Dr Sebastian Okechukwu Mezu (born April 30, 1941) is a Nigerian writer, scholar, philanthropist, and publisher. He was
involved in politics in Nigeria in the late 1970s.
Background
Sebastian Okechukwu Mezu was born on April 30, 1941, in Ezeogba, Emekuku, Owerri, Imo
State. He received a
B.A. in French (1964) with minors in German and Philosophy from Georgetown University. He obtained an LL.B. in 1966 from La Salle Extension University, Chicago, and an M.A. (1966), Ph.D (1967) in Romance Languages from Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
Diplomatic Service
When the Biafran war broke out in 1967, due to the
recognition of his valuable contributions and activism as a young scholar in
the United States, where he had voluntarily translated volumes of documents for
his country into French and other languages, Mezu was appointed Biafran
Government Special Representative and Ambassador to Abidjan, Ivory Coast,
at the age of 27 by Colonel C. Odumegwu Ojukwu and
was charged with affairs in Francophone and Anglophone West Africa.
Mezu was the co-founder and Deputy Director of the Biafra
Historical Research Center, Paris, July 1967 – July
1968, then Biafra's semi-official diplomatic mission to France and Europe. He
was Biafran delegate and French expert to various peace delegations including
to Ivory Coast (President Félix
Houphouët-Boigny), Senegal, (President Leopold Sedar Senghor),
Gabon (President Albert Bernard Bongo),
and was Biafran delegate and French expert to various peace conferences in
Niamey, Niger Republic (President Hamani Diori, 1968) and in Addis-Ababa,
Ethiopia (Emperor Haile Selassie,
1968).
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