Not only was Zik a TRUE Nationalist who fought for the freedom of ALL Nigerians, he was a Pan-Africanist, which is very commendable.

So if you sya who is Nigeria's most respected statesman ever, it would be Nnamdi Azikiwe. Nnamdi Azikiwe is respected all across Africa and the Black Diaspora. No other Nigerian statesman commands that level of respect.

Dear Enjoyment1,
although I have no problem whatsoever selecting Zik as the greatest statesman Nigeria ever had , I think your assessment of Buhari is grossly flowed and your information seem to be based on the type of ethnic and islamophobic propaganda avidly spread in forums like the nairaland and in the southern Nigeria ethnocentric press. Please see my other postings. Thank you.

obj.

Has to be Obafemi Awolowo.

Wonder y some ppl here tlk crappy. No legacies left by zik in the SS n se unlike the west. Pls do u ppl knw the east n SS were heavily bombarded during the civil war. If the west saw one third of wht happnd in the east mud houses would be the luxuries here. Pls stop asking for legacies Nigeria destroyed

I will give it to Zik of africa, he stood for the unity of nigeria as whole and is respected accross Africa

Great Zik of Africa was not a tribalist like awo. Zik's interest was not for Onitsha his hometown nor Anambra his home state, nor SE. His interest was Africa emancipation, which eventually earned him the Great Zik of Africa. Awalowo was only popular at his doorsteps, he was not known in other regions of Nigeria not to talk of Africa. With all the study ever done Zik was topping the list. It is not in doubt that Zik is the most revered/respected, endeared African stateman

awo.

We can only imagine how much better Nigeria would be as a country if a guy like Awo had been president. To this day, we feel the impact of his leadership. Imagine if the North and East had had their own versions of Awo? Nigeria would probably be a very great country today.

ekt_bear:

We can only imagine how much better Nigeria would be as a country if a guy like Awo had been president. To this day, we feel the impact of his leadership. Imagine if the North and East had had their own versions of Awo? Nigeria would probably be a very great country today.

You act as if the West is better than the North and East. I haven't seen anything special about the West. 

How can anyone compare a tribal chieftain like Awolowo with Nnamdi Azikiwe who is compared with Kwame Nkrumah?

sowetto:

I will give it to Zik of africa, he stood for the unity of nigeria as whole and is respected accross Africa

Agreed. There is a reason why he is called The Great Zik of Africa. A true revolutionary leader and Pan-Africanist. Too bad many could not see his vision for Africa.

EzeUche!:

You act as if the West is better than the North and East. I haven't seen anything special about the West. 

How can anyone compare a tribal chieftain like Awolowo with Nnamdi Azikiwe who is compared with Kwame Nkrumah?

In terms of wealth in the 50s and 60s before the discovery of oil:
1) West
2) North
3) East

I read an article the other day about an attempt to introduce free education in the Eastern region that failed due to lack of cash. If I find it again, I'll post it here.

Like I said, gimme Awo over any other leader

Article I read was more detailed than this, but this discusses it a bit:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pj4fCjor7mMC&pg=PA17&dq=free+education+eastern+region+nigeria&hl=en&ei=YiMCTtn6AYffiAKun_inCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=8&ved=0CFYQ6wEwBw#v=onepage&q=free%20education%20eastern%20region%20nigeria&f=false

yes ekebear, East failed woefully just two years of starting the free education. This thing require intelligence not spare part techniques

I give it to Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe(Zik of Africa). He is recognized in the same level as people like Kwame Knruma, Kennet Kaunda.

That betrayer who you can never know where he is going? The man who abandon ibos during the civil war

seanet02:

That betrayer who you can never know where he is going? The man who abandon ibos during the civil war

Is that the question asked by the thread opener?

Do you ever know what is called Respect? Based on the betrayal of ibos during their suicide mission he is a dimwit to have abandon the pigs (apologies to bkbabe)

ekt_bear:

Article I read was more detailed than this, but this discusses it a bit:

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pj4fCjor7mMC&pg=PA17&dq=free+education+eastern+region+nigeria&hl=en&ei=YiMCTtn6AYffiAKun_inCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=8&ved=0CFYQ6wEwBw#v=onepage&q=free%20education%20eastern%20region%20nigeria&f=false

That was simply because the price of cocoa was more expensive than oil palm. Simply economics and the number of Igbo children surprised many.

Was that why you can not implement it. Liar.

It has to be Azikiwe, in as much as I respect and love Awo a great deal, I can't deny that Zik was the best statesman Nigeria has ever had.
I don't why most Igbo's would prefer Ojukwu to Zik though. They must be retarded.

If the question was the greatest statesman that would've been, I will give it 2 Awo.
But for the greatest statesman that was, it was clealy Zik.

Obj is more of a statesman than Awo.

to those shouting ZIK /nnamdi azikwe i want to ask

WHAT DID HE DO FOR NIGERIA OTHER THAN TO BETRAY HIS SOUTHERN BROTHER

AND BETRAYED NIGERIA BY KEEPING IT ONE

WHAT DID IT DO EXCATLLY

IS HIS GRAVE IN THE EAST NOT RUBBISH DAILY, WHICH SHOWS THE EASTERN PEOPLE DO LIKE HIM OR RESPECT HIM

SO WHAT IS ALL THIS ZIK OF AFRICA CRAP


I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE ACHIEVED BECAUSE I READ ABOUT HIM, I WAS ALIVE WHILE HE WAS ALIVE ETC AND I CAN NOT PIN POINT WHAT EXCATLY HE DID FOR HIS PEOPLE, THE SOUTH, OR FINALLY NIGERIA OR AFRICA AS A WHOLE

TO ME NNAMDI DID A GREAT DISSERVICE TO US NIGERIANS

What are you talking about alj_harem?

Everyone across Africa has heard of Nnamdi Azikiwe. . . Not Awolowo who is seen as a tribal champion.

Nigerians should be thanking Nnamdi Azikiwe for having FREEDOM from Great Britain. No one in Nigeria comes close to Nnamdi Azikiwe in terms of an elder statesman that is widely respected.

He was a true NATIONALIST and Pan-Africanist.

"ZIK OF AFRICA"
THE EARLY YEARS

"Zik was one of the most practical, most pragmatic people that I knew during my political life. Whenever he was in London, I was always very, very happy to welcome him to my residence at 8 Aylestone Avenue, Brontesbury Park, for our group discussions about our individual and collective fight for independence and self rule. Zik would listen quietly as so-and-so said this-and-that and as arguments and discussions would stray from reality. When Zik finally spoke in his careful, measured and logical way, it would refocus our discussions to the more practical and achievable objectives.

I had great admiration for his intellect, his logic and most of all, his intense love for his Motherland, Nigeria."

-Ngwazi Dr. H. Kamuzu Banda
Founding President of Malawi



There is a profound feeling of humility and inadequacy that comes over me whenever I begin to write about one of the great indigenous men and women of Africa. No matter how well I think I may have known them, personally or through the written word, I am very aware of their complexity as people with feet in two worlds, the contemporary and the traditional. As a non-African friend of Africa, I realized years ago that I have been and am privileged to have been allowed only rather superficial glimpses of their complexity and the elements that made them great. No where is that more apparent to me than attempting to write about the incredible life of the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the great "Zik of Africa", first President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe was born on 16 November 1904 in Zunguru, Northern Nigeria, to Onitsha Ibo parents. At a very early age, he was exposed to the inequities of colonialism (a realization that was to cause him to eventually drop his anglicized first name), when his father, Obed-Edom Chukwaemeka Azikiwe, a civilian clerk for a British army regiment, was forced to leave his job because of discrimination. The memory of this sorrowful event was to have a continuing major influence on his political attitudes and actions in the years to come.

Like most of the African greats, young Nnamdi had an insatiable quest for knowledge, and the rural life of turn-of-the-century Zungura provided only the barest minimum of educational opportunity. In his early years, he spoke only the Hausa language of the north but at the age of eight, he was sent to Onitsha to live with his paternal grandparents where, under their determined tutelage, he became fluent in the Ibo and Yoruba languages and eventually, English. His earliest formal schooling began at the Roman Catholic and Church Missionary Society’s Anglican missions at Onitsha where he excelled both in academics and sports. Outgrowing Onitsha’s academic capabilities, Nnamdi moved on to the Wesleyan Boys High School in Lagos and then again to the Hope Waddell Training Institute in Calabar, an historic place to which he would return years later under much different circumstances.

Once again, in common with his fellow African greats, schooling was insufficient to fuel his towering intellect. He read voraciously. He devoured the philosophy of Marcus Garvey and the writings of W. E. B. DuBois. He followed very closely the career of The Great Aggrey of the Gold Coast (Great Epic Books Newsletter archive: May, June, July, 1998) . The "Black Zionism" of Garvey intrigued him. DuBois’ THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK, Chicago, A. C. McClurg, 1904, shocked him and The Great Aggrey inspired him. He was to tell me many years later that the fortuitous finding and reading of an obscure 1903 DuBois publication, POSSIBILITIES OF THE NEGRO; THE ADVANCE GUARD OF RACE, was to be an everlasting and enormous influence on his business and political life.

Azikiwe was also carefully tutored in the great customs and traditions of his Ibo people and of the Nigerian nation. He quickly recognized the dichotomy of the two worlds in which he was part; that of the contemporary educated African and of the future custodian of venerable and vital tribal traditions and national culture. He vowed never to sacrifice one for the other and he remained ever-faithful to that vow.

Brief unfulfilling civil service employment followed secondary school. Determined to continue his education, Azikiwe traveled the well-worn path to the United States. In 1925, at age 21, he enrolled at Storer College at infamous Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, where he quickly acquired the nickname "Zik", by which he was to be known for the rest of his life. He spent one year at Storer, also enrolling in an intensive correspondence course in American Law and Procedures through LaSalle Law School of Chicago. He excelled in both.

America of the 1920’s, while offering Zik obvious opportunities, was oftentimes disillusioning, and indeed hostile, to the young Nigerian. Poverty stricken, depressed and homesick for Africa, and deeply affected by racial taunts, he went from job to job under the name of "Ben Zik", trying to earn enough to continue with his education. In 1926, he matriculated to Howard University in Washington, D.C. where a hoped for job fell through causing even greater financial strain. Finally, in early 1927, an offer of a steady on-campus job at Lincoln University enabled him to complete his undergraduate degree in Political Science. On to Columbia University and a part-time teaching assistantship, allowing him to obtain a certificate in journalism while editing the COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SUMMER SESSIONS TIMES (1930), his first foray into the publishing world. In 1930, Zik was back at Lincoln University where he was awarded an M.A. in Political Science with honors and wrote and published his first book, LIBERIA IN WORLD POLITICS, self, 1931. Finally, in 1932, he traveled on to the University of Pennsylvania on a scholarship where he earned an M. Sc. With honors in Anthropology, coming to the attention of the great Professor Bronislaw Malinowski of London University.

After graduation in the late spring of 1934, Zik journeyed back to Africa, passing up Malinowski’s offer of Doctoral pursuits at London University in favor of beginning his efforts on behalf of Africa. While in transit in the Gold Coast, Zik met the already well known trade unionist and newspaperman, I. T. Wallace-Johnson of Sierra Leone. Wallace-Johnson offered Zik his first professional employment as editor of the AFRICAN MORNING POST, an Accra newspaper which he accepted and worked diligently at for three years, narrowly escaping prison after being arrested for publishing a "treasonous" article, a charge that was fortunately overturned on appeal.

In February, 1937, Zik finally returned to Nigeria filled with a passion to somehow be of great influence in the future of his homeland. He was very well educated. He had read broadly, absorbing the spectrum of politic philosophies, embracing everything from the days of ancient Greece to the current state of world political dogma. He had succeeded as a journalist, tasting Britain’s wrath when their colonial system was challenged. He was keen to pursue business and commercial interests. Physically, he was an imposing figure in any crowd. Zik was more than six feet tall, broad shouldered and of very pleasant countenance. He possessed a courtly, almost "old world" charm. When he spoke, it was in a clear, mellifluous voice that at once pronounced the speaker’s humility and authority. His voice and delivery were described as "seductive, eloquent, persuasive and spell-binding".

Zik, though still considered young at 33, living in a land where wisdom is equated with age, was clearly a very gifted man, destined to figure prominently in colonial Nigeria’s future. He knew it. His fellow Nigerians knew it and, watching uneasily, the British colonists and authorities also knew it. Just what his role and impact was is the subject for December’s Great Epic’s Newsletter "Zik of Africa, The Business and Political Years".

http://www.onlinenigeria.com/people/ad.asp?blurb=66

EZEUCHE, U GAVE ME HIS HISTORY

WHY NOT GIVE ME HIS ACHIEVEMENT FOR NIGERIA AS A COUNTRY

WHAT DID HE PUT DOWN FOR NIGERIA OR HIS PEOPLE OR AFRICA APART FROM HE SCHOOLED IN LONDON

AM WAITING

uche, no answer

just as i thought, ZIKdid not achieve anything, infact he is part of the problem we face in nigeria today

alj_harem:

to those shouting ZIK /nnamdi azikwe i want to ask

WHAT DID HE DO FOR NIGERIA OTHER THAN TO BETRAY HIS SOUTHERN BROTHER

AND BETRAYED NIGERIA BY KEEPING IT ONE

WHAT DID IT DO EXCATLLY

IS HIS GRAVE IN THE EAST NOT RUBBISH DAILY, WHICH SHOWS THE EASTERN PEOPLE DO LIKE HIM OR RESPECT HIM

SO WHAT IS ALL THIS ZIK OF AFRICA CRAP


I WANT TO KNOW WHAT HE ACHIEVED BECAUSE I READ ABOUT HIM, I WAS ALIVE WHILE HE WAS ALIVE ETC AND I CAN NOT PIN POINT WHAT EXCATLY HE DID FOR HIS PEOPLE, THE SOUTH, OR FINALLY NIGERIA OR AFRICA AS A WHOLE

TO ME NNAMDI DID A GREAT DISSERVICE TO US NIGERIANS

Azikiwe did not betray anybody. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka is an indellible achievement of Azikiwe. He aggresively fought for independence, he wasn't tribalistic, he never promoted/encouraged disunity and secessionists. I don't know what other achievements you expected.

ekt_bear:


In terms of wealth in the 50s and 60s before the discovery of oil:
1) West
2) North
3) East

I read an article the other day about an attempt to introduce free education in the Eastern region that failed due to lack of cash. If I find it again, I'll post it here.

Like I said, gimme Awo over any other leader

Shut up your putrid mouth and concentrate on Wikipedia where you seem capable to left a word. During the hard times of crude oil exploration in the protectorates, western region of Nigeria under Awolowo pledged poverty in effort to continue search for crude oil.

Free education in western region of Nigeria was practical joke and tribal ploy. In the midst of the so-called free education in western region, eastern region equaled if not beating western region in any imaginable human endeavor including sport.

alj_harem:

EZEUCHE, U GAVE ME HIS HISTORY

WHY NOT GIVE ME HIS ACHIEVEMENT FOR NIGERIA AS A COUNTRY

WHAT DID HE PUT DOWN FOR NIGERIA OR HIS PEOPLE OR AFRICA APART FROM HE SCHOOLED IN LONDON

AM WAITING

You must quit being ridiculously stupid. Did any breathing being of kanuri extraction able to get admission into CMS Grammar School, Bariga, Shomolu LGA, Lagos State talk less of attending Ivy league school in 20s and 30s?

Dede1:

Shut up your putrid mouth and concentrate on Wikipedia where you seem capable to left a word.

"capable to left a word"? What on earth does that mean, Mr low-rent version of Patrick Obahiabgon?

During the hard times of crude oil exploration in the protectorates, western region of Nigeria under Awolowo pledged poverty in effort to continue search for crude oil.

Not sure how this is relevant, even if true. Again, West was still the wealthiest region.

Free education in western region of Nigeria was practical joke and tribal ploy.

Seemed to have worked out pretty well, I think. Third party observers (like the foreigner that visited at that time) seem to agree.

In the midst of the so-called free education in western region, eastern region equaled if not beating western region in any imaginable human endeavor including sport.

Do you even believe what you just wrote?  In any case, as stated, economy-wise Eastern region was the poorest in Nigeria before oil. Even less fiscally sound than the North.

Dede has never been mentally stable. He is a real m0ron.