Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe

Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe , 1904-96, Nigerian statesman, popularly known as Zik. After advanced studies in the United States (1925), he returned to Nigeria, founded a chain of newspapers, and became one of the country's leading Igbo nationalists. He led a general strike in 1945 and later held the premiership (1954-59) of E Nigeria. Although his coalition won the 1959 elections, he was appointed (1960) to the honorary office of governor-general. In 1963 he became the first president of the Republic of Nigeria, serving until deposed by a military coup (1966). He worked abroad for Biafran secession (see Biafra ), but advocated reunification when the revolt seemed doomed. After returning to Nigeria in 1972, he became chancellor of Lagos Univ. He ran unsuccessfully for president in 1979 and 1983.

Azikiwe, (Benjamin) Nnamdi (1904–96) Nigerian statesman, President (1963–66). Azikiwe founded (1944) the anti-colonial National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons, a gathering of forty political, labour, and educational groups. He was the first Governor-General of an independent Nigeria (1960–63) and its first President when it became a republic. When his civilian government was ousted by a military coup in 1966, Azikiwe joined the Biafran secessionist government. In 1978, after the reunification of Nigeria, he founded the Nigerian People's Party and was its leader until 1983.

Azikiwe, Benjamin Nnamdi (b. 16 Nov. 1904, d. 11 May 1996). President of Nigeria 1963–6 Born in Zungeru, he studied in the USA (Howard University, Lincoln University, Pennsylvania University), and became a successful newspaper editor/owner both in Nigeria and the Gold Coast (now Ghana). In 1944 he founded the nationalist National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons (NCNC). His newspaper articles in the West African Pilot, signed Zik, exerted a powerful influence throughout the 1940s and 1950s on emerging Nigerian nationalism. He led his party in the constitutional conferences leading up to independence, and was Premier of the Eastern Region, 1954–9. He was the country's first indigenous Governor-General upon independence 1960, and became its President when it became a Republic. He was deposed in 1966 by a military coup, which ousted civilian government. Sympathetic to the Ibo cause, he supported the attempt to create an independent state of Biafra, but sought a compromise when it became clear that the federal forces were winning the war. He became leader of the Nigerian People's Party and was unsuccessful in a bid for the presidency in 1979.