“The first black man in the Commonwealth of Canada to win the Queens’ Commission was first African to be commissioned to serve in the Canadian Navy.
“Your Excellency, with those qualifications and professional international exposure, it is on record that Commander O.Z. Chiazor, serving as the secretary of the Navy, was later to join Commodore Kennedy, the British Commander of the Navy, to write the Rules and the Regulations of the young Nigerian Navy”
-SEE LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT, HIS EXCELLENCY EBELE JONATHAN, BY BISHOP J.N. MOGEKWU, OCT. 1O, 2014.
That letter seeking Presidential pardon for the old and bed-ridden sailor was handed over by the Primate by the Anglican Communion. The Primate, like many others, was shocked by the content of the letter and from his top position in the church and also enjoying some warm relationship with the then President, volunteered to carry the letter to the President and also plead for the old sailor’s Presidential pardon.
Until he left office, the Primate’s letter was on the President’s table. Instead, the President pardoned the treason charges against General Diya and others!
Before I publish the entire letter, let me welcome the intervention of General Yakubu Gowon and his Buhari promise also on this very pathetic and lingering Chiazor matter.
On his return from England, in the early 1960s Lt. Gowon planned to marry his Igbo heartthrob, the neck-bender beauty Edith Ike, her brother is the author, Toads for Super. Presently, he is the Igwe Ikerionwu, just near Alex Ekueme’s Oko town. Lt. Gowon had no car but his bosom sprightly O.Z. was the toast of the Armed Forces. He lived with the white officers and drove an Opel. He would during the weekends find time to pick up his friend Jack and go jumping with the gals. O.Z. preferred Edith and hoped that Jack his friend would marry her. In fact, on the night of January 15, 1966, General Jack Gowon was in bed at Ikeja Contentment during the coup. He had to abandon her to join General Ironsi to quell the uprising. However, it was Mrs.. O.Z. Chiazor, now leaving in Asaba, that made the decisive move which brought in Victoria to displace Edith as the future wife and the First Lady of the Nigerian Head of State. Mrs. Chiazor, who just returned from the UK, was serving at the teaching hospital in Ibadan, where Victoria was already practicing, also as a nurse. the life and the fairytale wedding to First Lady Victoria Gowon is all part of Nigerian history. Bed-ridden almost dying Chiazor, five years ago, was invited to the Anglican Bishop’s Court in Asaba by Bishop Mogekwu, who was welcoming to his Diocese the overseer of Nigeria Prays. That was the first time General Gowon was seeing his bosom friend many years after the Nigerian Civil War. Gowon in a most emotional, touching reaction, sprang up, embraced and held his friend in the wheelchair. As Chiazor was sobbing, General Gowon was crying. The congregation was stirred up and as everybody rose up they had tears in their eyes.