Chief Emeka Anyaoku

Chief Eleazar Chukwuemeka (Emeka) Anyaoku became the third Secretary-General of the Commonwealth in 1990, a post he held until 2000. He is a Nigerian national, educated at University College, Ibadan, where he studied classics, graduating with a London University honours degree.

Before becoming Commonwealth Secretary General, Chief Anyaoku worked with the Commonwealth Development Corporation from 1959 to 1962, in the Nigerian Diplomatic Service from 1962 to 1966 including three years as a member of Nigeria's Permanent delegation to the United Nations in New York, and from 1966 to 1989 in the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, where he had been elected Deputy Secretary-general in 1978. In 1983 he served briefly as Nigeria’s Foreign Minister before the military coup d'etat in the country at the end of that year.

His current roles include chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council on International Affairs in Nigeria; President of the Royal Commonwealth Society; President of the Royal Africa Society; International President of the World Wide Fund for Nature; Member of the Governing Board of the Geneva based South Centre, think-tank of developing countries on global strategic and development issues.

In 2003, the University of London established a professorial chair in his name: the Emeka Anyaoku Professor of Commonwealth Studies at its Institute of Commonwealth Studies.

His publications include The Missing Headlines, his memoirs: The Inside Story of the Modern Commonwealth and The Racial Factor in International Politics.

Emeka Anyaoku is a traditional Ndichie Chief in Obosi (Ichie Adazie Obosi and Ugwumba Idemili). He is married with one daughter and three sons.