Ken Saro-Wiwa; Nigerian Environmentalist and author. Ken Saro-Wiwa was the President of the Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, MOSOP an organisation founded to defend the environmental and human rights of Ogoni people of the Niger Delta. Oil of commercial quantity was found in Ogoniland in 1958, but it also created political problems, environmental…
Ogunlesi Theophilus Oladipo, Professor of Medicine; the first to be so appointed in the University of Ibadan medicine department, taking after pioneer professors Alexander Brown and three others who were seconded from Britain when Ibadan was to host an annex of the University College of London in 1948. Ogunlesi was inspired into the medical profession…
Dupe Solana; Multi lingua Gospel crusader. Dupe took to church songs to fight depression following the murder in 1960 of her policeman father. She recorded her first elpee in 1966 and it was released in 1967. Jesu Mbo was a very successful debut, she has recorded eight elpees all on her independent record label. …
Modupe Christiana Telia (Nee Fakoiade); Nigerian hockey player trained by some of the best Nigerian coaches of her time. Her performance earned her a national team call up in 1975, and she represented Nigeria at several international competitions before hanging her stick in 1989 to become a coach. Places of Growth At St Michael,…
Ben Tomoloju; pioneer of Nigerian art journalism who through his literary enterprise added value to journalism. With his Saturday column in the Punch called Portrait of an Artist, Tomoloju projected very powerful productions to national reckoning. He also reported developments in policy and implementation in the country’s cultural sector[i]. Places of Growth Ben Tomoloju…
Gideon Tseja; Educationist who was consultant to the National Open University Nigeria, NOUN on course materials development. Tseja is a biographer and professor of English. To promote his advocacy for healthy living, he cycled over 200 kilometers from Zaria to Kano and later, to Kaduna. He advocates a clean and safe environment, and living in…
Tunji Oseni; Journalist and presidential spokesperson to President Olusegun Obasanjo. Oseni began his journalism career in 1967 at the Sketch newspapers where he rose to become its features editor and lead writer. In 1976, he became the editor of Sunday Times. Late in 1980, he left the shore of Nigeria to work with OPEC News…
Bob-Manuel Udokwu; Nigerian actor, belonging to the first generation, pioneers of home video with the debut of Living in Bondage. Childhood Bob-Manuel’s first stint with acting was when he was in primary two at St. Peters Primary School, Ogbete, Enugu. At Oraukivu Grammar School, in Idemmili Local Government of Anambra State, he opted for…
Paul lyorpiiu Unong; born on September 26, 1937 in Unongo is a Nigerian Benue State politician. The social democrat, Paul lyorpiiu Unongo is a former minister of Steel Development and later Minister of Mines and Power in the Nigerian Second Republic. Unongo first contested for the Benue State governorship in 1983 on the platform of…
Samuel Chinedum Ukala; playwright, poet and writer. Born 1949 in Delta State, Ukala is a professor of Drama and Theatre Arts at the Edo state University, Ekpoma. He is a theoretician in “Folkism”, a dramatic theory for which he is credited as the originator, floklorism being performance apparatus of traditional ‘theatre which aims at recreating…