Emeka Anyaoku Biography & Net Worth

Chief Emeka Anyaoku is listed as one of the successful Diplomats who was born on 18 January 1933, he is also among the list of the richest people in the country with an estimated net worth of $1-5 million.

In this article, RNN will highlight the biography and net worth of Emeka Anyaoku,

Biodata

Biography

Chief Emeka Anyaoku was born on 18 January 1933 in Obosi, Nigeria to the family of Emmanuel and Cecilia Anyaoku in Obosi, then a very large village in the eastern part of Nigeria.

Emeka Anyaoku at the age of seven was sent to live with his father’s only brother at Umuahia to start schooling in a very rural school. The highest class then at the school was standard four, the colonial dispensation then generally did not encourage pupils to go beyond standard four or standard six.

At the age of 10 in 1943, Emeka was sent to stay with his father’s cousin, Nathaniel Enwezor who was Headmaster at CMS Central School at Agbor, 75 km from Obosi.

Emeka’s secondary education, the young Anyaoku attended Merchants of Light School (MOLS) at Oba. It was a boarding school founded by a friend of his father Dr Enoch Oli, a Nigerian educationist trained in London and Oxford.

After his education, he worked with the railways and later in the hospital in Kaduna in the Northern part of Nigeria before becoming a catechist. Thereafter serving for a number of years, he went back to his village to farm and became Ononukpo (Head) of Okpuno Ire, the largest village in Obosi.

Emeka’s Career

In 1959, Emeka Anyaoku joined the Commonwealth Development Corporation and In early 1962, Anyaoku came in contact with the then Prime Minister of Nigeria, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa. He had accompanied his visiting boss Lord Howick, Chairman of the Commonwealth Development Corporation to a meeting with the Prime Minister on the activities of the corporation in Nigeria and the West African region.

The Prime Minister was impressed by Anyaoku’s answers to some of his questions on the projects supported by the CDC in West Africa, took an interest in Anyaoku’s future and persuaded him to consider joining the Nigerian Foreign Service.

After a gruelling interview by the Federal Civil Service Commission, he was offered an appointment in the Foreign Service in April 1962. Within a month of his entry, he was appointed Personal Assistant to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry for External Affairs. Emeka joined Nigeria’s diplomatic service, and in 1963 was posted to its Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York.

In 1977, the Commonwealth Heads of Government elected him as Deputy Secretary-General in 1983, Nigeria’s civilian government appointed Anyaoku to become Nigeria’s Foreign Minister. After the overthrow of the government by military later that year, he returned to his position as Deputy Secretary-General with the support of the new government in Nigeria and the endorsement of all Commonwealth governments.

At the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Kuala Lumpur on 24 October 1989, Anyaoku was elected the third Commonwealth Secretary-General.

United Nation Career

In July 1963, at age 30, he was posted to Nigeria’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in New York. His first child, Adiba, was born in the New York Lying-In Hospital on 20 November 1963, two days before President John F. Kennedy of the United States was assassinated.

Emeka got embroiled in the crisis triggered by the Ian Smith administration in the then Southern Rhodesia in Southern Africa, who announced Rhodesia’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) from Britain. Anyaoku spoke at various forums to condemn this development. It was during one of these occasions that the news of Nigeria’s first military coup d’état of 15 January 1966 reached him.

The Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the powerful Premier of the Northern Region Sir Ahmadu Bello and a number of other leaders of the post-independence state were assassinated during the coup d’état which had taken place just one day after the Prime Minister hosted other Commonwealth leaders including the new Secretary-General Arnold Smith, to a meeting in Lagos where they discussed the issue of Rhodesia.

Anyaoku’s Net worth

Emmanuel Chukwuemeka Anyaoku’s net worth is estimated to be $1-5 million, he make his fortune from being a Diplomatic.