[7] Wachuku, who was "widely respected" as Foreign Affairs Minister of Nigeria intervened with the South African government and helped save Nelson Mandela and others from the death penalty at the 1963–64 Rivonia Trial.

[8] In his 1962 diary, from Lagos: Nigeria, Nelson Mandela wrote: "Friday 18 May 1962: 1pm: We meet Mr Jaja Wachuku and his staff and have a profitable discussion.

[16][17] Jaja's mother, Queen Rebecca Ngwanchiwa Wachuku (née Nwaogwugwu), was a pioneer women's rights advocate and humane royal land-owner.

His apical ancestor Mgbawa had moved from Umulolo, Eziama Ntigha, in Nigeria's present-day Abia State, in about the last quarter of the 17th century to settle in their present Nbawsi homeland.

His paternal grandfather Wachuku Ogbaraegbe, a distinguished statesman and Merchant Prince, was involved in the palm oil trade of that time with King Jaja of Opobo.

There, in one of his lectures, Wachuku provoked national controversy when he declared Lagos a "no-man's land" – meaning that it was an all-Nigerian city – wherein all Nigerians were entitled to equal rights.

Wachuku went to the 1953 Constitutional Conference in London as Alternate Delegate and Adviser to the Nigerian Independence Party (NIP) – a break-away faction that was formed following the NCNC crisis of 1953.

Accordingly, in 1957, Wachuku was the Leader of the Nigerian Federation Delegation to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Meeting held in India, Pakistan and Ceylon, now Sri Lanka.

Also, after the devastating Nigerian–Biafran civil war, Wachuku adopted numerous orphans, including: John Ochiabuto, James Ikechukwu, Nwaobilor, Ebere, Nkemdilim, Sylvia Amama, Efuru, etc.

[33] Notably, It was during this period and during his years as First Nigerian Foreign Affairs Minister that Wachuku forged the reputed friendship that he had with three Presidents of the United States: Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.

He was also good friends with Sam Rayburn: 48th, 50th and 52nd Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Adlai Stevenson, Martin Luther King Jr., Marian Anderson, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, Henry Ford II, Israel's Golda Meir, Nikita Khrushchev, plus numerous leaders and people around the world.

Ambassador" – stating that because of his worthy, very lively and enthusiastic diplomatic style with a lot of energy, wisdom and determination: "Nigeria, less than two months after winning its independence, is on its way to becoming one of the major forces in Africa.

Accordingly, Wachuku was instrumental to Nigeria becoming the 58th Member State of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Monday 14 November 1960.

On the eve of his departure from New York, the Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa invited Wachuku to his hotel suite and told him that he was leaving him behind as Leader of the Delegation and Ambassador plus Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations.

Wachuku also secured the appointment of the first African Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations – Nigeria's Godfrey K. J. Amachree – who became UN Under Secretary-General for Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories.

[44] It was concerning this period in Nigeria's history that Ambassador Owen W. Roberts, United States' 1964 to 1965 Political Officer in Lagos, said: "Nigerians, whatever their tribe, are a very strong, very assertive group.

For example, there was a lot of hue and cry as a result of the Rivonia Trial in South Africa in 1963 following the arrest of Walter Sisulu, Ahmed Kathrada, Govan Mbeki, Denis Goldberg, Raymond Mhlaba, Andrew Mlangeni, Lionel Bernstein and others.

They and Nelson Mandela, who was serving term on his 1962 conviction, were charged with "sabotage and ... conspiracy to overthrow the Government by revolution and by assisting an armed invasion of South Africa by foreign troops."

Wachuku quietly invited Lord Head, the British High Commissioner in Lagos and also United States' Ambassador Joseph Palmer II – and strongly urged them to intercede with their governments to prevail on the apartheid regime in South Africa – not to impose the death penalty on Nelson Mandela and others.

Humane and successful diplomatic efforts by Wachuku to save Mandela and others from death penalty at the Rivonia Trial were given more light by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Henry Brandis Professor of Law Emeritus: Kenneth S. Broun,[46] in his published book: Saving Nelson Mandela: The Rivonia Trial and the Fate of South Africa .

The Right Honourable Prime Minister Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa recognised and appreciated Wachuku's outstanding essence; and used to tell him that he was ten or more years ahead of his Government cabinet colleagues.

In a public lecture titled "Nigeria: The Blackman's Burden", delivered on 24 February 2005 at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs to mark the 28th Anniversary of the Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture and the 2005 Black History Month, it was also concerning Wachuku at the founding period in Nigeria's Foreign Policy that Professor Bolaji Akinyemi (1985 to 1987 Nigerian External Affairs Minister) said: Karl Marx must have had Togo in mind when he wrote in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, "Hegel says somewhere that all great events and personalities in world history reappear in one fashion or another.

Some of those present had strong links with the Pan-Africanist past, notably Rayford W. Logan, who had played an important part in the era of Pan-African congresses after the First World War; Jean Price-Mars, Haitian diplomat, philosopher of négritude, and President of the Société Africaine de Culture in Paris; and Jaja Wachuku, who had been at the 1945 Pan-African Congress, and who was in 1960 foreign Minister of Nigeria....[51]Subsequently, from 1965 to midday 14 January 1966, Wachuku was Nigeria's Minister of Aviation.

[53][54] The Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, pleaded with Wachuku to reinstate the Nigeria Airways Board chairman and accept another ministry.

Balewa even asked his wife Rhoda Idu Jaja Wachuku to plead with him, yet he refused and tendered his resignation from Parliament and as an Executive Member of Government midday 14 January 1966.

Balewa was yet to accept Wachuku's resignation when the army struck by mid-night; barely 12 hours later – thus ushering in the era of military coups in Nigeria.

During the Biafran war, he participated in the struggle of his Igbo people for freedom and justice against a country that had rejected them by not protecting them from genocide and brutality by its marauding soldiers and citizens.

The Nigerian soldiers were shocked and dismayed that their first Speaker of the House of Representatives, first Ambassador to the United Nations and first Foreign Affairs Minister was in detention for exercising his freedom of speech and fundamental human rights.

During Nigeria's second republic (1979 to 1984), Wachuku was, on the platform of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP), twice (1978 and 1983) elected Senator representing Aba Senatorial Zone[17] of Africa's most populous country.

[57] During this period, he made various dangerous secret trips to South Africa for meetings with President Pieter Willem Botha to put pressure on him for the dismantling of the obnoxious apartheid system; including the unconditional pardon and release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners.