[2] Aside from his international career, Chief Anyaoku continues to fulfill the duties of his office as Ichie Adazie of Obosi, a traditional Ndichie chieftainship.

At the age of 10, in 1943, Emeka was sent to stay with his father's cousin, Nathaniel Enwezor who was Headmaster at CMS Central School at Agbor, 75 km from Obosi.

After his secondary education, Anyaoku in 1952 proceeded to teach at Emmanuel College, Owerri in the then Eastern Region, he was there until mid-1954 lecturing in mathematics, Latin and English.

[15][16] During the mid-1950s when Anyaoku was an undergraduate at the University College, Ibadan, the Nigerian nation was embroiled in debates, discussions and demonstrations on the political future of the country.

And the University College, which had brought together brilliant students, lecturers and politicians from diverse parts of the country, became a centre of what was then described as national radicalism.

[17] Anyaoku in 1959 obtained a London University Honours Degree in classics as a college scholar and joined the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC) in Lagos.

[21] In December 1961, Anyaoku then a CDC Executive Officer came in contact with a twenty year old Yoruba lady, Princess Ebunola Olubunmi Solanke, at a bachelor's eve party which he and his flatmate hosted for a friend of theirs in Lagos.

His first child, Adiba, was born in the New York Lying-In Hospital on 20 November 1963, two days before President John F. Kennedy of the United States was assassinated.

[33] The coup d'état had taken place just one day after the Prime Minister hosted other Commonwealth leaders including the new Secretary-General, Arnold Smith, to a meeting in Lagos where they discussed the issue of Rhodesia.

[36] On arrival at the Secretariat in London in April 1966, Anyaoku was particularly impressed with the way the Secretary-General, Arnold Smith was handling the Rhodesia UDI issue.

During that period, he and his wife hosted many separate luncheons and dinners in their London home for the Nigerian and Biafran representatives at the peace talks sponsored by the Secretary-General, Arnold Smith.

[29] In October, 1983, he resigned from his post and returned to Nigeria at the invitation of the Civilian President Shehu Shagari to serve as the country's foreign minister.

In 1990, on the release of former President Nelson Mandela from Pollsmoor Prison, Anyaoku hosted Madiba to his first official dinner as Commonwealth Secretary-General in London.

Beginning with President Kaunda in 1991, he intervened to help Zambia[54] and several other Commonwealth nations to transit from one-party state or military regime to multi-party democracies.

Anyaoku consequently sent as his special representative, Sir Ninian Steven, a former Australian Governor-General, who spent weeks in Dhaka brokering peace between the government and the opposition parties.

[59] The most challenging of his interventions was the crisis in his country Nigeria that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election by the then military junta of General Ibrahim Babangida.

[62] Anyaoku had a much tougher case when Babangida ‘stepped aside’ and General Sani Abacha after a few months of the contraption called Interim Government took over the administration of the country in a military coup d'état on 17 November 1993.

Anyaoku continued to campaign for a peaceful resolution of the crisis by sending messages to Abacha and making public statements, to no avail.

This appeal fell on Abacha's deaf ears and he eventually had Ken Saro-Wiwa and his colleagues executed[69] on the eve of a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in Auckland, New Zealand in November 1995..

Anyaoku had with Abacha's agreement met in July 1995 with Abiola in detention to discuss his proposal for a dialogue between the two parties with the aim of agreeing arrangements for the acceptance of the outcome of the annulled presidential elections.

[71] While Abiola on his part accepted the proposal, Abacha turned it down telling Anyaoku that he would prefer to seek a resolution of the crisis through a constitutional conference to be convened by him.

[72] Following Abacha's sudden death on 8 June 1998, a new military regime under General Abdulsalami Abubakar came in to facilitate a quick return of the country to democratic dispensation.

[73] Anyaoku with his Commonwealth team gave full support to this process, including especially the national elections that produced the civilian administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo.

[75] He was awarded the Freedom of the City of London in 1998 and has received decorations from Nigeria CFR and CON, and the highest national civilian honours of Cameroon, Lesotho, Madagascar, Namibia and Trinidad & Tobago's Trinity Cross (TC) as well as Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) from her Majesty, The Queen in 2000.

[76] He was one of the fifty, and also one of the one hundred individuals who were awarded special gold medals for outstanding contribution to the country's development by the Federal Government in the celebrations of Nigeria's independence Golden Jubilee in 2010 and Centenary in 2014.

[77][78] Emeka Anyaoku is a published author[52] and now holds 33 honorary Doctorate degrees from top universities in Britain, Canada, Ghana, Republic of Ireland, Nigeria, South Africa, Switzerland and Zimbabwe.

[77][79] Chief Emeka Anyaoku served under three democratically elected Presidents in Nigeria as Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council on International Relations from 2000 to 2015.

He along with Kofi Annan played a seminal role in getting all the presidential candidates and their political parties to commit themselves to a violence-free electoral process by signing in January the Abuja Accord that ensured a relatively peaceful election and transition to a new democratic dispensation in Nigeria of President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2015.

[93] Of their marriage, it was written in the Nigerian Sunday Times, then the widest circulating newspaper in the country, that it was a wedding of one of Nigeria's most eligible bachelors and a beautiful young Princess educated in an English boarding school and Pitman College, London.They have four children, Adiba; their daughter– an attorney who serves on the board of Old Mutual plc –and three sons; Oluyemisi, Obiechina, and Emenike.

His wife, Bunmi, is also a chieftain – Ugoma Obosi and Idemili – in her own right, with a long involvement in welfare work in Nigeria and in the Commonwealth.