60 Facts About Jaja Wachuku

Jaja Wachuku was the first Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives; as well as the first Nigerian Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations.

Also, Wachuku was the first Nigerian Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Notably, Jaja Wachuku was a Royal Prince of Ngwaland, "descendant of 20 generations of African chiefs in the Igbo country of Eastern Nigeria".

Also, for the 1 January 2014 100-year anniversary of Nigeria, having been nominated for exceptional recognition by the Presidential Committee on the Centenary Celebrations, Jaja Wachuku was, on Friday 28 February 2014, honoured as a Hero of the Struggle for Nigeria's Independence from Great Britain and a Pioneer Political Leader by President Goodluck Jonathan.

On Friday 6 March 2020, Ireland's Trinity College Dublin honoured Jaja Wachuku with a prominent portrait placed within the university's Historical Society; where Jaja Wachuku graduated in 1944 with first class honours degree in Legal Sciences; and was a member of College Historical Society.

Jaja Wachuku was school band leader and prefect at Government School Afikpo, Ebonyi State.

Jaja Wachuku left there in 1930, having come first in the whole of Ogoja Province in the First School Leaving Certificate Examination.

Jaja Wachuku played tennis and cricket, and was in the first eleven of the college's football team: Also, Wachuku acquired vocational skills in carpentry, farming and metal works at Government College Umuahia.

From 1936 to 1937, Jaja Wachuku was on scholarship to Yaba Higher College, Lagos.

Jaja Wachuku was withdrawn from Yaba by his father Josaiah Ndubuisi Wachuku and sent to Gold Coast People's College, Adidome.

Jaja Wachuku was the first African medallist, laureate in Oratory of Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

Jaja Wachuku matriculated at Trinity College in 1939, and was, in 1941, elected Executive Member of the College Historical Society.

Jaja Wachuku represented University of Dublin during the 1943 Inter-University Debate held at University of Durham.

Jaja Wachuku was fully involved in Nigeria's constitutional conferences and struggle for independence from Great Britain.

Jaja Wachuku practised law in Dublin for three years, before returning to Nigeria in 1947.

Jaja Wachuku graduated first-class BA legal science and was LL.

Jaja Wachuku practised at the West African Court of Appeal.

From 1943 to 1945, Jaja Wachuku was founder, organiser and secretary of the Dublin International Club.

Jaja Wachuku was president of the club from 1945 to 1947 and resigned when he returned to Nigeria in 1947 to fight for an end to colonial rule and independence of Nigeria from Great Britain.

In 1947, Jaja Wachuku was, for six weeks, Legal and Constitutional Adviser to the National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons Pan-Nigeria Delegation that went to London to press for constitutional reforms in Nigeria.

Jaja Wachuku soon got involved in the nationalist agitation of that period and was a favoured lecturer at the Glover Memorial Hall, Lagos.

You will no doubt remember Jaja Wachuku who was a delegate to the Fifth Pan-African Congress.

Jaja Wachuku has recently started a Pan-African Party in Nigeria to spread the ideas of which you are the worthy father.

Jaja Wachuku was co-founder and original shareholder, with Nnamdi Azikiwe, of the African Continental Bank, and first regional director of the bank, from 1948 to 1952.

In 1954, Jaja Wachuku lost the Eastern Regional election and ceased to be a member of the House of Representatives.

In 1957, Jaja Wachuku became Deputy Leader of opposition when he joined the NCNC.

Accordingly, in 1957, Jaja Wachuku was the Leader of the Nigerian Federation Delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Meeting held in India, Pakistan and Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

Jaja Wachuku represented Nigeria in Liberia during the opening of the New Parliament Building in Monrovia.

From 1958 to 1959, Jaja Wachuku was chairman of the Business Committee in the House of Representatives of Nigeria.

Jaja Wachuku was a member of the Parliamentary Committee on the Nigerianization of the Federal Civil Service.

Jaja Wachuku wrote the committee's Report assisted by Michael O Ani.

In 1959, Jaja Wachuku was re-elected into the House of Representatives from Aba Division; and was, subsequently, elected the first indigenous Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives.

In 1951, Jaja Wachuku married fellow Nigerian: Rhoda Idu Oona Onumonu.

From 1959 to 1960, Jaja Wachuku was the first indigenous Speaker of the House of Representatives of Nigeria.

Notably, It was during this period and during his years as First Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister that Wachuku forged the reputed friendship that he had with three Presidents of the United States: Dwight D Eisenhower, John F Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson.

Jaja Wachuku was good friends with Sam Rayburn: 48th, 50th and 52nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Adlai Stevenson, Martin Luther King Jr.

From 1960 to 1961, Jaja Wachuku served as first Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations in New York, as well as Federal Minister for Economic Development.

Jaja Wachuku hoisted Nigeria's flag as the 99th member of the United Nations on 7 October 1960.

Accordingly, Jaja Wachuku was instrumental to Nigeria becoming the 58th Member State of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization on Monday 14 November 1960.

In 1961, Jaja Wachuku was appointed as Nigeria's inaugural Minister of Foreign Affairs and Commonwealth Relations.

Mr Jaja Wachuku is a lawyer from the Eastern Region and is at present Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Jaja Wachuku is an intelligent young man who has held somewhat extreme nationalist views, but is settling down.

On 14 July 1962, Jaja Wachuku was decorated with the insignia of the Commander of the Order of the Niger Republic, in recognition of "services to the People of the Republic of Niger" by President Hamani Diori.

Foreign Minister Jaja Wachuku was a surprise for many American diplomats because he considered himself as having a status equivalent to the British, French, German, or Russian Ministers.

Jaja Wachuku employed the same quiet consultation on the matter with US Secretary of State Dean Rusk and British Foreign Secretary Lord Home.

Humane and successful diplomatic efforts by Wachuku to save Mandela and others from death penalty at the Rivonia Trial were given more light by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Henry Brandis Professor of Law Emeritus: Kenneth S Broun, in his published book: Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa.

Jaja Wachuku foresaw the danger of recognising military coup as a way to change government.

Jaja Wachuku believed that if that first African coup by the Togolese army was recognised as a way to change government, then, coup-making would spread in Africa.

Jaja Wachuku added that by the time coup makers got to number three, he would be resting in his village.

History has already told us whether Jaja Wachuku was right or wrong.

Jaja Wachuku would be pleased to know that Nigeria had caught up with him.

Some of those present had strong links with the Pan-Africanist past, notably Rayford W Logan, who had played an important part in the era of Pan-African congresses after the First World War; Jean Price-Mars, Haitian diplomat, philosopher of negritude, and President of the Societe Africaine de Culture in Paris; and Jaja Wachuku, who had been at the 1945 Pan-African Congress, and who was in 1960 foreign Minister of Nigeria.

Subsequently, from 1965 to midday 14 January 1966, Jaja Wachuku was Nigeria's Minister of Aviation.

The Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, pleaded with Jaja Wachuku to reinstate the Nigeria Airways Board chairman and accept another ministry.

Balewa even asked his wife Rhoda Idu Jaja Wachuku to plead with him, yet he refused and tendered his resignation from Parliament and as an Executive Member of Government midday 14 January 1966.

Later, during the war, Jaja Wachuku fell out with the Government of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu because he spoke out against the recruitment of child soldiers.

Jaja Wachuku was arrested and detained by the Ojukwu Government.

Jaja Wachuku's library was described as the biggest one man library in West Africa by regional and national media.

Jaja Wachuku was a Founding Member of the Movement for the creation of Imo State, and leader, until his death, of the Movement for the creation of Aba State.

Jaja Wachuku was later removed from the Foreign Relations Committee because of officially calling for dialogue with South Africa.