then known as Gold Coast). In Nigeria he found out that the people lacked education and political consciousness. In order to arouse the political consciousness of the people, he proceeded to set up newspapers. He established the West African Pilot in Lagos, Southern Nigerian Defender in Ibadan, Eastern Nigerian Guardian in Port Harcourt, Nigerian Spokesman in Onitsha, Daily Comet in Lagos (later transferred to Kano to aid nationalist Aminu Kano’s NEPU) and the Eastern Sentinel in Enugu.”

He said Zik picked youths who had no experience or formal training in journalism and trained them to run the newspapers. Most of them rose to become the great names in Nigerian journalism, including that one can find printed in letters of gold in the annals of journalism in people like Increase Coker, Ebun Adesioye, A.K. Blankson, A.Y.S. Tinubu, Abiodun Aloba, Stephen Iweanya, Herbert Unegbu, M.C.K. Ajuluchukwu, Tony Enahoro, Magaji Danbatta, Za’adu Zungur, Peter Osugo, Babatunde Jose and A.K. Disu. “This core of pioneer journalists represented the entire geography of Nigeria and reflected no ethnic or regional boundaries. This is a strong evidence that Zik saw Nigeria as one large family and not the hazy contraption of not very friendly tribes and tongues as we have now,” Amechi said ruefully.

The guest lecturer delved into the political history of Nigeria, how Zik teamed up with the late Herbert Macaulay, founder of Nigeria’s first truly national political party, the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (later National Council of Nigerian Citizens NCNC) and how Zik took over leadership of the party when Macaulay died in 1947

He took audience on the memory lane on the carpet crossing in the Western House of Assembly in 1952 that denied Zik premiership of the Western Region when legislators elected on the platform of NCNC crossed the carpet to join the defunct Action Group founded by the late Obafemi Awolowo.

Amechi talked about how Zik sacrificed the position of prime minister of Nigeria in order to persuade the north to vote for independence in 1960 because the British had said if any region voted against independence they would delay granting Nigeria independence on October 1, 1960. The north, according to him, had given as condition for going along with the south on the independence question the concession of the position of prime minister.

He talked about Zik’s effort to become president in 1979 with Shehu Shagari as his running mate and how that effort was thwarted by opportunists who convinced Zik to dump the agreement already reached with the National Movement which transformed into the defunct National Party of Nigeria, the ruling party in the second republic. He called on Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural organization to organise a befitting burial for all Igbo heroes who died in during the Nigeria Civil War

Amechi received a standing ovation after his lecture. Raph Uweche, president of Ohanaeze said there had had been effort in giving Igbo heroes burial. He thanked Amechi for his inspiring lecture.

Ben Obi, vice presidential running mate of the Action Congress in the 2007 election, spoke about Nigerian politics and the efforts he made to get Igbos in the scheme of things when he was special adviser to ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Other speakers talked about the need for the elderly in Igboland to groom the youth to be future leaders.

Rediscovering the UNN

By Emeka Nwosu/This Day/All Africa

Lagos — My recent trip to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), the great citadel of learning located within the ambience of a conclave of seven rolling hills was a good home coming of a sort, being the second time I was visiting the institution 26 years after graduation.

The previous trip was in 1996 during the funeral ceremonies of the founder of the University, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the Owelle of Onitsha and Great Zik of Africa. On that occasion, I was detailed by the Daily Times in my capacity as the Political Editor to cover the momentous event.

By that singular responsibility, I followed the funeral train from Lagos through Abuja and Nsukka to the Inosi Onira Retreat, Onitsha, the final resting place of the great African Nationalist.

By coincidence, my recent trip to Nsukka was as a result of another funeral involving the mother of Dr. Emeka Enejere, a renowned Political Operator, who incidentally was my lecturer in the Department of Political Science.

I took advantage of the funeral which was happening at Ibagwa Aka, on the outskirts of the University town, to undertake a first hand visit to my great alma mater.

To say the least, the picture that greeted me was not cheering enough. It is true that some major strides had been made over time to reposition the University infrastructure wise, the present state in which I found this great citadel of learning leaves much to be desired.

It would appear that after the exit of Professor Frank Ndili as the Vice Chancellor in 1985, whose tenure could be likened to the golden era in the history of the institution, the UNN has found itself in a state of arrested development. Except perhaps for some modest achievements that were reportedly recorded by the immediate past Vice Chancellor, Professor Chinedu Nebo, the degradation and degeneration in existing infrastructure remain very appalling.

Nevertheless, I can report that some key structures that were initiated by Ndili which defied succeeding administrations had been conclusively completed. My investigations revealed that the feat was recorded by Nebo. They include the Nnamdi Azikiwe Library, reputed as the largest in Africa, South of the Sahara; the Arts Theatre; Faculty Building for the Social Sciences etc.

Other areas where impressive achievements had been recorded are the sporting facilities on the campus. They include the famous Akanu Ibiam Sports Stadium, the Olympic size swimming pool and several training pitches etc.

Beyond these, it was observed that some serious decay had eaten deep into the University. It is sad and regrettable to note that 40 years after the Civil War, the vast landscape of the University is still dotted with abandoned structures including those that were destroyed during the Nigeria-Biafra War.

There is no reason on earth why structures that were conceived to enhance learning and research should still be allowed to remain in their derelict form 43 years after the end of the war, unless they are being preserved for succeeding generations as the physical evidence of the defeat of Ndigbo by the victorious Federal forces.

It saddens the heart to see the majestic Library Building within the Ziks Flats Hostels, Onuiyi Haven donated by the Great Zik of Africa along with the flats to the University still standing as a carcass more than 43 years after it was looted and destroyed by the invading federal troops.

We want to know from the University authorities why this is the case. For Christ sake, why can't that building be restored to its original status? Is there any legal instrument that imposed any restrictions on the restoration and rehabilitation of the structures destroyed in the University as a result of the unfortunate Civil War?

The popular Princess Alexandria Auditorium, which was the Centre of intellectual activism in the University before the War, suffered a similar fate. For ages, the roof of the building blown off during the war could not be replaced. It remained in that condition for a very long time.

We the alumni of this great citadel of learning that was conceived to restore the dignity of man cannot shy away from asking the necessary questions. Unless there is a legal instrument somewhere that ties the hands of the succeeding Governing Councils of the institution, the University authorities owe the UNN alumni movement and in deed Nigerians an explanation on why some of the infrastructure on campus have remained decadent.

I also wish to report that the entire Ziks Flats which at the moment house female students are in a state of disrepair. Until not long ago, the Ziks Flats were the abode of fresh male undergraduates coming into the University for the first time. That place, from what I saw, is no longer fit for human habitation.

The inhabiting students need to be evacuated from the area to make room for total reconstruction and rehabilitation.

Even, the several hostels that dot the campus are in vey bad shape. Those that cry for urgent attention are Akpabio Hall, Isa Kaita, Okeke, Okpara, Balewa and Mary Slessor.

I also observed with disgust that the Students' Union Building and the adjoining Multi Purpose Block initiated in 1982 are still standing at the heart of the campus as abandoned projects.

For those that graduated from the University several decades ago, they would be surprised to see that temporary wooden structures otherwise known as prefab buildings are still very much pronounced. For instance, the Medical Center still operates from makeshift structures in the name of prefab buildings. This certainly is not dignifying.

The current Governing Council of the University must initiate moves to apprehend the prevailing decay on campus. Excuses for non-performance will be unacceptable.

To the glory of God, an alumnus of the University, Dr. Sam Egwu, is the Federal Minister of Education. Admittedly, he holds a national position of trust; he also has a moral responsibility to his alma mater which is a federal institution.

As an institution crippled by the war, I am not away that the University has benefited from any Marshal Plan by the Federal Government to upgrade its facilities. A case can be made for the setting up of a Special Fund for the purpose of mitigating the lingering effects of the war damages.

Dr. Egwu, as a 'Great Lion', has a big role to play in this respect. It is my prayer that Go will give him the enabling grace to do so.

The new Zikist movement

By Obi Nwakanma, Vanguard Newspapers

On February 28, I was a guest speaker at the Anambra State Association Black History month symposium on Nnamdi Azikiwe in Dallas. It was an apt and proper celebration of the life of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, a true giant of the 20th century.
In choosing to celebrate Azikiwe’s contribution, it struck me that the leadership of the Anambra state Association in the Dallas/Forth Worth area had a fine sense of history. This much I told Nnaerika Okonkwo, nuclear reactor inspector - whose father, the legendary Okonkwo Kano, was a formidable Zikist himself.

They brought together Dr. Chudi Uwazurike of the City University of New York, Dr. Assensoh of Indiana University, the Houston based publisher of the USAfrica on-line newspaper, Chido Nwangwu, Mrs. Oyibo Odinamadu and I, to reflect on the value of Zikist history and on Zikism. Azikiwe was a man who played on the world stage.

In the emergence of radical black internationalism in the 20th century he will be regarded alongside WEB Dubois, Marcus Garvey, George Padmore, CLR James, and the younger Kwame Nkrumah who followed Zik, as the leaders of the black world in that century who gave the push for the emancipation of the black peoples of the world from the abjection of history.

The fruits and vision of their struggle, with that movement that began in the 18th century with Olaudah Equiano and in the 19th century by Edward Blyden, have started to ripen and crystallize in the emergence of Mr. Barrack Obama in the White House.

But while it does seem that everywhere else progress is being made, the changes towards the emergence of new terms of relationship with Africa and the black world seems to be hampered by a clayfooted Nigeria. Nigeria has been called a crippled giant and is increasingly dismissed as irrelevant.

Nigeria was once “the great black hope,” but today, listening to diasporic Africans and other people in the world, it is clear that this once bright hope has been reduced to a laughing stock: Nigeria is like the idiot king, “Temugedege” in J.P. Clark’s classic play, Oziddi: self-regarding, but incapable of a singular redemptive act worthy to memory. Why did the light depart from this nation?

A full reading of Nigeria’s history ought to properly situate the Nigerian crisis of nationhood, and thus place squarely on the genealogy of events, where, as the novelist Achebe would say, the rain began to beat us. It would also, hopefully, provide some exemplary direction towards a new movement that should free Nigerians from the current situation of internal colonialism.

That, indeed, is the state of affairs: the contemporary crisis of nation in Africa in general and in Nigeria in particular is the result of an arrangement that has basically substituted one form of colonialism with another.

It has also reduced the meaning of nation. Where Nnamdi Azikiwe and his group conceived of the nation as transcendent, those who opposed him, with the active and subversive support of Great Britain, saw a more narrow meaning of nation.

We must be clear on this, especially in the light of the various revisionist rhetoric that has started to forcefully emerge from certain quarters, which tends to obscure the truth for a new generation of Nigerians, in whose interest it is to know the truth and be freed by it.

For instance, the recent celebration of the centenary of Obafemi Awolowo obscures the fact, in the bid to make him a “nationalist” of the Nigerian mould, that Awo was not part of the anti-colonial nationalist movement.

He was a student in London and a member of the British Labour Party in the crucial period, and he was inseminated suddenly into the nationalist discourse at the very intriguing moment between 1948 and 1951, when the negotiations on the form decolonization would take began after the argument had been won by the nationalists, circa 1945.

In a bid to create politically correct narrative of nation, even newspapers now declare the Sarduana of Sokoto a “Nigerian statesman and nationalist.” He was not. The Sarduana was on record to oppose Nigerian Independence and had no sense of Nigeria as organic and transcendent. Contemporary Nigerian history is based on such utterly laughable revisionisms.

Far little is said now about the Zikists - those who led the agitation for a free nation: Adegoke Adelabu, Saad Zungur, Raji Abdalla, Mbonu Ojike, Aminu Kano, Nwafor Orizu, Olu Akinfosile, Michael Imoudu, Denis Osadebe, Ozuomba Mbadiwe, Humphrey Omo-Osagie, Adeniran Ogunsaya, Eyo Ita - and so many more, who led the agitation for the postcolonial nation, but did not come to power to translate their dreams.


They rallied under the banner of Zikism and gave the British colonialists hell. But it is this attempt to elide the truth of Nigerian history and create great fictions and great fictional heroes out of it that has made it impossible to tar the real anti-heroes with the brush they deserve.

Not all who have come to the national stage and to national prominence deserve the plaudits we now endow on even some of the most criminal elements that have forced their ways unto Nigeria’s national political leadership, ruined the nation, and furthered the course of domestic colonization.

It is imperative for a new generation therefore to actively seek an unveiling of this history. It is also in the interest of this new generation to renew the Zikist movement and its compact to constitute the Nigerian nation and to rescue it from the bondage of ages.

The current situation in Nigeria is clearly the result of the defeat of Azikiwe and his group in the postcolonial period, starting from the crucial phase of negotiations leading towards independence in the 1950s. Kenneth W.J. Post and George Jenkin’s book on Adegoke Adelabu, The Price of Liberty (CUP, 1973) gives a crucial detail of some of the shenanigans at the London Conference in 1957 with the colonial secretary, Lenox-Boyd.

Those who opposed the Zikist vision of Nigeria triumphed, forced the nation towards its current direction, and subverted the dream so central in the agitation for freedom which the leadership of the anti-colonial Independence movement in Nigeria saw as sine qua non to freedom.

It is clear that Nnamdi Azikiwe’s return from the United States in 1935 introduced a systematic agitation in West Africa that rattled the British and the colonial office.

Prior to Azikiwe’s return much of what passed as engagement with the British was beggarly, accomodationist, and impotent. It basically sought elite guarantees; a bit more pork for the elite; parity in senior service positions.

It took Azikiwe to deploy a vast media network and new campaign strategies to mobilize the grassroots, connect with ordinary folk, disseminate an idea of new nation, create a popular movement that fully mobilized the energy of Nigeria for the first and possibly the last time.

This is the lesson that a new, visionary leadership must learn in order to awaken Nigerians from their current stupor. A new Zikist movement must re-engage Nigeria on the terms of Zikism, outlined in his great, catechismal book, Renascent Africa: Economic determinism, Political Freedom, Mental Freedom, and spiritual balance.

Ikejiani: Remembering His Tribute To Zik

Ikejiani: Remembering his tribute to Zik
DAILY CHAMPION LAGOS

Okechukwu Ikejiani. Image via Ekwenche


News of the passing of one of the titans of modern Nigeria, Okechukwu Ikejiani, MD brought back memories of our first meeting over 12 years ago. That had been at the Lincoln University in Pennsylvania , as preparation for the return of the Great Zik, then almost 90 years old, to his alma mater, got under way. The late Vice Chancellor Prof. Chimere Ikoku called me from Enugu to know if I knew who Ikejiani was and whether I could reach him to start getting ready because for sure, Zik was coming, and after the US, he would be visiting with him in Nova Scotia.

That had been late in February or so. The Owelle, frankly, was far more concerned with seeing his two youngest sons graduate from Lincoln But word got out and the rest, as they say, was destined to become but history. As he had known all his life since his thirties, he was always one to attract more than a passing attention. Once Dr. Niara Sudarkasa, the president, secured commitment that the old legend was willing to travel, she could not believe the signals that went all over the world, commencing a series of activities that would occupy the small but historic campus for three long years. I know, because on recommendation as a past Nsukka alumnus and current university teacher with media and literary interests, I could be of help.

Indeed it was quite something to see the stirrings coming in from all quarters â€" the American government, Black American sororities who hadn’t seen ‘brother Zeek’ in ages, the Abacha government that was seeking its own legitimacy in the wake of its draconian hangman policies (having executed Ken Saro-Wiwa, chased 1993 election winner Moshood K.O. Abiola into exile, imprisoned Olusegun Obasanjo, clamped down on Shehu Yar’Adua and set up a murderous task force under one Major Mustafa);. There were the jostling Nigerian groups of all persuasions; the US media getting wind that one of the last of the great pan-Africanists was still alive and headed across the Atlantic , began making frantic inquiries. From the academic world came strong interests from US, British and Canadian scholars usually grouped around the African Studies Association. Same with Nigerian academics all over North America .

Trust Nigerian politicians and heavyweights anyone who could find a way to glimpse what was afoot, made an effort to what was really a small private visit with a reception being planned. Vice President Alex Ekwueme, Vice Chancellor Chimere Ikoku, Chief Sunny Odogwu, Princess Alakijia, Ambassador M. Kazaure, Chief Opral Shobowale Benson, Ambassador Ibrahim Gambari, Ambassador George Obiozor, by the scores they arrived. Even Chief MKO Abiola, then in exile from Abacha’s clutches, showed up unannounced and I was dispatched to interrogate his intentions along with Zik’s private secretary Okolo. Leading scholars like Ali Mazrui, Chinua Achebe, Michael Echeruo, Emmanuel Obiechina, leading American academics such as Harvard’s Martin Kilson, Richard Sklar of UCLA and many others

Crowds galore, the conference of reminiscences that I co-chaired (more like emceed really) with Sudarkasa, was a raucous one with the hall being rent with chants of Zeek! Zeeek!

In all that convivial atmosphere of reunion, pan-Africanist reminiscences and the high-politics of US-Nigeria relations then at their lowest ebbs, one man stood out above everyone else as the Owelle’s personal associate, friend and boon companion the dapper elderly gentleman in thick glasses, a nice suit with a cut that bespoke 1950s elegance, and a quiet sense of confidence that this was a historic enough of an occasion to warrant a break from his solitude. They pointed out the legendary Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani to me, one of those stand-outs from the 1959s and 1960s whose name I believe I first heard from Ikenna Nzimiro as we once browsed the books in his extensive library of which he had been so proud. It was only later that I came to know that the future minister, Prof. Miriam Ikejiani-Clark (Miriam Okadigbo in those days and wife of the flamboyant former adviser to President Shagari, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo), was his daughter.

Zik would be back again the next year to see his last boy get his laurels before heading to law school, at a quieter gathering, but Ikejiani would also come along with his friend, as would Ekpechi. That was in 1995. Zik died in 1996. In 1997, Lincoln would again host the world to a final assessment of the author of ˜Renascent African, the man whom everyone from J.S. Tarka would call the single most important man in Nigerian history and T.O.S. Benson would in his recent biography, recall as the tallest tree in the Nigerian political jungle. And that would witness an even bigger parade of dignitaries from far and wide Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Shehu Shagari of Nigeria, former Petroleum minister Shettima Ali Munguno, Prof. Adebayo Adedeji, the Oni of Ife, Benson himself, the Emir of Kano Ado Bayero, ambassadors from East and West Africa, scores of academics, politicians, African American pan-Africanists, some of whom had been to the famed Manchester pan-African congress of 1945 and were very much aware of Zik’s grand influence.

Ikejiani was not able to attend that final conference, being sick already 80 at the time, the frequent flyer lifestyle was one he needed to put in check. But he had been with us in 1996 when I brought him over to be keynote speaker at the memorial the Nigerian community held for Zik at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine at Columbia University . Then he had spent the weekend with crowds cramming my sitting room as he reflected on an age that was already becoming mythical a mere half century later.

It was in that spirit that I had convinced him to write the Foreword to my book on Zik, The Man Called Zik of New Africa: A Portrait of Nigeria’s Pan-Africanist Statesman (the title was modified for the second edition). I recall the foregoing piece of history because of its relationship to Ikejiani who should be remembered, not just for his many other sterling attainments as medical director at Glace Bay Hospital, Canada; as a former Pro-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, as author, Education in Nigeria, as chairman of the Nigerian railways when it actually worked, and as a humanist whose training in medicine belied a larger intellectual capability. I recall also a man of culture, dignity and sense of history. A man of character, too. His account of Zik’s generosity in opening the doors to higher education and sponsoring as many as he could for the trans-Atlantic quest for the Golden Fleece as they called it in those days, speaks to a side of the Owelle that few biographers have dwelt on. It also shows Ikejiani as a man able to appreciate a good turn in life and speak to its lasting value. Here is an excerpt from the Foreword.

The first time I saw the late Right Honorable Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was at Onitsha on November 17, 1934 at the Native Court hall, at a reception given in his honor by the community. I was just completing my first year of high school at the Dennis Memorial Grammar School , Onitsha . I went along with some students to the lecture. The hall was full and packed and we were not able to gain entrance to the hall. We listened to his lecture standing outside the building. The late Rt. Hon. Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe spoke of what a new African could equally do. He told us that Nigeria must be free from colonialism to achieve such equality. For the first time my life, I began to understand what colonialism meant and to question it. I discarded the idea previously held by us that we were inferior to white people.

Between 1935 and 1936, The African Morning Post, the newspaper which Azikiwe published and edited in Accra , Gold Coast - now known as Ghana - reached us on a regular basis. We read and crammed most of its editorials and leading columns, and for the first time, we began to believe that this man Zik was God-sent to Africa .

The first time I met Zik in person was not until 1937, when he had returned from Accra , Ghana , to Onitsha . I was a third year student in secondary school. On a Sunday morning, as was usual practice, as we marched in groups to Christ Church located near the River Niger water-side, four of us left our group and made our way to the house where Zik was staying along the New Market Road , almost opposite Venn Road . When we said to the people there that we wanted to see Zik, a tall man standing in front of the house said to us, "I am Zik. What can I do for you?" I replied on behalf of all of us with great trepidation, "Sir, we want to go to America ." He replied and told us that if our parents or guardians could provide fifty pounds a year each for us, he could help us to go to America . We all ran away back to the dormitory informing those who would listen that Zik would help us go to America .

I met Zik again in Lagos on December 1938. I was one of the eight young men who met him at his West Africa Pilot office, Market Street , Lagos , when he again asked us, "What can I do for you?" We replied that he told us that he would help us to go to America if our parents or guardians could afford to support us with fifty pounds a year. "Do you have the fifty pounds and the transportation money?" he asked us, and we replied in unison, "Yes, Sir." He counted the money we brought, which was in shillings and pennies.

My money contained one pound and ten shillings counterfeit! I was distraught and began to cry. He comforted me and replaced the counterfeit money. He proceeded to make all the arrangements for all of us. True enough, came December 1938, the eight of us left Apapa and sailed for the United States of America to embark on further studies. It was a very historic event in Nigeria with throngs of people coming to see us off at the wharf.

Zik assisted dozens of Africans to go on to the United States for university education. In assisting and helping us and those that had gone before us, like late Kwame Nkrumah just about a year after he has returned to Nigeria from Ghana was a great way of showing the light. K.O. Mbadiwe, A.A. Nwafor Orizu, and others like Jones-Quartey, Karimu Disu, Kalu Ezera, etc., all travelled under his aegis.

I met Zik again in August 1948 when I returned from the United States of America and Canada , after many years of sojourn there. It happened that my wife was a white lady, nee Marjorie Carter. Rumor had reached the Igbo State Union that I was returning with wife. The Igbo Union executives met with Zik and informed him about what they had heard. They said that because of that, they would not give me the reception they were planning for me. He asked them whether I wrote to them that I was returning and they should accord me a reception. They said no. He thereupon told that he did not think that I would be expecting their reception. Zik added that he was going to Apapa to meet me and my wife and that we were going to be his host as long as we stayed in Lagos . That shocked them and completely cured them of the race hatred which they harbored. That notwithstanding, I was given receptions galore on our return wherever we went throughout Igboland.


From the moment of my return in 1948, a deep and abiding friendship developed between Zik and I. This friendship grew by leaps and bounds over the years - and I came to learn a lot about him. From that incident in 1948, I realized that this man called Zik was not prejudiced against white people. As an Igbo, like him, raised in the same environment that influenced his basic character, I communicated with him in the same language and understood the riddles and real meanings behind his remarks, statements and messages. Our friendship throughout the years until his death, was based on mutual trust and respect. As one brought up in the tradition of Igbo custom, Zik was my elder in age and indeed in everything else. Igbo society believes that although no condition is permanent, still no human society can achieve absolute equality for its citizens as there are distinctions of age, sex and wealth. Yet the dignity of every man was absolute. For instance, I am self-assertive as an Igbo, and Zik respected and valued it; as an Igbo also, I am not subservient, nor do I pay unquestionable obedience to everything Zik said. Zik admired and respected that also.

Zik had great faith in the immense ability of the peasantry to understand, and believed that they were just waiting to be enlightened. ..The editorials in the newspapers, especially those of the West African Pilot, were complemented by the humor, intelligence and acerbic satires of the various columnists. Among the best known columns were "Inside Stuff," written by Zik himself; "As I see it" by O.A Alakija; "A New Education for a New Africa" by Professor Eyo Ita; among others. The writers were all nationalists, and their essays were not only nationalistic but also educational. They showed black Africans and Nigerians the light. Many became prodigious readers, enabling them to acquire the dramatic force of conviction that propelled them to dare. Those columns became a form of literature for every school boy and girl, every worker, every one who could read and write. Certainly there began in Nigeria and all black Africa , a period of enlightenment, and the flowering of a new set of ideas about colonial rule and freedom from it.

As an instrument of propagating nationalism, equality of mankind and self-pride, their anti-colonial and nationalistic effect on the generation, our generation, and the era between 1937 and 1960 was unparalleled. No other previous or contemporary anti-colonial newspaper in Nigeria or elsewhere in black Africa had produced anything comparable in their influence towards a national spirit and towards Nigerian oneness.