Ejike Obumneme Aghanya

Nigerian military officer and electrical engineer

Ejike Ebenezer Obumneme Aghanya (27 November 1932 – 3 July 2020) was a Nigerian military officer and electrical engineer. He was in the Nigerian Army and the Biafran Armed Forces, retiring as a Colonel.

He was accused of being part of the 1966 Nigerian coup d'état. He was arrested and imprisoned without trial until the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War where he worked in key jobs in the Biafran Armed Forces. He was the head of the Biafran Agency for Research and Production (RAP).[1]

Later he was the Chief of Staff of the Biafran Organisation of Freedom Fighters (BOFF) which was the guerrilla warfare and special operations arm of the Biafran Armed Forces.[2]

He also was Battalion Commander, 44th Electrical and Mechanical Engineer Battalion Biafran Army and later Brigade Commander of the 58th Brigade of 12th Infantry Division Biafran Army during the war.[3][4]

Aghanya died on 3 July 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia at the age of 87.[5]

References change

  1. Achebe, Chinua (2012). There was a country : a personal history of Biafra. Penguin. pp. 156. ISBN 978-1101595985.
  2. Baxter, Peter (2015). Biafra : the Nigerian Civil War, 1967-1970. Helion and Company. p. 24. ISBN 978-1909982369.
  3. "NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR:DIVISIONAL AND BRIGADE COMMANDERS OF THE "BIAFRAN" ARMY". Beegeagle's Blog. 10 April 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2020.
  4. Njoku, Hillary (1987). A tragedy without heroes : the Nigeria-Biafra war. Fourth Dimension. p. 138. ISBN 9781562382.
  5. "Col Aghanya: A Purposeful Life". Archived from the original on 2020-07-27. Retrieved 2020-07-27.