Industrialist, Onwuka Kalu, Dies

Foremost industrialist, Chief Onwuka Kalu, the famed Okpuzu of Abiriba, is dead. He lost his four-year battle against cancer Monday night in a London hospital, his family has announced.

Onwuka Kalu, one of the best known Nigerians of the 1970s and 1980s, achieved fame as a teenage millionaire trader who went into manufacturing of Rocket Nails and motor parts through Onwuka HiTek Plc, the first Nigerian company to be quoted straight on the first tier of the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

The Okpuzu was a foremost promoter of Made-in-Nigeria goods and popularised Aba as the Japan of Africa. A man of big dreams, he was one of the first set of Nigerians to obtain a banking licence. He founded and chaired the board of Fidelity Bank but later exited in the heat of a boardroom squabble.

A great lover of children, Onwuka Kalu was passionate about promoting the welfare of African children. This moved him to set up the Children of Africa Foundation, with which he organised the Children of Africa Charity Concert that brought the global musical giants of the time to perform in a globally followed show in Lagos in 1991.

• The Okpuzu also forayed into politics. He was a member of the 1988 Constituent Assembly. He later ran as governor of Abia State in 2003 on the platform of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) but lost to the then incumbent governor, Orji Uzor Kalu.

Onwuka Kalu was one of the victims of late despot Gen. Sani Abacha’s iron-fist reign. He was detained as a political prisoner for about a year at Alagbon, Ikoyi, Lagos, losing one of his eyes in the process. (Thisdaylive)