Joseph Karakitie Azigbo

Who was Joseph Karakitie Azigbo?

Chief Joseph Karakitie Azigbo, the Olorogun of Okpe Kingdom, was born in Orereokpe on December 29, 1918. He worked with the United African Company UAC in Jos, Plateau state before establishing his mining business. He soon became very successful in the mining field and became one of the richest men in Nigeria in the 1950s. He was the biggest Miner of Tin and Columbite in the whole of West Africa, owning over 150 mining sites. At the outbreak of the Nigerian Civil War in 1967, he moved part of his business from Jos, Plateau state to Sapele, in the Niger Delta. There he established a palm produce export business. He also built a Sawmill factory on the exclusive Elder Dempster Embankment by the River Ethiope.

After the war, on his return to Jos, most of his properties had either been vandalised or commandeered by the Nigerian Army, others had been occupied by locals who laid claims to them. Among these was his private residence in Anglo Jos a part of which was turned into the Nigerian Air force office at the junction of Bukuru road/Miango road. His attempts to regain possession of his properties from the Nigerian government dragged on for decades. This was a huge financial blow from which chief J.K. never really recovered. He had spent most of his early adult life working and investing heavily in Jos and he must have assumed that after the war, it would be business as usual.