The first Igbo military officer to attain the rank of three-star General, Chikadibia Isaac Obiakor, is dead.
According to family sources, Obiakor died on Wednesday in Abuja, after a brief illness resulting from a vehicle accident.
Born on February 18, 1951, in Wusasa, present day Kaduna State, Obiakor, who hailed from Umudioka, Awka, Anambra State, attended St. Bartholomews Primary School, Wusasa, Zaria.
He proceeded to the Nigerian Military School (NMS) Zaria in January 1963 where, in class 3, he became the school high jumper and also played basketball for the school.
The January 1966 coup took place while he was in school in Zaria. He was one of those deployed to help maintain peace during one of the pre-Civil War riots in Zaria in May 1966.
He was in transit to the East with other students on 27 July 1966 unaware of the counter-coup going on.
Late Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, then Military Governor of Eastern Region ordered that they should not go back to the North and directed that they should be deployed to government schools in the East where they had military cadet corps. Obiakor found himself at Government College Umuahia, where he continued his education up till 1967.
With the outbreak of the Civil War in 1967, Obiakor fought on the Biafran side, and rose to the rank of Captain. At the end of the war, he managed to re-establish contact with the Commandant of the Nigerian Military School who immediately intervened to ensure that all the NMS boys who fought on the Biafran side were released without delay and allowed to return to the school to complete their training.
In one of the most remarkable comeback stories, Obiakor returned to NMS Zaria in April 1970. The same year, he wrote his School Certificate Examination as well as the entrance examination into the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA). He passed the exams in May 1971 and was admitted as a member of the 10th Regular Course of the NDA.
A distinguished artillery officer, Obiakor who was fluent in Hausa and Igbo, served as General Officer Commanding (GOC) 2 Division of the Nigerian Army.
For his diligence and valor in service, Obiakor was decorated with the following medals and honors; Force Service Star (FSS), Meritorious Service Star (MSS), Distinguished Service Star (DSS), Corps Medal of Honor (CMH), ECOMOG Medal, United Nations Mission in Liberia Medal (x5), United Nations Medal (x5), Republic Medal, Civil War Medal, Defence Service Medal, Good Conduct Medal, Silver Jubilee Medal, General Operations Medal Golden Jubilee Medal, Instructor Gunner (IG), Qualified Staff (QS), PSC (+) Command and Staff College Nigeria, PSC (+) Command Staff College Ghana, PSC Army Command and Staff College Indonesia, Fellow War College (+), Grand Fellow Institute of Strategic Management Nigeria (GFISMN), NPOM National Productivity Order of Merit Award Nigeria. He was awarded the Nigerian National Honour of Officer of the Federal Republic (OFR) in 2014.
Obiakor literally broke the glass ceiling for other Igbo military officers like Air Chief Marshall Paul Dike (first Igbo Four-star General and Defence Chief), Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika (fist Igbo to head the Nigerian Army after the Late Major General Aguiyi Ironsi), and Vice Admiral Joseph Ezeoba, the first Igbo to head the Nigerian Navy.
He was the Chairman of the United Nations Board of Inquiry in South Sudan on the downing of a United Nations plane in December 2012.[9] and Chairman of a United Nations Board of Inquiry in Abiyei, Sudan.[10] He is also a member of the Peacekeeping Training Programme Advisory Board of the United Nations Institute for Training and Research.
He chaired Nigeria’s Whitepaper Drafting Committee on the revised Nigerian National Defence Policy (NNDP) 2015 which was directed at making recommendations to the Nigerian government on how to implement the revised Defence Policy, which dealt largely with contemporary security challenges and production of national defence needs and development in Nigeria.
He was one of the eminent Nigerians invited to witness the signing of a Peace Pact by the 14 Presidential aspirants in January 2015 before the 2015 General Elections at a session chaired by former Commonwealth Secretary General Emeka Anyaoku with a keynote address delivered by Mr. Kofi Annan, a former United Nations Secretary-General.[14]
In September 2017, he was decorated alongside four other alumni of the elite Nigerian Military School Zaria – Maj. Gen IBM Haruna (rtd), Col. Musa Shehu (rtd), Col. John Okoli (rtd) and Gp Capt Yakubu Suleiman (rtd) – as a Patron of the FCT Chapter of the school’s Alumni Association.
He was Chairman, UN Board of Inquiry into the Killing of Burundian Refugees in Kamanyola, DRC in 2018, and Chairman, UN Secretary General Board of Inquiry to Investigate the Destruction of Humanitarian Structures and Facilities in North West Syria in 2019–2020.
