97th birthday of Kenneth Onwuka Dike

(Born 17 December 1917, Oka, Igboland)

Historian, doyen of the Reconstructionary School of African Historical Studies in the aftermath of 400 years of the pan-European enslavement, conquest and occupation of the African world, lays the foundation of this restoration of the African as subject and agency in history in the 1956 publication of his classic, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta, 1830-1885, inaugurates a stretch of an encompassing African heritage archive and becomes the first African vice-chancellor (president) of the University of Ibadan, and later, 1967-1969, travels the world as one of the envoys of eminent Biafran intellectuals who campaigns against the Igbo genocide waged by Nigeria and its allies, particularly Britain, in which 3.1 million Igbo people (one-quarter of this nation’s population) are murdered between 29 May 1966 and 12 January 1970

Twitter @HerbertEkweEkwe