Clement Onyemelukwe: From Uli To Nanka Airlift

Clement Onyemelukwe (1933-2020). Image: Catherine Onyemelukwe via Facebook

BY EMEKA OBASI

All roads lead to Nanka in the Aguata area of Anambra State to honour Dr Clement Chukwukadibia Onyemelukwe, a man who earned respect for Africa, lit up Nigeria and kept Biafra alive during the civil war.

Onyemelukwe, an Engineer who also bagged a degree in economics was known in America more than Britain where he attended university. That was just the beginning. By 1968, he had become the pride of Africa and a hero globally.

With a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Leeds University [1956] and higher qualification in economics from London University, Onyemelukwe joined the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria [ECN] in 1960. By 1962 he rose to the position of chief engineer. 

The engineer initiated and worked on the 330KV electricity grid which is still used in the country today. He is thus dubbed the ‘Father of Electricity in Nigeria.’ 

When war broke out in 1967, Onyemelukwe relocated to Biafra. And that was where he performed more wonders, from the Biafra Coal Corporation to the Biafra Airport Board. 

One could describe Uli Airport as the eighth wonder of the world. When Biafra was cut off from the rest of humanity, Onyemelukwe and his team made sure relief flights landed and took off under the cover of darkness. 

That turned out to be the largest civilian airlift operation in the globe and at a time the airport, code-named ‘Anabelle’ was the busiest in Africa. This was a structure that did not exist until 1968. 

It was a risky venture because Nigerian Air Force jets hovered above the airport. The brave pilot that made the first flight to Uli in 1968 was Swedish philanthropist, Carl Gustaf von Rosen.

As Chairman of the Biafra Airport Board, Onyemulekwe gave the people two major airports, Uli and Uga, and built five other smaller airports. The Biafrans were not only vigilant, but ingenuity was also at work. 

Onyemulukwe showed he was special and different when he married Catherine Zastrow, an American Peace Corps Volunteer in 1964. She was serving in Nigeria and they met in 1963. 

Zastrow came from a loaded background. Her father, Peter, was an Engineer. Maternal grandfather, Herman Danforth, was the first President of America’s Federal Land Bank. He got that job in 1917, from President Woodrow Wilson. 

Miss Zastrow could have been named after her aunt, Catherine Danforth, who died at 13 months on November 11, 1916. Her death at St. Luke’s Hospital Chicago, was attributed to ‘heat-induced heart trouble’. 

When Catherine fell in love with Onyemelukwe, she was a Kentucky girl. It was illegal for a black to marry a white woman in that part of the United States. 

The Zastrows backed their daughter and attended the wedding at Our Saviour’s Church, Lagos in 1964. The intercontinental wedding was talk of the globe and reported in Ebony and Life magazines. 

Onyemelukwe used to love to conquer. On October 13, 1961, American Peace Volunteer, Margery Mitchelmore, had caused a stir through a postcard she sent from Nigeria to a friend at home in which she highlighted the host country’s ‘squalor and absolutely primitive living conditions’. 

Students of the University of Ibadan hit the street in protest. Onyemelukwe was at the ECN. He was also at Ibadan before a British Scholarship took him away from the University College to Leeds. 

Two years later, the former University of Ibadan student met another American Peace Volunteer. In far away, Colombia, a Volunteer married the Mayor of Cali. 

Nigeria was alluring to the Peace Corps Volunteers. When Onyemelukwe and Zastrow got married, there were more Volunteers in the country, 606, than anywhere else, from Afghanistan to Malaysia, Turkey, Tunisia and Uruguay. 

Zastrow followed her husband to Biafra. Some former Peace Corps Volunteers flew to Biafra to help the relief efforts. One of them, David Koren, spent all his time at the Uli Airport and put down his experience in a book, ‘Far Away in The Sky; A Memoir of the Biafran Airlift.’ 

Mrs Onyemelukwe left Biafra with their children in 1968 to join her parents in Madeira, Portugal but has remained a Biafran in spirit. She speaks Igbo and even wrote a book, ‘Breaking Kola’, in 2018. She also kept memoirs. 

Onyemelukwe’s wife kept records for her husband and posterity. Through them, we have come to know that in June 1969, there were 250 relief flights to Anabelle. The flights came in majorly from Sao Tome, then Libreville, Cotonou, Santa Isabel, Lisbon and Abidjan. 

Those relief planes belonged to the World Council of Churches [WCC], Caritas, French Red Cross, International Committee of the Red Cross and Joint Church Aid [JCA]. The JCA flight was known as Jesus Christ Airlines. 

The churches were wonderful. Father Tony Byrne made things happen in Canada. Two Members of Parliament, Tory David MacDonald and Andrew Brewin, arrived Uli aboard Canairelief. Nord Church Aid, a group from Northern Europe joined. 

Onyemelukwe was not all about Uli. He was involved everywhere. That coal could be used to produce fuel was innovative. When Port Harcourt fell, refineries emerged in Uzuakoli and later Amandugba. 

However, through Uli, Biafra lived longer than expected. When a Hospital and Rehabilitation Center, the Saint Andre Refugee Centre, was set up in Gabon to treat kwashiorkor ravaged kids, Dr Theodore Okeahialam and his group relied so much on the Airport. 

Children were flown out and given a mixture which restored their health. They all shouted: ‘De Dieu Biafrae’ [God of Biafra]. Captain Manuel Reis managed the Airlift from Angola. Squadron Leader Artur Alves went after Nigerian fighter jets to protect Uli. 

Onyemelukwe returned to ECN after the war but quit for private business. He died, January 18, 2020, in West Port, Connecticut USA. Burial has been fixed for April 2020. 

Nanka is preparing for the funeral. I confirmed that from an old school mate, Okechukwu Ndeche, a former INEC top shot, from Umudunu-Agbiligba. 

The world will be involved. The Federal Government must bury this man, the ‘Father of Light’. As I work on a Memorial for Biafra, it is the duty of all lovers of history to join. 

The story of Biafra must continue to be told. Nigeria should learn from history. Onyemulukwe is History in motion.

ARCHIVES: Nigerian Marries Peace Corps Girl...

Clement and Catherine Onyemelukwe wedding in Lagos.

DECEMBER 27, 1964

LAGOS, NIGERIA (THE NEW YORK TIMES)—The granddaughter of a prominent American banker was wed to a young Nigerian today.

In marrying ciement C. Onyemelukwe of Lagos, Catherine Danforth Zastrow, a tall blonde former Peace Corps volunteer from Fort Thomas, Ky., has joined the small but growing number of American‐Nigerian couples who have settled down to life in post‐independence Africa.

Many have encountered serious problems. All have told of difficulties in adjustment. But most of the unions have survived.

Clement Onyemelukwe was born 31 years ago in the remote town of Nanka in Nigeria's eastern region. His father, a contractor, was barely literate in English, but saved enough money to help all of his three sons work their way through college.

Mr. Onyemelukwe took degrees in engineering and economics from Leeds University and the University of London. He then joined the Electric Corporation of Nigeria— Nigeria's giant public‐owned power utility —and rose swiftly to become chief engineer of the Transmission and Distribution Division.

“This is a real Horatio Alger story,” said Peter Zastrow, the bride's father, an engineer with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company in Cincinnati.

Mrs. Onyemelukwe, born in Huntington, L. I., attended Highland's High School in Fort Thomas, which is in the Cincinnati area, and was graduated from Mount Holyoke College in 1962 She has spent the last two years with the Peace Corps teaching German at the Federal Emergency Science School in Lagos.

Her maternal grandfather, the late Herman W. Danforth, was appointed the first president of the Federal Land Bank in Woodrow Wilson's Administration in 1917. The bank was formed to grant long‐term farm mortgages

Mr. and Mrs. Onyemelukwe have confided to friends that their decision to marry was a difficult one.

There was an initially adverse reaction from parents on both sides, especially from the Onyemelukwes. They felt their son should marry someone from their home district, or at least a girl of their own Ibo tribe.

But their resistance dissolved after they came to Lagos and met Miss Zastrow shortly before she finished her Peace Corps contract and returned home to announce her engagement.

“When Cathy first broke the news,” Mr. Zastrow said, “I was intellectually for it but emotionally against it.”

This sort of thing has to happen to this generation for better relations between countries,” Mr. Zastrow said. “They are very devout Christians —more Christian than many Americans.”

Catherine Onyemelukwe is the second Peace Corps girl to wed a Nigerian out of a contingent of more than 600 volunteers, almost half of whom are women.

Among the wedding guests were Mr. and Mrs. William Saltonstall, former headmaster of Exeter Academy and now head of the Peace Corps in Nigeria.

Others in attendance included English, American, and

A Difficult Decision Nigerian business leaders here. Sir Mobolaji Bank‐Anthony, Nigeria's most prominent industrialist, was master of ceremonies at the reception on the palm‐shaded lawn of Clement Onyemelukwe's suburban home. More than 500 persons attended.

OBITUARY: ‘Father Of Electricity’ In Nigeria Dies In WestporT

Clement Onyemelukwe (1933-2020). Image: Catherine Onyeelukwe via Facebook

BY JIM SHAY

Clement Onyemelukwe, often called the “Father of Electricity” in Nigeria and first Nigerian to wed a Peace Corps volunteer, has died at age 86.

Clement Onyemelukwe, Nigerian Chief Electrical Engineer of the country's Electricity Corporation, generated international attention when he married Catherine Zastrow, a white Peace Corps volunteer, who had just completed her service in 1964.

Although his parents had rejoiced that he had returned from nine years in the United Kingdom without a foreign white wife, in 1963 he met Catherine in Lagos.

“Peace Corps Worker to Wed Nigerian Engineer,” was the headline for a brief article in The New York Times from Lagos, Nigeria on Dec. 23, 1964.

According to his death notice, interracial marriage was illegal in Kentucky which was still Catherine's U.S. residence while she was in the Peace Corps.

“When her parents returned to Kentucky after the wedding they had to change their phone number because of hate calls. The couple received telegrams from people all over the world, mostly supportive but a few critical. A photo of the wedding appeared in Life Magazine in January 1965 and was also noted in Ebony Magazine.”

Onyemelukwe initiated the planning and development of the electricity grid still used in Nigeria today when he became Chief Electrical Engineer in 1962.

He left the electricity industry to found Freeman Engineering in Lagos in 1973. In 1976 he founded Colechurch International Ltd, a project management and promotion company, in United Kingdom.

He and his wife Catherine moved to Westport in 1993.

He initially held a residence card, known as a "green card," as he was spending a good part of his time in his home country Nigeria on business.

In 2007 he finally became an American citizen. He was a speaker at the Y's Men and an active library user while working on his latest book or researching business ideas.

His wife Catherine was president of the library board in 1999-2000, prior to becoming the Director of Development for the YMCA. She is an active member of TEAM Westport and The Unitarian Church in Westport.

Onyemelukwe died Jan. 18 in his home in Westport. The cause was metastatic non-small cell, non-smoker's lung cancer.

“Clem was well loved by the community at the Unitarian Church in Westport and others,” his death notice read. “His warm smile, easy laugh, and joy in recounting stories of Nigeria made him an engaging conversationalist. He loved to discuss politics and economics with any and all!”

He is survived by his wife Catherine, their three children, Chinakueze, Elizabeth, and Samuel, and five grandchildren, Kenechi, Nkiru, Teya, Bruche and Ikem. His brother Professor Geoffrey Onyemelukwe and three sisters also survive him. He was predeceased by one brother and one sister.

His life will be celebrated on March 7, at 1 p.m., at The Unitarian Church in Westport.

He will be buried in the family compound in his ancestral village beside his parents in April.