Nnamdi Azikiwe

Azikiwe's mother was Rachel Chinwe Ogbenyeanu (Aghadiuno) Azikiwe (1883 – January 1958), who was sometimes called Nwanonaku and was the third daughter of Aghadiuno Ajie.

Her family descended from a royal family in Onitsha, and her paternal great-grandfather was Obi (Ugogwu) Anazenwu.

Azikiwe had one sibling, a sister, named Cecilia Eziamaka Arinze.

As a young boy, Azikiwe spoke Hausa, the regional language.

Nnamdi Benjamin Azikiwe, PC (16 November 1904 – 11 May 1996), usually referred to as "Zik", was a Nigerian statesman, revolutionary and political leader who served as the 3rd governor-general of Nigeria between 1960 and 1963 and the 1st president of Nigeria during the First Nigerian Republic which existed from 1963 to 1966.

Considered a driving force behind the nation's independence, he came to be known as the "father of Nigerian nationalism".

Born to Igbo parents from Anambra State, Eastern Nigeria in Zungeru in present-day Niger State.

As a young boy, he learned to speak Hausa (the main indigenous language of the Northern Region).

Azikiwe was later sent to live with his aunt and grandmother in Onitsha (his parental homeland), where he learned the Igbo language.

A stay in Lagos exposed him to the Yoruba language; by the time he was in college, he had been exposed to different Nigerian cultures and spoke three languages (an asset as president).

Azikiwe travelled to the United States where he was known as Ben Azikiwe and attended Storer College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Howard University.

He contacted colonial authorities with a request to represent Nigeria at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Azikiwe was born on 16 November 1904 in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria.

His first name means "my father is alive" in Igbo language, as his parents were Igbo.

His father, concerned about his son's fluency in Hausa and not Igbo, sent him to Onitsha in 1912 to live with his paternal grandmother and aunt to learn the Igbo language and culture.

In Onitsha, Azikiwe attended Holy Trinity School (a Roman Catholic mission school) and Christ Church School (an Anglican primary school).

In 1914, while his father was working in Lagos, Azikiwe was bitten by a dog; this prompted his worried father to ask him to come to Lagos to heal and to attend school in the city.

He then attended Wesleyan Boys' High School, now known as Methodist Boys’ High School, Broad Street Lagos.

His father was sent to Kaduna two years later, and Azikiwe briefly lived with a relative who was married to a Muslim from Sierra Leone.

In 1918, he was back in Onitsha and finished his secondary education at CMS Central School.

Azikiwe then worked at the school as a student-teacher, supporting his mother with his earnings.

In 1920, his father was posted back to southern Nigeria in the southeastern city of Calabar.

Azikiwe joined his father in Calabar, beginning tertiary education at the Hope Waddell Training College.

He was introduced to the teachings of Marcus Garvey, Garveyism, which became an important part of his nationalistic rhetoric.

After attending Hope Waddell, Azikiwe was transferred to Methodist Boys' High School in Lagos and befriended classmates from old Lagos families such as George Shyngle, Francis Cole and Ade Williams (a son of the Akarigbo of Remo).

These connections were later beneficial to his political career in Lagos.

Azikiwe heard a lecture by James Aggrey, an educator who believed that Africans should receive a college education abroad and return to effect change.

After the lecture, Aggrey gave the young Azikiwe a list of schools accepting black students in America.

After completing his secondary education, Azikiwe applied to the colonial service and was accepted as a clerk in the' treasury department.

His time in the colonial service exposed him to racial bias in the colonial government.

Determined to travel abroad for further education, Azikiwe applied to universities in the U.S. He was admitted by Storer College, contingent on his finding a way to America.

To reach America, he contacted a seaman and made a deal with him to become a stowaway.

However, one of his friends on the ship became ill and they were advised to disembark in Sekondi.

In Ghana, Azikiwe worked as a police officer; his mother visited, and asked him to return to Nigeria.

He returned, and his father was willing to sponsor his trip to America.

Azikiwe attended Storer College's two-year preparatory school in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.

To fund his living expenses and tuition, he worked a number of menial jobs before enrolling in Howard University in Washington, D.C. in 1927 to obtain a bachelor's degree in political science.

He returned to Africa in 1934, where he began work as a journalist in the Gold Coast.

In British West Africa, he advocated Nigerian and African nationalism as a journalist and a political leader.

His father, Obed-Edom Chukwuemeka Azikiwe (1879–3 March 1958), a native of Onitsha, was a clerk in the British Administration of Nigeria, who traveled extensively as part of his job.