His father, an Igbo Nigerian railway staff, Moses Maduka Nwachukwu, from Ovim, Isuikwuato Local Government Area, Abia State, married Binta Fatima Mohammed Diko, a Fulani from Katsina Emirate ruling house in 1939.

Ike Nwachukwu, a completely detribalised Nigerian was born on September 1, 1940, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He went to Ladi-Lak Institute and Yaba City College, Lagos, where he passed out in 1959. Ike Nwachukwu’s first love was journalism, hence he became a reporter shortly after leaving school, working with the West African Pilot newspapers before joining the Army where he grew through the ranks to become a general.

Ike Nwachukwu enlisted in the Nigerian Military Training College, Kaduna and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant into the Nigerian Infantry Corps after graduation. One of the most trying moments in Ike Nwachukwu’s military career was July 29, 1966, countercoup against the Aguiyi-Ironsi military government, led by Murtala Muhammed, and the Nigeria-Biafra war that followed, from 1967 to 1970. His two “mother tongues” saved him from the tribulations of those days.

As the Deputy Joint Military Council secretary, Dodan Barracks, Lagos, in 1970, Ike Nwachukwu helped in the reabsorption and reintegration of returnee Igbo former Biafrans into the Army Officers cadre such as Ndubuisi Kanu, Ebitu Ukiwe, Chijioke Kaja, Lambert Iheanacho, Godwin Nwadike, et cetera. After the December 31, 1983 coup by General Muhammadu Buhari, Ike Nwachukwu was appointed Military Governor of old Imo State with the rank of Brigadier General. In Owerri, Ike Nwachukwu saw the permanent relocation of the old Imo State University in five different locations to its permanent site at Uturu, now the Abia State University.

After the General Ibrahim Babangida coup of August 27, 1985, against Buhari, Ike Nwachukwu went back to full military duties as the Adjutant-General of the Nigerian Army. He later became Minister of Employment, Labour, and Productivity from 1986 to 1987. On that portfolio, he founded and nurtured the National Directorate of Employment, NDE, with Chukwu Wachuku as the pioneer director-general.

In 1987, Ike Nwachukwu became the second Igbo Major General of the Nigerian Army, after Aguiyi-Ironsi. He was appointed External Affairs Minister, 1987 to 1989. As Minister, he introduced the concept of “Economic Diplomacy” in the conduct of Nigeria’s foreign policy. Ike Nwachukwu would remain one of the most charismatic former military ministers of foreign affairs.

Nwachukwu’s voice in Queen’s English diction was always heard at both the OAU (now AU) and United Nations General Assembly on the evils of apartheid and added to the release of Nelson Mandela from prison in the later part of 1989. He would later go back to military duties in a major reshuffle by President Babangida and was appointed the General Officer Commanding the 1st Mechanised Division of the Nigerian Army, Kaduna.

Babangida again in May 1990 appointed him the chairman of the Military Tribunal that tried Major Gideon Orkar after his abortive “most bloody coup in Nigeria” (April 22, 1990) according to the director of Army Public Relations, Colonel Fred Chijiuka. The Kofo-Abayomi Avenue headquarters of the Brigade of Guards, Victoria Island, Lagos, was the seat of the military tribunal. He meritoriously retired from the Nigerian Army with his head high.

He was caught up in the politics of the Fourth Republic after retirement and joined the G36 led by Dr. Alex Ekwueme and Solomon Lar that boldly opposed General Sani Abacha on his bid for military-to-civilian transformation as president of Nigeria. The ambition was cut short on June 8, 1998, with the sudden demise of the maximum military dictator, Nigeria has ever had, Abacha. General Ike Nwachukwu was a founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and became the senator for the Abia North Senatorial Zone between 1999-2003. He handed over to Comrade Uche Chukwumerije as he promised to go for only one term in the Upper Chamber. He was the chairman of the Senate Committee on Steel and Power, among the membership of other committees.

Nwachukwu also participated in 1994, 2005, and 2014 National Conferences on the future of Nigeria. In the Political Reform Conference, NPRC, in 2005, Nwachukwu served in the Committee on Models and Structure of Government.

Ike Nwachukwu is married to Gwendolyn Tonyesia Yoyinsola Ejiwunmi of Ofada, Abeokuta, Ogun State, whose mother is a Kalabari woman from the Bob-Manuel Ruling House of Abonema, Rivers State. His sons and daughters are married to Nigerians from all parts of the federation. Indeed, Ike Nwachukwu is a true reflection of what Nigeria ought to be, a detribalised Nigeria, where tribe and tongue may differ but in brotherhood, we should stand to build a nation of our dreams.