SIR: The declaration of November 16, the birthday of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, Nigeria’s first President, by the Anambra State government as state holiday is a laudable, worthy and inspirational move that all true Nigerian patriots should applaud. Also worthy of support is the strong recommendation by the state government that that the Federal Government should borrow a leaf from its laudable example and declare Zik’s birthday a National Holiday.
Even though he was born to Igbo parents in Zungeru in present day Niger State 10 years before the amalgamation of the southern and northern protectorates, Azikiwe’s political and professional career first flourished in the southwest. At 36, Azikiwe ventured into active politics, joining the first nationalist organization, the Nigerian Youth Movement (NYM). Three years later, he and Herbert Macaulay founded the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC), the platform he led after Macaulay’s death, to delay the implementation of the Richards Constitution which had failed to give more powers to citizens at the regional level.
Azikiwe fought many political battles in the western region. In 1951, he became the leader of the opposition to the government of Obafemi Awolowo in the Western Region House of Assembly. Soon after, Azikiwe moved to the Eastern Region from where he was selected as Chief Minister, and became premier of Nigeria’s Eastern Region in 1954 when it became a federating unit.
He joined the Nigerian People’s Party in 1978, making unsuccessful bids for the presidency in 1979 and 1983. He was forced out of active politics after the 1983 military coup. Azikiwe died on 11 May 1996 at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital in Enugu after a long illness, and was buried in his native Onitsha. His Mausoleum was commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, January 24. At Azikiwe’s death, The New York Times said that he “towered over the affairs of Africa’s most populous nation, attaining the rare status of a truly national hero who came to be admired across the regional and ethnic lines dividing his country.”
Azikiwe was a patriot without peer, the father of the nation, a professional pathfinder in media and finance, a philosopher and public intellectual and a rare human being. It is sad that the name and contributions of this remarkable man are not receiving the kind of prominence they deserve in these unreflective times. In the interest of the nation and the Igbo race, Zik deserves to be brought back to the front burner of national consciousness and pre-eminence. The initiative by the Anambra State government is an excellent way to initiative this important process.
- Dr John Uzochukwu, Abuja.
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