•The late Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe
By Magnus Eze
ENUGU – The Ala-Igbo Development Foundation (ADF), Igbo leaders and Biafra activists have expressed shock over the death of Prof. Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, one of the greatest advocates of Biafra.
A scholar of repute, Ekwe-Ekwe died last Thursday in London.
ADF described him as a top flight scholar who used his God given talents to fight for the Igbo/Biafran self-determination.
A statement, yesterday, by the chairman of ADF’s Media and Publicity Bureau, Abia Onyike, said the deceased in the past 30 years busied himself in teaching and research on the issues of African renaissance and the Biafran restoration project.
“As a political scientist, Ekwe-Ekwe had specialised in the politics of genocide in post independent Africa, which led him to label the Igbo genocide (1966-1970) as the ‘foundational genocide of post-(European) conquest Africa’ during which 3.1 million Igbo/Biafran people were massacred”.
Ekwe-Ekwe had distinguished himself as a scholar-activist who gave public lectures and spoke in several international conferences on Nigeria’s political evolution since the end of the second world war, identifying elements which set the stage for the 1966 crises, which was the preface to the Igbo genocide in the wake of the Nigeria-Biafra war.
According to ADF, Ekwe-Ekwe surpassed all African/Igbo diaspora scholars in the seminal work he did on Biafran and the crises of the Nigerian federation.
The Aka Ikenga, a leading Igbo organisation, described him as “one of the last originals.”
Ekwe-Ekwe was born on June 14, 1953 in Jos, Plateau State of Uburu parents from Ebonyi State. He attended St. Paul’s Primary School Bauchi.
He went to Boys High School, Gingiri, Plateau State. He attended the University of Ibadan and later travelled to United Kingdom where he obtained his master’s and doctorate degrees from University of Lancaster, England. (The Sun)