Chike Obi

==Career in politics and activism==
{{Context||details=|date=July 2020}}
In Ibadan, Obi began to give lectures about his political philosophy, Kemalism and how best he felt the country should be managed. He helped form the Dynamic Party of Nigeria, of which he served as its first secretary-general. Through the party, he stood in as a candidate in a parliamentary election in Ibadan in 1951 but lost.<ref>{{Cite magazine|date=September 1965|title=In Search of Power|magazine=Spear magazine (Lagos)}}</ref>

The party later entered into alliances with the larger [[National Council of Nigeria and the Cameroons|National Council of Nigerian and Cameroon]] and also the Action Group. Obi was elected as part of the Nigerian delegation that negotiated the country’s path to self-rule at two London conferences in 1957 and 1958.

After Nigeria's [[independence]] from [[United Kingdom|Britain]] in 1960, Obi was elected a [[legislator]] in the Eastern House of Assembly in 1960, he refused to vacate his seat in the national legislature in Lagos, the Speaker of the regional house ordered that Obi be physically removed by security agents. This order was obeyed and Obi decided to commit himself to regional affairs.<ref name="MacTutor"/>

In 1962, Obi was arrested and charged with [[treason]] in a closed trial organized by the then national civilian government, who accused him and others, including the main opposition leader at the time, [[Obafemi Awolowo]], of plotting to overthrow the government. He was later released for “want of evidence.”

When the [[Nigerian Civil War]] broke out in 1967, Obi sided with [[Biafra]], working for the rebel leader [[Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu]]. For a brief period in the 1970s when he served in the National Revenue Mobilization Commission.

Obi derided [[religion]] and [[ethnic]] [[extremism]], and the culture of [[Political corruption|corruption]] pervading the Nigerian political class. He was a national newspaper columnist in the 1980s, writing under the title, "I speak For the People."