Nnamdi Azikiwe is one of the foremost nationalists in the history of Nigerian politics and had a hand at mentoring Africa’s first post-colonial President, Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah. 

After an accomplished academic passage at Harvard in the USA, Azikiwe returned to Nigeria in 1934 and accepted an offer to edit the African Morning Post, a new daily newspaper in Accra, Ghana, which he quickly made into an important organ of nationalist propaganda. In 1937 he returned to Lagos and founded the West African Pilot, which became 

It became the leading newspaper in West Africa in the 1940's and 1950s. The paper was also a leading light in the movement for independence and bringing to fore the untold stories of colonialism. It gained tremendous traction for its anti-imperialist sentiments, especially after its proscription in the 1940s, for the editorial support it gave striking Nigerian workers. 

It spoke to the common people, and as such ideas proved in the course of history, it also attracted youths in the country. By 1950, it had reached a subscription of about 50 000. 

This newspaper was also voraciously read and influenced many political leaders who would develop a nationalist or Pan Africanist outlook, such as great Pan Africanist Congress founding president, Robert Sobukwe. 

In the next decade, Azikiwe would control six daily newspapers in Nigeria: two in Lagos and four strategically placed in the urban centers of Ibadan, Onitsha, Port Harcourt, and Kano. These played a crucial role in stimulating Nigerian nationalism. To support his business ventures and to express his economic nationalism, Azikiwe founded the African Continental Bank in 1944. 

The paper was also a training ground for notable writers including Anthony Enahoro and Akinola Lasekan, the latter was the first to use pictorial cartoons for political satire in the pages of a Nigerian newspaper.
 

 

Azikiwe would later go on to have a decorated political career. From 1947 and 1960 Azikiwe, as leader of the NCNC, held a number of elected public offices including the premier of the Eastern Region, where he expanded educational facilities including laying the foundation for the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, formally opened in September 1960. 

On October 1, 1960, when Nigeria got its independence, Azikiwe was appointed governor-general with Sir Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa becoming the prime minister. 

In 1963, Nigeria became a republic, and Azikiwe was named its first president. He held this position until he was deposed by a military coup on January 15, 1966, which led to the Nigerian-Biafran civil war. Chinua Achebe’s 1965 masterpiece, A Man of The People, featured a protagonist very loosely based on Azikiwe’s leadership. 

On May 11, 1996, Azikiwe passed away in eastern Nigeria after a long illness and 22 years after his death, the political scientist, journalist, writer and a believer in democracy still has his name etched in history books as one of the pioneers of the leading figures of modern African nationalism. 

 -JP