Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (4 November 1933 – 26 November 2011), known as Ikemba, was a Nigerian army officer and politician who led the Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970 (Wikipedia).
- Known as
- Ikemba
- Born
- 4 November 1933
- Place of birth
- Zungeru
- Died
- 26 November 2011
- Occupation
- Army officer and politician; leader of Biafra
- Field
- Warriors & Military Leaders
Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu (4 November 1933 – 26 November 2011), known as Ikemba, was a Nigerian army officer and politician who led the Republic of Biafra from 1967 to 1970 (Wikipedia). Born in Zungeru, the son of the Igbo businessman Louis Odumegwu Ojukwu, he was educated at King's College, Lagos, Epsom College in England and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he studied history. He served as an administrative officer before joining the army.
After the coup of January 1966, Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi appointed him military governor of the Eastern Region. Following the killings of Igbo in other parts of Nigeria, and after the talks at Aburi failed, he proclaimed the independent Republic of Biafra on 30 May 1967, saying that the federal government could not protect the lives of easterners (country study; Wikipedia).
After Oxford he returned to Nigeria as an administrative officer, serving at Udi and later at Umuahia and Aba between 1955 and 1957. In 1957 he applied to join the Nigerian Army, then a small force in which few commissioned officers had gone beyond primary school (Wikipedia).
His father, the son of a clan chief from Nnewi, sent him to school in Lagos, at St Patrick's School, CMS Grammar School and, from 1944, King's College. In 1946 he went to Epsom College in England, where he stayed for six years and excelled in sports as well as academics. At Oxford he first studied law, as his father wished, before switching to modern history, and he joined the West African Students' Union (Wikipedia).
He led Biafra through the civil war. When Biafran resistance collapsed in January 1970 he left for Côte d'Ivoire, where he was given political asylum (country study; Wikipedia). He died in London in 2011 (Wikipedia).
- Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu — Wikipedia · link
- Nigeria: A Country Study — Civil War — Federal Research Division, Library of Congress · link
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Archive ID: PER-CHUKWUEMEKA-ODUMEGWU-OJUKWU · Last updated 3 October 2026.
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