Billionaire Muslim and an illustrious Igbo son, Chief Abdulazeez Chibuzor Ude has passed away on Thursday 16th September 2021 after an illness. He was buried on Friday, 17th September 2021, at his hometown Abor, Udi LGA, Enugu State in accordance with Islamic rites.
Chief Abdulazeez Ude was born on 30 September 1940. Chief Abdulazeez is a distinguished alumnus of the esteemed College of Immaculate Conception (CIC), Enugu. He was educated at Oxford in England and Columbia in the United States.
He worked with Doubleday (American book publishing company), publishers of Anchor Books and rubbed shoulders with Toni Morrison as book editor before she branched out to write novels such as Song of Solomon, Beloved etc and winning the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Alhaji Abdulazeez Ude founded Nok Publishers in the United States and Nigeria, undertaking to see radical books from Africa and the Global South in print. The West and the Rest of Us by Chinweizu is a landmark title. His funds were always available for intellectual concerns. He was the financial chest behind the classy Chic Magazine published by Eddie Iroh out of London, England. He was a director of Newswatch magazine and many other publications besides.
As a distinguished businessman, Chief Udeh was the brain behind firms such as Tanhigh Holdings Ltd, Tanhigh Finance Ltd, 150 Estates Nigeria Ltd, Trans-Sahel Airlines Ltd etc, and played a founding role in the African Business Roundtable and the African Development Bank.
Known as Ebube Ndi Muslim of Igbo Land, Boroji of Lagos State and Bowashuwa of Ikorodu. Chief Abdulazeez was married with children. In his lifetime enjoyed tennis, meditation, reading and walking.
Tributary
In my debut novel, “Arrows of Rain,” I acknowledged Abdulaziz Chivuzor Ude as a benefactor. Abdulaziz, who died two days ago (and was buried yesterday in line with Islamic rites), was an uncommonly generous man. Educated at Oxford and Columbia, he started out his professional life as a book editor in New York City (with the great novelist Toni Morrison as one of his colleagues). He later relocated to Nigeria where he set up Nok Publishers, bringing out rich and powerful books that helped foster vibrant intellectual ferment in much of Africa and beyond. After branching out to other areas of business, he acquired great wealth that galvanized his extraordinary philanthropy. He paid my fees through graduate school in the US—as he did for scores of others. What’s more, he was always a quiet, self-effacing man. Twice, when he attended my book events in Nigeria, he tried—unsuccessfully, I’m glad to say—to hush me from telling the audience about his kindness to me and others.
May the soul of this rare, remarkable man find eternal peace. #IjeomaOkey Ndibe
THE GOOD “ALHAJI”
it is no longer news that Chief Alhaji Abdulaziz Ude from Abor in Enugu State is dead. What is striking is how despite being a Muslim, he was human and humane.
From the tributes that are pouring in following his demise, one sees a Nigerian man whose religion did not stand on his way to being germane, caring and helpful to many, some unknown to him. Examples of the “tributes” I read were from the likes of Emeka Ugwuonye, Okey Ndibe, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, the Anambra State commissioner of information, etc.,
To read of how he singlehandedly sponsored Nigerians of different tribes and tongues to schools overseas, challenges the seeming normal parochial tendencies of our pretentious “religiosity’ that blinds is to the pains and needs of others, in the name of our” respective” G/gods. What Alhaji Ude’s example reminds us is that Nigerians must rise beyond the perduring dubious religiousness in the country, to living the core of the tenets of our faith, starting with being human, loving the other including paying to educate the many out of schools kids who so often become willing tools for greater insecurity in Nigeria..NB: My conclusions here comes from the tributes I have read about him so far. I didn’t know him in person even if I had heard of his fame from when I was younger
Fada Chukudwumebi Norbert
May Allah forgive his sins and accept him in Jannatul Firdaous. Ameen.
