Photo: Camopedia

Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, 34, President of the then Republic of Biafra. (file photo)

Ailing leader of the defunct Biafran Republic and leader of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu is dead

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu born on 4 November 1933 at Zungeru in northern Nigeria to Sir Louis Phillippe Odumegwu Ojukwu, a businessman from Nnewi in south-eastern Nigeria died in London in the early hours after a long illness at Royal Berkshire Hospital in the UK.

Odumegwu-Ojukwu also known as Ikemba Nnewi was said to have died in the UK after months in hospital for the treatment of a serious stroke he had suffered late last year.

Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu born on 4 November 1933 at Zungeru in northern Nigeria to Sir Louis Phillippe Odumegwu Ojukwu, a businessman from Nnewi in south-eastern Nigeria.

Odumegwu-Ojukwu who was imprisoned for assaulting a white British colonial teacher, who was humiliating a black woman, at King's College in Lagos began his educational career in Lagos.

At 13, his father sent him overseas to study in Britain, first at Epsom College, in Surrey and later earned a Masters degree in history at Lincoln College, Oxford University and returned to colonial Nigeria in 1956.

In 1957 the Ikemba Nnewi joined the Nigerian Army as one of the first and few university graduates. Ojukwu was among the 15 Nigerians officers out of the 250 officers the Nigerian Military Forces had then.