Nnamdi Azikiwe

Nnamdi Azikiwe (16 November 1904 – 11 May 1996), known as "Zik of Africa", was the first Nigerian governor-general of Nigeria, from 1960 to 1963, and the first president of the country, from 1963 to 1966 (Wikipedia). Born in Zungeru, in present-day Niger State, to Igbo parents from Onitsha, he grew up speaking Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. He studied in the United States at Storer College, Columbia University, the University of Pennsylvania and Howard University, and returned to Africa in 1934 to work as a journalist in the Gold Coast.

The Library of Congress country study describes his central role in the nationalist movement: he encouraged the conference that founded the NCNC in 1944, became its secretary-general under Herbert Macaulay, and led the party, in part through the string of newspapers he ran. When Nigeria became a republic in 1963, Azikiwe, who had been governor-general, became its first president (country study).

His name, Nnamdi, means "my father is alive" in Igbo. His father, Obed-Edom Chukwuemeka Azikiwe, from Onitsha, was a clerk in the colonial administration, and his mother, Rachel, was descended from a royal family of Onitsha. Concerned that the boy spoke Hausa but not Igbo, his father sent him to Onitsha in 1912 to learn the Igbo language and culture (Wikipedia).

While studying in the United States he wrote against the shooting of women in the Women's War of 1929, and in 1931 published his first book, Liberia in World Politics. He returned to Lagos in 1937 and founded the West African Pilot, with the motto "Show the light and the people will find the way", the flagship of a group of newspapers that spread his nationalist message across Nigeria (Wikipedia).

Wikipedia records that he is widely regarded as a father of Nigerian nationalism and one of the founding fathers of the country. In the Second Republic he led the Nigerian People's Party and stood for the presidency in 1979 (country study).