Nigeria’s first president, Nnamdi Azikwe celebrates 114th posthumous birthday

Nigeria’s first president, Nnamdi Azikwe, fondly called Zik, would have turned 114 years old today, Friday, if he had been alive.

Zik emerged Nigeria’s last Governor-General, representing the British Monarch between 1960 when Nigeria gained her independence and 1963 when it became a Republic.

He turned the country’s first President after it became a Republic. It was a largely ceremonial office, given that Nigeria operated a parliamentary system of government, during the First Republic.

According to Wikipedia, Zik was one of those who fought for Nigeria’s independence from Britain.

He was born on November 16, 1904, in Zungeru, the present-day Niger State to Igbo parents. He lived with his aunt and grandmother in Onitsha and spent some time in Lagos.

Zik spoke the Igbo, Hausa, and Yoruba languages fluently. Punch