The pioneer President of the Association of Nigerian University Students (now NANS), died at the age of 86.
Obumselu, born on September 22, 1930, was a formidable academic and a fine scholar through his long and distinguished life.
The deceased was one of the first two graduates of the newly established single honours degree in English from the University College, Ibadan, where he was a contemporary of Emeka Anyaoku, and the late Gamaliel Onosode, Emmanuel Ifeajuna, Bola Ige and Christopher Okigbo, among others.
He got a doctorate from Oxford University before returning to Ibadan in the 1960s to lecture.
Ben Obumselu was one of Emeka Ojukwu’s closest advisers, playing a key role in the 1968 Ahiara Declaration.
After the Civil War, he lectured at the Sorbonne and held the Cadbury Fellowship at the University of Birmingham.
He retired from academia in 1988, becoming a prominent leader of the Ohaneze Ndigbo.
Prof. Ben Obumselu is survived by his widow, Mrs Fidelia Obumselu, his first wife, Mrs Christine Clinton-Obumselu, eight children and several grandchildren.
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