 Alex Ekwueme
Phone lines barely work. Water and electricity are chronically in short
supply. Corruption and government mismanagement-coupled with a drop in world
oil prices-has left Nigeria with a budget deficit in the hundreds of millions
of dollars. Ethnic divisions in the country are at a dangerous level. Decades
of military rule has left people worn out and frustrated.
But Africa's most popular nation is trying to change its legacy by making
the transition to democracy. One of its guiding forces is Alex Ekwueme,
'55, '56, '57, a ÃÛ¶¹ÊÓƵ graduate who once served as vice
president of his country during a period of civilian rule in the early 1980s
and is considered one of Nigeria's leading statesmen.
This past February, Ekwueme ran for the presidential nomination of the
People's Democratic Party but lost out to his chief rival, Gen. Olusegun
Obasanjo, who earned international esteem by becoming Nigeria's first military
leader to give up power voluntarily and run for office.
Becoming a major player in the Nigeria political scene was something
Ekwueme aspired to as a youngster. In high school he won a Fulbright scholarship
a month before his 20th birthday and enrolled at the UW to study architecture
and urban planning.
While a UW student, Ekwueme was a member of the UW delegation to a 1956
Model United Nations Conference held at Oregon State University. He also
was president of the Cosmopolitan Club, a group of foreign UW students,
and served as the head of another organization of international UW students.
"I enjoyed my UW time very much," he says. "I was a real
curiosity because I was the first student from Nigeria at the UW, but I
fit in well, and people were very friendly."
Ekwueme earned three UW degrees-a bachelor's degree in sociology and
bachelor's and master's degrees in urban planning-in addition to a degree
in history, philosophy and constitutional law from the University of London.
After graduating from the UW in 1957, he built an impressive career in architecture
and urban planning, ultimately opening and running the first locally owned
architecture firm in Nigeria, where his company designed airports, schools
and other buildings.
After a break in the mid-1970s to earn additional degrees in architecture
and law in Great Britain, Ekwueme returned to Nigeria in 1979, and was nominated
as the vice presidential candidate of the National Party of Nigeria on a
ticket with presidential candidate Alhaji Shehu Shagari. They won the election,
and were re-elected in 1983.
"Nigeria didn't have a civilian government so it was a learning
process the entire time," he recalls. "And we were changing from
a parliamentary system to a presidential system. But we kept things moving."
However the military reared its head again, toppling the civilian government
in a coup d'etat on Dec. 31, 1983. Ekwueme was arrested and detained for
six years.
Since his release in 1989, he has worked tirelessly on behalf of peace
and democracy in his native land, where he has a reputation as a civilian
with an impeccable record. Even the judicial tribunal that probed him after
the coup publicly declared, "Dr. Ekwueme left office poorer than he
was when he entered it, and to ask more from him was to set a standard which
even saints could not meet." In one act of particular courage in 1998,
Ekwueme led a group of 34 eminent Nigerians to forward a petition to Gen.
Sani Abacha, the late Nigerian dictator, advising him not to succeed himself.
It was without precedent, and at a time Nigeria had been terrorized into
silence, and many of its eminent citizens were either jailed, in exile or
killed.
Now 66 years old, Ekwueme is a philanthropist as well as a public servant
and architect. He established an educational trust fund that sponsors the
education of several hundred Nigerian youths in universities at home and
abroad. And he aspires to remain involved in Nigerian politics.
"Getting involved in my government was something I always wanted
to do," he says. "I wanted to serve my people and help in the
quest for independence. I will keep working for it."-Jon Marmor | 