Onuora Nzekwu, NAN founding GM, dies at 89

Popular Nollywood Actor, Olumide Bakare Is Also Dead

Chief Onuora Nzekwu, the founding General Manager of News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), has died at the age of 89, the family confirmed yesterday. Nzekwu, co-author of Eze Goes to School, a short story, died by 4.30p.m. on Friday in his home in Onitsha, Anambra, where he had been living in retirement, a family member, Mr. Louis Chuke, said.

Nzekwu joined the Federal Civil Service as an editorial assistant at the Nigeria Magazine Division of the Federal Ministry of Information. He worked as an editorial assistant from 1956 to 1958, when he took over the position of editor-in-chief of the magazine.

In 1966, when the Nigerian civil war broke out, he transferred his services to the Eastern Nigeria Public Service and returned to the federal service at the end of the crisis in 1970.

He served as General Manager of NAN from 1979 to 1985. Nzekwu wrote Troubled Dust, a novel that recounts the experiences of the civil war. The death has also been announced of popular Nollywood actor, Olumide Bakare, who passed on in the early hours of yesterday, aged 65.

According to media reports, Bakare, who has been sick for more than a year, was discharged from the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, last year, after he was allegedly diagnosed with a respiratory disorder problem.

The Ibadan-based actor and former NTA staff, fondly called Chief Koko on the heels of his role in a TV series, ‘Koko Close’ back in the days, had been battling ill-health since 2013.