Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu

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Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwü Order: 1st President Term of Office: May 30, 1967–January 8, 1970 Successor: Philip Effiong Date of Birth November 4, 1933 Place of Birth: Zungeru, Nigeria First Lady: Lady Njideka Ojukwu Profession: Soldier and Political Leader Vice President: Philip Effiong

Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi (born November 4, 1933) was the leader of the secessionist state of Biafra in Nigeria (1967–1970), during the Nigerian Civil War. He is usually referred to in news and other sources just as Ojukwu. Frederick Forsyth, a friend, authored a novel about him titled Emeka. It was published in 1982. Ojukwu was also a prototype of anonymous General character in Forsyth's novel The Dogs of War published in 1974.

He was born in Zungeru^[1] as the son of Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu a business tycoon who was believed to be Nigeria's first millionaire. Chukwuemeka's name meant "God has done well." He attracted media publicity at a young age. In 1944, the young Ojukwu was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a teacher at King's College in Lagos, an event which generated widespread coverage in local newspapers. He then went on to study in Britain, first at Epsom College and later reading history at Lincoln College, Oxford.

Ojukwu decided to enter the military over the objections of his father, who wanted him to study law. He joined the Nigerian military and was graduated from the prestigious Sandhurst military Academy. He became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army of Nigeria. Following an anti-Igbo pogrom in the Muslim Northern Region, a meeting of customary chiefs at Umuahia in the Eastern Region decided to declare the region consisting the Igbo heartland, the Niger Delta (mostly Ijaw area) and the Cross River basin (Efik and Ibibio areas) independent. Ojukwu was chosen by the Igbos to lead the new country, named Biafra after the Bight of Biafra. Despite some early Biafran successes, the Nigerian Army slowly gained the upper hand, supported by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union and, tacitly, by the United States. Among the world's major nations, only France and Portugal offered some support to Biafra.

Ojukwu fled Biafra as it collapsed, and subsequently lived in exile in Ivory Coast for 13 years. Seeking to bolster his support among Igbos, President Alhaji Shehu Shagari pardoned Ojukwu and allowed him to return to Nigeria in 1980. He joined Shagari's National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and contested the 1983 election for the Senate, but was unsuccessful. As the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), he unsuccessfully ran for president in the 2003 presidential election. He claimed to have "won" the election, despite garnering only 3.3 percent of the vote, and filed a court challenge against what he said was the "massive fraud" that allegedly denied him the presidency.

Today Ojukwu lives a quiet life in Eastern Nigeria. In early December 2006 he was again chosen to be the APGA presidential candidate for the April 2007 election.^[2]

[edit] See also

• Ibibio
• Calabar
• Rivers State
• Bayelsa State
• Abia State
• Enugu
• Anambra State
• Cross-river State
• Ikwere language
• Delta State
• Benue State
• Edo State
• Imo State

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• MASSOB, The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra