Anambra declares Monday public holiday in honour of Zik

By CHUKWUJEKWU ILOZUE, Awka

The Anambra State Government has declared Monday, November 16, a work-free day in honour of Nigeria’s first President, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe.

Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe popularly known as Zik who was born on November 16, 1904, in Zungeru in today’s Niger State.

In the statement signed by the Information and Public Enlightenment Commissioner, Mr. C. Don Adinuba, declaring the holiday government said all government offices, except those which provide essential services, will not open for business, just like the organized private sector and open markets in the state.

It is the second time Anambra State will observe Dr Azikiwe’s birthday as a work-free day the first time being in 2019.

Governor Obiano has also reiterated his call on the Federal Government to declare November 16 a national holiday in honour of Dr Azikiwe who led Nigeria to independence on October 1, 1960.

Obiano followed his request up with a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, noting that “the failure thus far to declare the birthday of the Great Zik of Africa a national holiday has become not just a national but also an international scandal.

“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.

“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”# (Text, excluding headline, courtesy Sunday Independent)