LAGOS, Nigeria — Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu passionately believed his homeland in eastern Nigeria deserved to be its own country, a new nation free of the borders imposed by foreigners as colonialism lifted across Africa in the 1960s.
That hopefulness descended into hellish reality as Nigeria’s many ethnic groups fought over whether to remain unified during a bloody three-year civil war that killed 1 million people.
Ojukwu, a millionaire’s son who became the military leader of the breakaway republic, died in a London hospital Saturday after a protracted illness following a stroke. He was 78. Maja Umeh, a spokesman for Nigeria’s Anambra state, confirmed Ojukwu’s death Saturday.
In a statement Saturday, President Goodluck Jonathan praised Ojukwu for his “immense love for his people, justice, equity and fairness which forced him into the leading role he played in the Nigerian civil war.”
Ojukwu’s rise coincided with the fall of Nigeria’s First Republic, formed after Nigeria, a nation split between a Muslim north and a largely Christian south, gained its independence from Britain in 1960.
A 1966 coup led primarily by army officers from the Igbo ethnic group from Nigeria’s southeast shot and killed Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, a northerner, as well as the premier of northern Nigeria, Ahmadu Bello. The coup failed, but the country still fell under military control. Northerners, angry about the death of its leaders, attacked Igbos living there. As many as 10,000 people died in resulting riots.
Ojukwu, then 33, served as the military governor for the southeast. In 1967, he declared the region as the Republic of Biafra. The announcement sparked 31 months of fierce fighting between the breakaway republic and Nigeria, whose forces slowly strangled Biafra into submission.
