Anyaoku, Eleazar Chukwuemeka (Emeka) (1933– )

Nigerian diplomat and secretary general of the Commonwealth from 1990. He joined the Commonwealth Development Corporation in 1959 and the Nigerian diplomatic service in 1962. In 1963 he was Nigeria's representative to the United Nations (UN) in New York. In 1971 he joined the Commonwealth Secretariat in London. He was appointed assistant secretary general in 1975, and in 1977 deputy secretary general in charge of international affairs. In 1983 he was made Nigeria's foreign minister under President Shagari, but when Shagari was almost immediately overthrown in a coup, he returned to his old post in the Commonwealth. He is the first African to hold the post of Commonwealth secretary general.

Anyaoku holds a chieftancy title as the Ichie Adazie of Obosi.