The Anambra state government has felicitated with the former Secretary-General of the Commonwealth of Nations, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, as he turns 89
A statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, Mr C. Don Adinuba, said the government and people of Anambra State celebrate the global citizen who thinks home and is in every sense exemplary.
According to Mr Adinuba, Chief Anyaoku is one of the most decorated Africans in modern history, as exemplified by 34 honorary doctoral degrees he has received from various local and foreign universities, noting that Chief Anyaoku’s tenure as the Commonwealth chief executive from 1990 to 2000 is spoken about throughout the world in nostalgic terms.
The statement recalled that being one of the most respected voices across the globe, Chief Anyaoku has served as the president of the Worldwide Foundation and on the board of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London while a professorial chair of international studies has long been established in his honour at the University of London, noting that as a patriot, he relocated to Nigeria on retirement from the Commonwealth and has become the conscience of the nation through his various speeches and writings on critical national issues as well as involvement in different patriotic activities.
“It observed that despite his towering international and national achievements, Chief Anyaoku has his two feet planted in Anambra’s soil and played a most significant part in stopping the mayhem of November 2003, during which institutions of government and has been serving Anambra people in various other ways including leadership of the Anambra State Council of Elders which has been marked with great understanding, wisdom, knowledge and dignity and has also demonstrated great love for his Obosi community, thereby inspiring other eminently successful individuals to identify with theirs, noting that he always spends the Christmas holidays in his Obosi town, and his presence frequently attracts local and international statesmen to the community.
The statement added that Chief Anyaoku took the initiative to bring together a team of professional historians to write an authoritative book on the history of his hometown which resulted in the publication in 2015 of the well-received and well-produced book, The History of Obosi: From the Earliest Times to the Present, which he sponsored as well as began a few years ago the building of an edifice in his hometown for the Emeka Anyaoku Foundation to work in collaboration with the Emeka Anyaoku Centre for Global Studies at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka which will house a large library and a museum, among other facilities, is now completed.
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