From Tribal Robes to Pin-Stripe Suit

Most of the University's foreign students probably dream at times of an eventual career in politics or government service. But Ph.D. candidate Eze Anyanwu Oguen II of Obibi-Ezena, Nigeria, has already realized that ambition in spectacular fashion--at 24 he is a Nigerian tribal chieftain, the hereditary ruler of thousands of Africans.

Eze left Obibi-Ezena in Nigeria's Owerri Division in 1948 to study political science and international law in the United States. After a brief stay at Bethune-Cookman College in Florida, he came to Adelphi College in Garden City, Long Island, and by 1950 had won his Bachelor of Arts degree. Enrolling at Harvard that fall, Eze proceeded to win both a Master of Public Administration degree from Littauer, and an M.A. in Government.

At present he is completing his studies for two more advanced degrees--a Ph.D. in Government from Harvard and an M.A. in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy, operated jointly by the University and Tufts. Then, as the first Nigerian with that many Harvard degrees, he intends to return to Africa to help serve his people.

Undoubtedly, the most memorable period of Eze's life came during a single week of Christmas vacation in 1950. As a guest of the British government in British Guiana and the League of Colored Peoples there, he traveled to the South American colony.

Over half the colony's people are of African descent and have preserved their feelings of cultural loyalty to the homeland from which their ancestors came as slaves. As the first African of noble birth to visit British Guiana in more than 200 years, Eze seemed to personify the new vitality and youth of Africa.

"As Easy Sees It"

His week-long tour through the colony, which he describes in a recent book, "Seven Amazing Days," was one long triumphal procession. Great crowds followed him wherever he went and thousands heard him urge racial partnership.

When Eze returns to Nigeria to take up the tribal duties he inherited from his grandfather in 1952, he will carry with him the pleasant memories of seven years as an American college student, ranging from his college days at Adelphi to a still-remembered party one night in William James Hall.

Eze's interest in journalism--he worked both as a cub reporter and a radio newscaster in Nigeria--led him to write a column for the Adelphi paper, under the rather irreverent title of "As Easy Sees It." Everything went well, Eze recalls, until one April 1, when the paper published a special April Fools' edition satirizing the president's wife. After that he turned to other, non-journalistic interests.

The Peggy Affair

At Harvard, Eze has had to spend much of his time studying; anyone in pursuit of two advanced degrees at once has little difficulty in keeping busy, he finds. But Eze, and a number of his former associates in William James look back fondly to a party which they hold one fall just before examinations.

A number of local girls attended the affair, and as Eze describes it. "One of them drank so much that she went into the ladies' room and went to sleep right there. The others forgot about her until much later when they returned to the Hall about two o'clock yelling for 'Peggy! Peggy!" Eze and his friends still call the party the "Peggy" affair.

Vanilla Over Chocolate

Eze expresses a preference for African tribal costume over the light-grey, pinstriped suit and checkered vest which American college life has inflicted on him. But otherwise, he has great admiration for America and Americans. Among other things, he has developed a keen liking for ice cream, particularly vanilla, even though Nigeria leads the world in the production of chocolate-yielding cacao.

Despite his success in the United States. Eze knows his future lies in Africa. The Dark Continent is stirring with new life, but it faces many problems. Men like Eze will be Africa's leaders, and as he told an African student gathering in Washington in 1953, "By our example, we can restore hope to a frustrated people. Our lives can be important in the history of an emergent race, and we must rededicate them to action in the cause of Africa. This rededication is long overdue."