Nnamdi Azikiwe, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetNnamdi Azikiwe
First President of Nigeria
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Zungeru, Nigeria
About Nnamdi Azikiwe
- Nnamdi Azikiwe, PC (16 November 1904 – 11 May 1996), usually referred to as "Zik", was a Nigerian statesman who was Governor General of Nigeria from 1960 to 1963 and the first President of Nigeria from 1963 to 1966 (when Nigeria became a republic).
- Considered a driving force behind the nation's independence, he came to be known as the "father of Nigerian Nationalism".
- Born to Igbo parents 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 traveled 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.
- 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.
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