Abstract
Benjamin Nnamdi Azikiwe, popularly called Zik,2 has in the above crisp and succinct statement affirmed that the power of knowledge contributed to the towering heights he attained in Nigerian politics. He was wellversed in history and culture, and the rhetoric of political science and journalism. In addition, his uncanny understanding of the complex and dynamic political landscape of Nigeria helped him become an agent of history whose heroic achievements took on epical features embodied in the “Zikist myth.”
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Notes
Nnamdi Azikiwe, Renascent Africa(London: Frank Cass, 1937), 17.
See K. A. B. Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe(Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books Ltd., 1965), 46. Azikiwe shortened his name to Ben Azikiwe at Storer College, but, as his fellow students found it difficult to pronounce the surname, they simply called him “Zik,” which became his most popular name. As for his baptismal name, Benjamin, he dropped it in 1934 as a protest against the British government’s refusal to allow him to participate as a runner in the British Empire games because Nigeria did not have a team in the competition.
Femi Ojo-Ade, Death of Myth: Critical Essays on Nigeria(Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001), 39. Ojo-Ade made an interesting comparative but contentious study of Zik and Awo. See pages 11–51.
Nnamdi Azikiwe, My Odyssey: An Autobiography(New York: Praeger Publishers, 1970), 7; Olajire Olanlokun, The Legend: Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe(Ibadan, Nigeria: Lantern Books, 2005), 1. P.R. Macmillan, 1961), 9–11.
Olajire Olanlokun, The Legend: Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe(Ibadan, Nigeria: Lantern Books, 2005), 1. P.R. Macmillan, 1961), 9–11.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 10–12; Olanlokun, Ibid., 7; Iketuonye, Ibid., 11–13.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 9; Olanlokun, Ibid., 8; Iketuonye, Ibid., 14; Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 56.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 17; Olanlokun, Ibid., 9.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 11–12; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 18–24; Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 49.
Jones-Quartey, Ibid., 2.
Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 73; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 33–35.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 57; Iketuonye, Ibid., 37–38; Olanlokun, The Legend, 27.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 57–59; Iketuonye, Ibid., 39–42; Olanlokun, Ibid., 28–31.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 60; Olanlokun, Ibid., 31.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 58–62; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 42–45.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 83–84; Iketuonye, Ibid., 49–54; Olanlokun, The Legend, 38.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 85; see also Iketuonye, Ibid., 55–57.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 85; see also Olanlokun, The Legend, 39–40.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 85; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 56.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 85.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 64–65; Olanlokun, The Legend, 41.
Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 95–97; Olanlokun, Ibid., 48–57.
Molefi Asante, The Afrocentric Idea(Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1987), 94. Zik himself admitted that he was greatly influenced by the ideas of Marcus Garvey. See Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 66.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 66.
For Zik’s accounts of the courses he took, his fellow students, and the teachers who influenced him in the various universities he attended, see Azikiwe, Ibid., 116–151; Nnamdi Azikiwe, “A Nigerian in America,” in Crosscurrents in the Black Atlantic 1770–1965, ed., David Northrup (Boston, MA: Bedford/Martin’s, 2008), 136–144.
Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 86.
See Levi Nwachuku, “Nnamdi Azikiwe and Lincoln University: An Analysis of a Symbiotic Relationship,” Lincoln Journal of Social and Political Thought1, no. 1 (Fall 2002): 27–36.
Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 92; Azikiwe, “A Nigerian in America,” 114; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 91–94.
Olanlokun, The Legend, 66–67.
Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 232–249. Many receptions were held by communities and organizations in honor of Zik when he arrived in eastern Nigeria in November 1934. The organizations include the Onitsha Improvement Union, the Igbo Community in Onitsha, the Ibo Union, Port Harcourt, and the Ibo Tribe Union, Calabar. The receptions featured welcome addresses and gifts that included cash.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 175–190.
Azikiwe, Ibid, 255–256; Ikotuonye, Zik of Africa, 118–121; Olanlokun, The Legend, 114.
Olanlokun, Ibid., 81.
Azikiwe, Renascent Africa, 9–11; My Odyssey, 252–254; Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 120–121.
Azikiwe, Renascent Africa, 17.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 21; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 119–123.
Azikiwe, Renascent Africa, 33; My Odyssey, 258–259.
Azikiwe, Renascent Africa, 24–34.
Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 59; Olanlokun, The Legend, 83.
Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 131; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 125–129.
Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 260–274; Jones-Quartey, Ibid., 132–136.
In addition to his postulates, in this work Zik delved into African and world history and politics, questioning the justificatory myths of imperialism and highlighting the significant contributions Africans had made to human civilization.
Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 147–148. For Zik’s account of the history of his group of newspapers, see Azikiwe, My Odyssey, 286–308.
J. Coleman, Nigeria: Background to Nationalism(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1958), 220.
The Ijebu were the major slave traders, especially, during the Yoruba Civil Wars of the nineteenth century, hence other Yoruba people tended to dislike them.
Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 160–161. See also R. Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties: Power in an Emergent African Nation(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963), 41–64 (providing an account of Nigerian political history leading to the founding of the NCNC).
Coleman, Nigeria, 264; Sklar, Ibid., 56–58.
Ibid.
Nnamdi Azikiwe, Zik: A Selection of Speeches from Nnamdi Azikiwe (London: Cambridge University Press, 1961), 58–59.
Ibid.
Coleman, Nigeria, 265.
Azikiwe, Zik, 181.
Coleman, Nigeria, 271–282; Azikiwe, Ibid., 381; Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties, 58–59.
Ibid.
Azikiwe, Zik, 320; Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 186.
Coleman, Nigeria, 292.
See Wole Soyinka, Ake: The Years of Childhood(Ibadan, Nigeria: Spectrum Books, 1981) (recounting, in his childhood days, the ovation Zik received while addressing the masses).
Coleman, Nigeria, 258.
Coleman, Ibid., 284–285.
When I was in high school, I heard a variety of stories about Zik’s mythical powers. For example, it was believed that before he passed away, Herbert Macaulay gave Zik the key to the Lagos lagoon, permitting him to punish the British or his political opponents by flooding Lagos and its surrounding environs if they sought to undermine him. For similar accounts of Zik’s supernatural powers, see Jaiyeola Ajasa, “The Spirit-Man: Nnamdi Azikiwe,” The Week(May 27, 1996), available athttp://emeagwali.com/nigeria/nigerians/nnamdi-azikiwe.html There are also other accounts, such as the one by the computer wizard Philip Emeagwali, who dwelt on how Zik got his wisdom and power from an old woman who happened to be a spirit, and also how he tricked a mermaid, and acquired the power to flood Victoria Island if Lagosians upset him.
Coleman, Nigeria, 285–286; Jones-Quartey, A Life of Azikiwe, 167.
Coleman, Ibid., 287.
Coleman, Ibid., 296–302; see also Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties, 72–76. The movement was founded in 1946. Due to its militancy, the colonial government banned the movement in 1950.
Coleman, Ibid., 294.
Azikiwe, Zik, 321–330.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 325. See also Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties, 65–69, 101–112. For a detailed study of the ethnic dimensions of Nigerian politics and events leading to the collapse of the First Republic, see Richard Joseph, Democracy and Prebendal Politics in Nigeria(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 41–68.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 327; Sklar, Ibid., 87–101.
See K. Post and M. Vickers, Structure and Conflict in Nigeria, 1960–1966(New York: Heinemann, 1973); A. Kirk-Greene, Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria: A Documentary Source Book, 1966–1969, Vol. I (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); O. Aborisade and R. Mundi, Politics in Nigeria(New York: Longman, 2001), 10–21.
For a study of the religious dimension of the Nigerian crisis see Toyin Falola, Violence in Nigeria: The Crisis of Religious Politics and Secular Ideologies(Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 1998), 137–265.
Azikiwe, “A Nigerian in America,” 136–137.
See Ojo-Ade, Death of Myth, 40–43; Sklar, Nigerian Political Parties, 261–283.
For a few of the numerous works on Biafra, see Ralph Uwechue, Reflections on the Nigerian Civil War(New York: Africana Publishing Corporation, 1971); Betty Nickerson, Letters from Biafra(Toronto, ON: New Press, 1970); Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, Biafra Revisited(Dakar, Senegal: African Renaissance, 2007).
Most of those who died (mainly children and the elderly), perished from hunger stemming from the federal blockade of Biafra. See Dan Jacobs, The Brutality of Nations(New York: Alfred Knopf, 1987), documenting high death tolls due to the federal blockade of the new country.
Joseph, Democracy, 94–108; Toyin Falola and Julius Ihonvbere, The Rise and Fall of the Second Republic(London: Zed Books Ltd., 1985), 206–265.
Azikiwe, Renascent Africa, 8.
Ibid.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 8–9.
Ojo-Ade, Death of Myth, 39; Iketuonye, Zik of Africa, 23–29.
Azikiwe, Renascent Africa, 9.
Ibid.
Azikiwe, Zik, 36.
Azikiwe, Ibid., 280–300.
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© 2013 Gloria Chuku
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Oriji, J. (2013). Nnamdi Azikiwe: The Triumph of Knowledge. In: Chuku, G. (eds) The Igbo Intellectual Tradition. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137311290_3
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