 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2025) |
Arondizuogu Patriotic Union (APU) is the umbrella organisation of all Arondizuogu communities in Nigeria and the Diaspora. Established in 1932 in Aba, APU is one of the earliest and most enduring organs of community development set up by an Igbo clan in colonial Nigeria.
The young men of Arondizuogu who laid the foundation for APU left their homes for the first time in the 1920s and early 1930s to seek a better life in the emerging urban centres of colonial Nigeria. They found themselves in social, economic and political environments different from the life they knew at home. Refusing to be intimated or alienated, they held on to that deep feeling of love for the community with which they grew up. [ citation needed ]
The APU was founded by the educational elite of the Mbonu Ojike generation. Its original mission was to modernise and improve the communities of Arondizuogu "politically, educationally, and morally". [1] Ojike himself was a recording secretary for the movement in 1925. [1] The first president of the Arondizuogu Patriotic Union was the Reverend Chima Nwana. [1]
They assembled at Aba on October 8, 1932, to aggregate ideas on how best to convey the concomitants of modern development with which they were surrounded in the city (such as wide roads, schools, hospitals, post offices, potable water, electricity, court rooms, etc.) to their village community.
The objectives of APU since 1932 have since expanded to include the changing concerns of its massive membership spread around the world.
Between 1966 and 1974 APU was in limbo. However, the leadership role of APU during this interregnum was carried out by other organisations. First, (between 1967 and 1970) by the Arondizuogu War Emergency Council, one of the impromptu bodies formed in various clans at the instance of the authorities of the short-lived Republic of Biafra. Second, (between 1971 and 1974) by the 1st Arondizuogu Community Council set up in consequence of the Divisional Administration Edict passed ion 1971 by the Government of the old East Central State.
Over the years, APU, at the national level, has been led by a succession of twelve Presidents General:
After the Nigerian Civil War,