Born in Nigeria, West Africa,[2] Akuwudike moved to Britain and was educated at St Augustine's College in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, an independent Roman Catholic boarding school.
[5] An early leading role came in 1989 in the play The Fatherland by Murray Watts, at the Bush Theatre at Riverside,[6] and his first significant part on television was as Sergeant Gummer in the drama serial Virtual Murder (1991).
[9] From February to May 2011, Akuwudike was Abel Magwitch in an English Touring Theatre production of Great Expectations (adapted by Tanika Gupta), with Lynn Farleigh as Miss Havisham.
[10][11] In the Cary Joji Fukunaga film Beasts of No Nation (2015), Akuwudike played Supreme Commander Dada Goodblood, leader of an unnamed West African country torn by civil war.
[12] In September 2018, it was announced that Akuwudike had been cast alongside Joe Cole and Sope Dirisu in a new Cinemax television serial called Gangs of London, then in production.