By Nwanosike Onu, Awka
Anambra Governor Willie Obiano has shut schools, markets, and other privately owned establishments to honour the first President of Nigeria, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe.
He has also written to President Muhammadu Buhari to declare November 16 as a public holiday for Zik.
In a letter to Buhari, the Governor said the failure to declare the birthday of the Great Zik of Africa a national holiday had become not just a national but also an international scandal.
Anambra, through Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment, C Don Adinuba, said all government offices, except those which provide essential services, would not open for business as well as markets in the state.
The first time Obiano declared a public holiday for Zik was in 2019 since he took over leadership in Anambra.
According to Obiano: “The Ghanaians observe President Kwame Nkrumah’s birthday as a national holiday.
“Angolans observe Dr. Agostino Neto’s birthday as a national holiday, just the way Tanzanians do the birthday of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere.
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“Interesting enough, it was the Great Zik of Africa who mentored Dr. Nkrumah whom he discovered when he was editing the African Morning Post in Ghana and sent him to his alma mater in the United States, Lincoln University, the first historically black university in America, to study the humanities just like himself.
“Zik inspired a generation of Africans, including Nigerians, into African nationalism.
“Another great Nigerian whom Zik inspired into embracing pan Africanism was the late Chief MKO Abiola, who won the 1993 presidential election fair and square but was tragically denied victory.
“The Nigerian people are consoled by the fact that this great Zikist has officially been declared the winner of the historic vote, though posthumously, and June 12 proclaimed a national holiday”.
Obiano maintained Azikiwe remained Nigeria’s most detribalised leader in history.
