Peter Awelewa Adebiyi; clergy of the Anglican Communion, advocate of political restructuring, true federalism and good governance. Peter Adebiyi was for 14 years the Bishop of the Diocese of Lagos West; first Bishop the Diocese. His first three years were spent in Owo Diocese where he was Bishop. Peter Adebiyi, retired in 2013 as the…
Ebitimi Banigo; banker and financial consultant argued by some to be the real father of modern banking in Nigeria. Banigo became the managing director of International Merchant Bank at age 33 and many of the top names in the banking industry including Jim Ovia and Bismarck Rewane passed through him. As the MD, he created…
Melissa Ifidzhen; Russian-born Nigerian tennis star. Ifidzhen made her debut for Nigeria at the ITF/CAT African U-18 Championship held at Cairo, Egypt in April 2015. Ifidzhen was born in 1999 of Nigerian father and a Russian mother. She started tennis at the age of five. As a member of the Russian national U-12 team she…
KATSINA Hassan Usman; Nigerian Army General, born 1933 in Katsina. Hassan Usman Katsina belonged to the generation of generals who handled the affairs of the Nigerian republic in 1966 when the military made the maiden incursion into politics. A Sandhurst trained officer, Katsina was appointed the military governor of the old Northern Region at a relatively…
Odumegwu Ojukwu; Army officer, listed in the Nigerian Army in 1957 and rising through the ranks to become the military governor of the Nigeria Eastern Region in 1966. Ojukwu was the chief secessionist of the defunct Republic of Biafra, which he declared shortly after failed effort to broker peace with Head of State, Yakwubu Gowon…
Mabel Segun; Novelist, one of Nigeria’s first generation writers. Mabel Segun is the author of My Father’s Daughter, The First Corn, Olu and The Broken Statue, Youth Day Parade, The Twins and The Tree Spirits, and Sorry, No Vacancy[i]. Her last work before her comeback in 2010 was in 1998. And before that, she had…
Ebitu Okoh Ukiwe; Nigeria’s first chief of general staff. Ukiwe was military governor of Niger State, 1977-78, military administrator of Lagos State, 1978-79 and chief of general staff, 1985-86. A war generalissimo, Ukiwe pitched tent with the Biafran side during the 30-month-old Nigerian civil war, proving his mantle on the battlefield. However, after the war.…
Stella Obasanjo; First Lady of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from 1999 till her demise in October, 2005. Stella was praised as a stablising influence in the nation’s turbulent political turf and a leash on the husband’s mercurial temper. Her visits to Yola during the incarceration of her husband by the Abacha regime on charges…