Who is odumegwu ojukwu

It was strongly believed in Lagos that Ojukwu's own sizeable ego was now a factor, and that another leader might have managed to avoid secession.

After the failure of peace talks in Aburi, Ghana, in January , in which the wily Ojukwu had outmanoeuvred the more straightforward federal leader General Yakubu Gowon, the prospect of a full breakaway loomed closer, especially since an Aburi-style confederation had been rejected in Lagos.

Ojukwu, claiming to be doubtful, was swept along the tide of his own public opinion, and secession became inevitable. The historical motives of this period will continue to be argued passionately, since they were at the core of the case for Biafra. Gowon declared the creation of 12 states on 27 May , including notably splitting the Eastern region into three, thus separating minority ethnic groups from Igbos. It was said that the creation of the states was a pre-emptive move, since secession was in any case planned.

And once the "independent and sovereign state" of Biafra was proclaimed on 29 May, it was only a matter of time before fighting began a few weeks later. After a bold move on the Mid-west region in August, a push towards Lagos failed, and federal troops recaptured the Mid-west in September. The story of the war and the famine and disease that went with it, causing between 1m and 3m deaths, was then one of the slow encirclement of Biafra. This progressively confined the Igbos to their own heartland, but they still managed a noble and courageous resistance, sustained by Ojukwu's charismatic and authoritarian leadership.

If at the beginning there was a real fear of further massacres, the policy of "no victors, no vanquished" pursued by Gowon meant that after the eventual surrender in January , reconciliation largely worked. Visiting the former rebel areas soon after the end of the war, I was told: "We were forced out of the federation, now we've been forced back into it. Ojukwu had left for exile in Ivory Coast on the last flight out of Biafra's improvised airport at Uli, and it was more than 12 years before he was finally pardoned by civilian president Shehu Shagari, and allowed to make a triumphant return in We use cookies to make our website work more efficiently, to provide you with more personalised services or advertising to you, and to analyse traffic on our website.

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Life dates 4 Nov Nov Ojukwu was the son of a successful Igbo businessman. After graduating from the University of Oxford in , he returned to Nigeria to serve as an administrative officer. After two years, however, he joined the army and was rapidly promoted thereafter. Nigerians and non-Nigerians alike have diverse memories of Ojukwu. He was adored and loathed in equal measure, not just for his failed attempt to cede Biafra from Nigeria, but also for his struggle for principles.

Ojukwu was buried in Nigeria on 1 March. Before the burial, weeks of memorial activities had been staged at different locations across the world, by the Igbos in the diaspora. Speaker after speaker explored his life, his Biafra cause, and the civil war that tore Nigeria apart. Later, in an interview with New African , Debe a lawyer who is widely seen as a replica of his father in oration and personality , presented Ojukwu as a man of conviction who wanted the best for his people.

He started formal education in Lagos, and came to England when he was After his return to Nigeria in , he worked as a civil servant before joining the army.