Background
He was born on November 16, 1904, at Zungeru where his father was an army clerk at the headquarters of Lord Lugard in Northern Nigeria.
He was born on November 16, 1904, at Zungeru where his father was an army clerk at the headquarters of Lord Lugard in Northern Nigeria.
Brought up by the Church Missionary Society he completed his education at Onitsha, Calabar and Lagos.
From 1921 to 1925 he was a clerk at the Treasury in Lagos. After an unsuccessful attempt to stow away to America, his father gave him his life savings of JE300 and he set sail. He studied at Storer College, West Virginia, Howard University and Lincoln University, earning his keep as a miner, dishwasher and even a boxer. After two years’ postgraduate study at Pennsylvania he returned home to produce the “West African Pilot” on November 22, 1937, the first of a string of newspapers.
His first political activity was to join the Nigerian Youth Movement, the only real political organisation. He used his newspapers to campaign against British colonial rule. With the foundation of the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons under Herbert Macaulay in August 1944 Zik became Secretary-General. Two years later on Macaulay’s death Zik took over.
In the 1951 regional elections he won a seat for Lagos in the Western Region’s House of Assembly where he was opposition leader to the dominant Action Group of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He moved to the F.astern Region for the elections in May 1952. The NCNC won a sweeping victory and he became Chief Minister and then Premier. The F’orster Sutton tribunal set up in 1956 to enquire into allegations of improper investment of public money in the African Continental Bank in which he had an interest found that his conduct had "fallen short of expectations of honest, reasonable people”. But his personal popularity remained strong.
After the federal elections of December 1959 Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balcwa, as leader of the Nigerian Peoples Congress from the north, was asked to form a government. He turned to Zik to give him an overall majority. Zik could have teamed up with Chief Awolowo and probably become Federal Prime Minister but at the cost perhaps of delaying independence since the southerners were excluding the north. He was offered the ceremonial post of Governor General as part of an NPC-NCNC deal. It was a turning point in his career. He accepted on December 12. 1959.
After proposing a peace plan in a speech at Oxford in February 1969 he returned to
Nigeria and came to terms with General Gowon, the Federal leader. He made an announcement on August 28, 1969, calling for a just settlement “under the umbrella of One Nigeria”. Yet no official place was found for Zik after the Federal victory until he returned home in February 1972 to be installed as Chancellor of Lagos University.
In October 1972 he stirred up a wave of controversy when he proposed that the soldiers and civilians should share power when the military government hands over in 1976. He suggested that the heads of army and security forces should be in Cabinet and Parliament and able to exercise the right of veto on measures that might “endanger the stability of Nigeria”.
Following independence on October 1. 1963, Zik, as President, tried to work closely with Balewa but the NCNC became increasingly dissatisfied with the northern alliance. By the 1964 federal elections they linked with the Action Group in the United Progressive Grand Alliance. Violence erupted in the campaign. Zik sympathised with his old NCNC colleagues who wanted the elections postponed but in long talks with Balewa failed to secure his agreement. The election victory of the northern alliance on December 30, 1964, was greeted with protests against ballot rigging. Profoundly unhappy, Zik had no constitutional alternative but to call upon Balewa to form a government again.
Amid more trouble with rioting in the Western Region Zik left the country on October 17, 1965 for treatment of a chest complaint in England at the London Clinic. Returning after the January coup he found himself identified with the old regime and withdrew to his country house at Nsukka. following the second military coup in July 1966 he let himself be drawn into the counsels of Biafran leader Colonel Ojukwu. He sat in the Consultative Assembly where he was frequently shouted down as “an old politician”. In 1968 he wrote a poem “Be Still My Soul” which was adopted later as the biafran national anthem.
Father of modern Nigerian nationalism, a journalist, author, politician and businessman. Through his newspapers and his fiery agitation "Zik” aroused the people to their national destiny. Flamboyant, sensitive of criticism and irritable in situations not of his own making. After independence he tried hard to preserve national unity. The shock of the 1966 coup and his Ibo origins involved him in Biafran politics. He sought to bring both sides to a negotiated settlement.