Nnamdi Azikiwe Biography

Chief Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, PC, PhD (16 November 1904 – 11 May 1996), usually referred to as Nnamdi Azikiwe or Zik, was a prominent Nigerian nationalist and statesman who served as the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966, holding the presidency throughout the Nigerian First Republic. He is popularly considered a driving force behind the nation's independence and came to be known as the "father of Nigerian Nationalism". Born to Igbo parents in Zungeru, present-day Niger State, Azikiwe learned to speak Hausa, the main indigenous language of the Northern Region at an early age. He later lived in Onitsha, his parental homeland where he was raised by his aunt and grandmother and learned the Igbo language. A sojourn in Lagos exposed him to the Yoruba language and by the time he was in college, he had been exposed to different Nigerian cultures. Motivated to get a university education, he traveled to U.S. and attended various colleges including Storer College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Howard returning to Africa in 1934 to start work as a journalist in the Gold Coast. In British West Africa, Azikiwe was an important advocate of Nigerian and African nationalism, first as a journalist and later as political leader.