Isaac O. Kanu Okoroji was born on the 28th Sept. 1936 in Ujari Village, Arochuku in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria. He completed his primary and secondary school with the General Certificate of Education (GCE) in Ordinary Level in five subjects in then still Eastern Region of Nigeria.
He worked in Lagos as a Produce Inspector with the Federal Produce Inspection Service of Nigeria for three years from 1960-1963, before he left for Germany.
The journey to Germany took him to Hildesheim, to Blaupunkt, a manufacturer of TVs, Radios & Carradios. Here he registered with the Goethe-Institut evening classes to learn the german language while working in the daytime. After six months he was capable of communicating with his co-workers and able to read and write german.
Under this circumstance, he wrote several applications for sponsorship to which the company J.M.Voith in Heidenheim an der Brenz responded with an invitation to undergo an apprenticeship course which would qualify him as a fitter when finished. Having successfully completed the course he began his engineering studies in Stuttgart, which lasted three years. On completion of this he took up an appointment with the Company J.M.Voith.
During this period he fortunately met his present wife who was of great help to him during his studies, with whom he is still married to for the past 37 years. Together they have three daughters. In 1975, he decided to go back to Nigeria with the whole family. He found a German company in Hamburg which has an establishment in Nigeria with branches in Lagos, Enugu and Kano. After a successful interview he was employed and sent to Frankenthal for special training. Before his departure, the company arranged a flat for him to enable his family to join him in Hamburg.
The arrangement was to send him to Lagos/Nigeria after the training to assist the Lagos branch manager. As the time approched for him and the family to travel to Lagos, it so happened that the plans changed because they needed a branch manager in Kano, so they left Germany for Kano and Lagos was no more in question. Now he had to travel back to Nigeria as the branch manager in Kano without the family to get things like accomodation etc. arranged before they would join him. After six months the family was united again in Kano in a nice 3-bedroom bungalow situated in No. 1A Dutse Close Road.
Having worked for the company for two years, he decided to establish his own company and be independent. He registered two companies OKOWAL UNITED ENGINEERING and COMMERCIAL AGENCIES and ALEX RECO & Co.Nig.Ltd. Within a short period of time, the companies become very successful and a preferred vendor amongst bigger companies and the Government. the family moved to a bigger house with more rooms to accomodate everyone and provision for office rooms and a very big garden with swimmingpool.
He was a member of the Rotary Club of Kano, a Past Master and a District Grand Steward of the Kano Lodge 4975 of the United Grand Lodge of Antient Free and Accepted Masons of England.
Among some of the projects the companies handled within the 21 years he spent in Kano were:
- a project to build an estate in Abuja, the new Nigerian Capital, for the junior staff of the Ministry of Finance. This is one of the bigger projects the company handled and it lasted over two years
- a complete assembly plant for Conrad Bicycle in Port Harcourt
- the contract of four two-story buildings for the four wives of an Alhaji in Kano city. On completion of the buildings he flew in eight italians who did the panelling of the ceiling and walls with special materials from Italy.
- a security fence of 3m height with broken bottles on the top extending a total length of approx. 2000m for the Flour Mills factory
- a project to construct a mansion of 24 rooms including a swimmimgpool and playground in Zaria, for an Alhaji who owns the biggest printing press in the North.
His three daughters went to Kano Capital School and St.Louis Secondary School one after the other, where they qualified for direct entry into the Universities. There and then he decided to send them to Germany for further studies.
As the condition of things continues to deteriorate day by day in the country to the extent that communicating with the children was becoming very difficult, he decided together with his wife to join the children in Germany and since the 10th of September 1996 they have been in Köln, Germany.
