Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, the man who led the attempted secession of the Republic of Biafra from Nigeria, died earlier today at the age of 78. The former military leader and later politician had been receiving treatment at a United Kingdom hospital after he suffered a stroke in December of 2010.
Dr Dalhatu Tafida, Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the UK confirmed the report on Saturday. “A member of the family just called to tell me,” Tafida said in a telephone interview.
Also reacting to the news of Chief Ojukwu’s demise on a telephone interview from London was former President Olusegun Obasanjo who said “it is with deep sadness that I received the news of the demise of my friend and colleague.
“He and I were subalterns in the army at Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
“In a way, his death marks the end of an era in Nigeria.
“I condole with his family and pray for the repose of his soul.’’
A recent statement from the a spokesman of the Royal Berkshire Hospital, where the Mr. Ojukwu had been admitted for close observation, had stated that he was suffering from a chest infection and was immediately admitted as an emergency patient from the Lynden Hill Clinic. His condition had been described as stable and that he never suffered a stroke nor been on any life-support machine.
Chief Ojukwu, a graduate of the reputable Lincoln College at Oxford University in England, was a popular and charismatic figure amongst his fellow Igbo people of South-Eastern Nigeria, the ethnic group he led to declare the short-lived Republic of Biafra on May 30 1967, which precipitated a bloody Nigerian civil war that lasted for the next 3 years under the leadership of Major-General Yakubu Gowon.
In 1957, within months of working with the colonial civil service, he left and joined the military as one of the first and few university graduates to join the Nigerian army.
After serving in the UN peacekeeping force in the then Congo under Maj.-Gen. Johnson Thomas Aguiyi-Ironsi, Ojuwkwu was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in 1964 and was posted to Kano, where he was in charge of the 5th Battalion of the Nigerian Army.
Aguiyi-Ironsi later appointed Odumegwu-Ojukwu as military governor of the defunct Eastern Region on Jan. 17, 1966.
After the first military coup of 1966 and the counter coup that followed, Odumegwu-Ojukwu declared the defunct Eastern Region a sovereign state to be known as Biafra.
In the declaration and during his public address to the people of Biafra, he said: “Having mandated me to proclaim on your behalf, and in your name, that Eastern Nigeria be a sovereign independent republic, now, therefore I, Lt.-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, by virtue of the authority, and pursuant to the principles recited above, do hereby solemnly proclaim that the territory and region known as and called Eastern Nigeria together with her continental shelf and territorial waters, shall, henceforth, be an independent sovereign state of the name and title of The Republic of Biafra.’’
On July 6, 1967, the then military Head of State, Col. Yakubu Gowon declared war and attacked Biafra in a bid to stop Ojukwu’s secessionist attempt.
In a recent interview with sharpedgenews.com, Mr. Ojukwu had stated that the civil war, which lasted 30 months and ended on Jan. 15, 1970, was mainly about a booty placed on his head by the head of the then-military government headed by Colonel Gowon.
As the war was wore out, Ojukwu went on exile and stayed away for the next13 years. He was eventually granted state pardon by President Shehu Shagari, a decision which heralded the deceased’s triumphant return in 1982.
Born Chwukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu on Nov. 4, 1933 at Zungeru, Niger State, to Sir Louis Phillippe Odumegwu Ojukwu, a businessman from Nnewi, he began his educational career in Lagos, where he was briefly imprisoned for assaulting a white British colonial teacher who had allegedly humiliated a black woman at King’s College, Lagos.
His father sent him to Britain at the age of 13 to study, first at Epsom College in Surrey from where he thereafter bagged a Master’s degree in history at Lincoln College, Oxford University.
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu returned to Nigeria in 1956 and joined the civil service in the defunct Eastern Nigeria as an Administrative Officer at Udi, in present-day Enugu State.
In 1957, within months of working with the colonial civil service, he left and joined the military as one of the first and few university graduates to join the Nigerian army.
Odumegwu-Ojukwu was married to Miss Intercontinental 1989 Bianca Onoh. They have children.
Until his death, Ojukwu was the leader of the All Peoples Grand Alliance party.