Billionaire businessman Abdulaziz Chibuzor Ude is dead. News of the death of the elder statesman and one-time Acting Chairman of the Board of Directors of Newswatch was broken by the Anambra State Government via a statement issued on Saturday and signed by the Commissioner for Information & Public Enlightenment, C. Don Adinuba.

The statement indicated that Alhaji Ude died on Thursday, September 16, 2021, and was buried the next day in line with Islamic injunction.

“The people and Government of Anambra State have received with sadness the news of the death two days ago of Chief Abdulaziz Chivuzor Ude, the internationally renowned publisher, intellectual, art lover, pan Africanist, entrepreneur and philanthropist from Abor, Udi Local Government Area of Enugu State.

“He died in Lagos in his late 80s, and was buried in his hometown in the afternoon yesterday in line with the Islamic injunction,” the statement said.

Christened Bertrand at an early age and the first senior prefect of the College of Immaculate Conception (CIC), Enugu, Ude attended Oxford University where he read philosophy, economics and politics before proceeding to Columbia University in New York where he took a master’s degree in international relations. Ude caught public attention when, while working as an editor at Random House in New York, the world’s biggest book publishing firm, he published Chinua Achebe’s classic, Things Fall Apart, in the United States during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967-70.

Paying tribute to Ude, the Anambra State Governmen said: “Unknown to most people because of his self-effacing nature, Chief Ude contributed significantly to the creation of Anambra, Enugu, Delta and Ebonyi states. Apart from being one of the signatories to the petition for the creation of these states to the Ibrahim Babangida military regime, he donated not just cash but also his private jet to transport the Igbo patriots like Dr Alex Ekwueme, Chike Edozie, Dr Akanu Ibiam, Chief CC Onoh and Dr Okadigbo to different cities who signed the petition. He also donated part of his building at 59 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, to coordinate the campaign for the creation of Igbo states and paid the staff. The then traditional ruler of Enugwu Ukwu, Igwe Osita Agwuna, one of Nigeria’s foremost nationalists, was to confer a high title on him for services to the Igbo world.

“Ude’s Nok book publishing firm in Enugu, New York, London and Lagos, published such outstanding works as Chinweizu’s The West and the Rest of Us and Romanus Egudu’s Study of Four West Africans. Ude, in addition, financed Eddie Iroh’s Chic, the London-based colourful social magazine.

The statement noted that Ude was an active member of The African Business Round Table for several years, adding: “Ude awarded scholarships to hundreds of people to study in top universities in the world and assisted many others in different fields quietly. For example, he was a major promoter of the exhibitions of Aka: The Circle of exhibiting artists like Professor Obiora Udechukwu, Professor Chike Aniakor, Tayo Adenaike, Dr Obiora Anidi, Nsikak Essien, Chris Afuba, Bona Ezeudu and Boniface Okafor.”