Catherine Obianuju Acholonu

Acholonu died on 18 March 2014 at the age of 62 from a year-long renal failure.

Acholonu was the Director of the Catherine Acholonu Research Center, Abuja (CARC), which she co-founded with Ambassador (Dr.) Ajay Prabhakar. The center, based in Abuja, is pioneering research into Africa's pre-history, stone inscriptions, cave art, and linguistic analyses of ancient symbols and communication mediums from the continent. She argues that Nigerian rock-art inscriptions, known as Ikom Monoliths, prove that "Sub-Saharan African Blacks possessed an organized system of writing before 2000 B.C." and that she and her assistants are able to translate these.

From 1999 to 2002, she was the Special Adviser on Arts and Culture to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a post she resigned from to seek election, along with a number of other writers who felt their inclusion in Nigerian politics would be for good. However, she lost the contest for the Orlu senatorial district seat of Imo State, and drew attention to irregularities and rigging.

Acholonu was the author of over 16 books, many of which are used in secondary schools and universities in Nigeria, and in African Studies Departments in USA and Europe. Her works and projects enjoyed the collaboration and the support of United States Information Service (USIS), the British Council and the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1989, she was invited to tour educational institutions in USA, lecturing on her works under the United States International Visitor's Program. In 1990 Catherine Acholonu was honoured with the Fulbright Scholar in Residency award by the US government, during which she lectured at four colleges of the Westchester Consortium for International studies, NY, USA.

Part of her work took her into the wider sphere of sustainable development. In 1986 she was the only Nigerian, and one of two Africans to participate in the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on "Women, Population and Sustainable Development: the Road to Rio, Cairo and Beijing”, which was organised jointly by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the Division for the Advancement of Women, and the Division for Sustainable Development. This took place in the Dominican Republic, and focused on the mainstreaming of gender into the Plans of Action of the UN world conferences of Rio, Beijing and Cairo.

Catherine Acholonu was born in Orlu to the family of Chief Lazarus Olumba.She attended secondary schools in Orluˌ before becoming the first African woman to gain a master's degree (1977) and a PhD (1987) from the University of Düsseldorf, Germany. She taught at Alvan Ikoku Federal College of Education, Owerri, commencing 1978.

Catherine Obianuju Acholonu (26 October 1951 – 18 March 2014) was a Nigerian writer, researcher and former lecturer on African Cultural and Gender Studies. She served as the former Senior Special Adviser (SSA) to President Olusegun Obasanjo on Arts and Culture, and foundation member of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA).