NZUKO Brand, Enugu (2026)

21/08/2026

A century after the influenza pandemic, COVID-19 arrived in Lagos on 27 February 2020, brought by international air travel, before spreading across the country. Influenza had similarly entered through the coastal ports and travelled inland along the railways and roads of the colonial economy.

Once more, for Igbo communities, the disruption went beyond the disease itself. Lockdowns interrupted the movement on which much of social and economic life depends. Markets closed or operated under restrictions, transport was limited, businesses lost income, and religious and social gatherings were suspended. Research on Southeast Nigeria found significant effects on household income, expenditure, social activities and religious life, while also recording an unexpected increase in time spent with family.

This was especially significant in a society where community is sustained through physical presence. Markets are places of commerce and social exchange; churches are also centres of family and community life; weddings, funerals, town meetings and other gatherings connect people beyond the immediate household. COVID-19 temporarily disrupted many of these networks.

[Cont'd in the comments 🔽]

📸: BBC, The Guardian, Health Reporters

18/08/2026

In September 1918, the influenza pandemic reached Lagos. The first official cases were recorded on 14 September, following the arrival of the steamship Bida from the Gold Coast. From Lagos, the disease moved inland along the railway and road networks that had expanded under colonial rule. Within months, it had spread across much of Southern Nigeria.

The pandemic was particularly devastating because it struck communities already affected by the disruptions of colonial conquest and the First World War. A widely cited estimate puts the Nigerian death toll at about 500,000, although the figure is likely conservative, especially for rural communities where deaths often went unrecorded. Studies of the pandemic describe widespread disruption to agriculture, trade, transportation and everyday life.

In Igboland, the consequences extended beyond the immediate loss of life. The weakening of agricultural labour deepened an already serious food crisis. On the Lower Niger, this helped accelerate the spread of cassava. Historian Don C. Ohadike found that although cassava was already cultivated in the neighbouring Niger Delta, it was only sparsely grown on the Lower Niger before 1919. The influenza pandemic, combined with wartime shortages and the loss of able-bodied workers, increased the value of a crop that required comparatively little labour and could remain in the ground until needed. Its cultivation subsequently expanded rapidly. (Ohadike, 1981)

The pandemic therefore became one of the forces that helped reshape the food economy of the region. The cassava that is now such a familiar part of food production across Igboland was not simply a colonial introduction or an ancient staple. Its wider adoption was partly a response to a moment of extraordinary crisis.

[Cont'd in the comments 🔽]

🎥: Ada Egara Nsukka

Have you heard stories about the colonial “immunization run” in your community?

13/08/2026

Major Donatus Okafor was born in Kaduna and was reportedly fluent in Hausa. His father had a building business in Kano, while Max Siollun, citing an earlier source in his book Oil, Politics, and Violence, notes that his mother was reportedly Tiv. Okafor began his military career as a non-commissioned officer and later attended the Mons Officer Cadet School in Aldershot, England. He also served as an instructor in the Army Education Corps.

By January 1966, Okafor was commander of the Federal Guards, the army unit responsible for protecting the Prime Minister and performing ceremonial duties. His position made him particularly important to the coup plotters. He was reportedly close to Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and was familiar with the security arrangements and routines around the Prime Minister’s residence.

According to the Nigerian Police Special Branch investigation, Okafor was part of the inner circle that began planning the coup months before it was carried out. On the night of 15 January, he led Federal Guards to the residence of Brigadier Zakariya Maimalari, who was targeted as part of the operation. Maimalari escaped from the house but was later killed by Major Emmanuel Ifeajuna.

Okafor was also involved in the operation against Prime Minister Balewa. Accounts differ on the precise sequence of events, but sources agree that his knowledge of the Prime Minister’s movements and security arrangements was important to the plot. Max Siollun notes that Okafor and Ifeajuna were responsible for abducting Balewa, who was later found dead.

After the coup failed, Okafor was detained for his involvement and eventually held at Abeokuta Prison. He remained there until July 1966.

During the violence that followed the July counter-coup, northern soldiers broke into Abeokuta Prison and took Okafor from his cell. Accounts describe him being tortured and killed in the prison courtyard. Some sources, including Robin Luckham's The Nigerian Military: A Sociological Analysis of Authority and Revolt, 1960–1967, state that he was buried alive, though other accounts differ on the exact circumstances of his death.

📸: archivi.ng

06/08/2026

Major Adewale Ademoyega's book, Why We Struck (1981), is regarded as one of the most important first-hand accounts of the motivations behind the January 1966 coup.

Adewale Ademoyega was born in Ode Remo, present-day Ogun State, Nigeria. He earned a degree in History from the University of London before subsequently enlisting in the Nigerian Army as an officer cadet. According to available accounts, changes to the policy on the direct commissioning of university graduates into the Nigerian Army meant that Ademoyega became the last university graduate to be commissioned directly into the Infantry. Before him were graduate officers including Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, Victor Banjo, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Olufemi Olutoye and others.

Ademoyega rose to the rank of Major in the Infantry Corps. On January 15, 1966, he was one of the principal plotters of Nigeria's first military coup. In the first chapter of his book, Ademoyega points to growing corruption among the political class and its adverse effects on the country, particularly in the Western Region. The coup was therefore conceived as an attempt to correct what the plotters saw as a failing political system and set the country on a new course. Ademoyega was stationed in Lagos during the ex*****on of the coup, where he was expected to make the announcement from the studios of Radio Nigeria.

The coup failed, and his broadcast was never made. Ademoyega was arrested and detained by Federal authorities. On August 13, 1967, he was released from prison and joined the Biafran side during the Nigeria–Biafra War, where he was put in command of the newly formed 19th Battalion under the Liberation Army led by Lt. Col. Victor Banjo. Following internal accusations within Biafra, Ademoyega was re-arrested and remained in Biafran custody for the duration of the war.

After the collapse of Biafra in January 1970, Federal forces took Ademoyega into custody. He remained in prison until October 1974, when General Yakubu Gowon released him under an Independence Day amnesty. Major Adewale Ademoyega died on February 21, 2007, at the age of 72, following a period of illness.

04/08/2026

Slide 1: Major Chukwuma Nzeogwu's broadcast following the January 1966 coup.

Not much is recorded about the early life of Major Humphrey Iwuchukwu Chukwuka, one of the principal plotters of Nigeria's first coup. Some sources state that he was born in Kaduna and joined the military at an early age, undergoing cadet training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in the United Kingdom in 1960. By January 1966, he was serving as Deputy Adjutant-General at Army Headquarters in Lagos, directly under the Adjutant-General, Lt. Col. James Pam.

During the January 15, 1966 coup, Major Chukwuka was assigned to lead the operation to arrest his direct commander, Lt. Col. James Pam, at his home on Ikoyi Crescent in Lagos. Assisted by 2nd Lt. Godwin Onyefuru and Sergeant Donatus Anyanwu, Chukwuka took Pam into custody, assuring his wife, Elizabeth, that no physical harm would come to her husband.

Chukwuka reportedly drove Pam to the Brigade of Guards Officers' Mess, where the Lagos group of coup plotters had gathered. There, Major Chris Anuforo confronted Chukwuka for bringing Pam in alive. Chukwuka insisted that he had completed his assignment by arresting Lt. Col. Pam and would not execute him. According to accounts of the incident, Major Anuforo subsequently took Pam away and executed him.

[Cont'd in the comments 🔽]

📸: archivi.ng

18/05/2026

Slide 1: “Zik and Sir Louis Ojukwu on one of their trips abroad in the 1950s in search of funds for the establishment of the first University in Nigeria”— Zik House, Enugu.

Once president of the African Continental Bank and founding president of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, Sir Louis Phillip Odumegwu Ojukwu was one of the pioneering entrepreneurs of the 1950s. With business interests spanning transportation, real estate, finance, and import-export, he was widely regarded as one of the first multimillionaires in colonial Africa. His transport company was especially influential, with a fleet of over 200 trucks so strategically positioned that during and after World War II, the British relied on them to move supplies across the region — a service for which he was later knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Sir Louis also played a pivotal role in the establishment of University of Nigeria Nsukka. While Nnamdi Azikiwe championed the larger vision, Sir Louis worked actively alongside him in his capacity as Chairman of the Eastern Regional Marketing Board. Through his influence and leadership, he helped rally support and drive the project forward. With sustained collective effort and backing from the Eastern Nigeria Government and international advisory agencies, UNN formally opened in 1960. Sir Louis Ojukwu died in 1966, just a year before the Biafran War which would be led by his son, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu.

📸: via Zik House, BBC

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