Samuel Ofoma Onyemelukwe

Samuel Ofoma Okeke Onyemelukwe (Papa) was born around 1907 to Ogbungwa EzeOnyemelukwe and his wife Nogem. He was immediate elder brother to Ezenwaka (circa 1910 – 1945), the father of Obidinma Isaiah Okoli Onyemelukwe.

A businessman who started his career, working as a logger for UAC, he engaged in several businesses, including palm oil sales and with the British in Nigeria. His successes manifested in the building of one of the first zinc covered houses in the early ’40s in his hometown, Nanka. It manifested also in the support of the Onyemelukwe family brand.

The first Onyemelukwe to become a Christian after escaping the scarification rites that accompanied the taking of the Ozo title, he opened the doors of Western education to the Onyemelukwe family of Nanka. In so doing, he became the progenitor of some of the most accomplished professionals in Nanka and South Eastern Nigeria in the 20th and into the 21st centuries. He raised his children including Clement Onyemelukwe, engineer and economist, the first indigenous Chief Engineer at the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN), the Chairman of the Board of the Biafran Airport, Head of the electricity and coal corporations in Biafra and, later on, founder of Colechurch International and author, Mrs Monica Onyemelukwe, a foremost educationist, and Prof Geoffrey Onyemelukwe (MON), an accomplished Professor of Medicine and Immunology and Consultant Physician.

Importantly, with his wife Madam Grace Onyemelukwe, and in their home at 5 St John’s Cross, Onitsha, he also took on the support and the education of others in the wider family. This included His Grace, Archbishop Jonathan Arinzechukwu Onyemelukwe, Bishop on the Niger, Dean of the Church of Nigeria, and the first Archbishop of Province 2 of the Church.

Obidinma Isaiah Okoli Onyemelukwe benefited from his generosity, love, and support of the wider Onyemelukwe. On passing into Dennis Memorial Grammar School in 1951, the only child to make it into the prestigious school from Nanka that year, and a feat already attained by Clement and Jonathan years earlier, Obidinma Isaiah Okoli Onyemelukwe enjoyed the support of Pa Sammy Onyemelukwe (Papa Onitsha, as he was popularly known). He ensured through various means that Obidinma Isaiah was able to complete his secondary education, preparing him for his future brilliant academic and career pursuits. Standing in place of Obidinma Isaiah’s parents, Ezenwaka and Mgbafor Ezekeke Onyemelukwe who had passed on in Isaiah’s childhood, Pa Sammy and his wife, Grace provided him a home, discipline and family support and the means to attend DMGS.

He died in 1979, but his name lives on in the hearts of the Onyemelukwe family.