Joshua Ogalu was born in 1935 in the then-British colony of Nigeria to a middle-class merchant family in the Biafran region of the country. Although his family did well under British rule, they did not like the country being ruled by the British, and this rubbed off on Joshua, leaving him with a profound dislike of colonialism in all its forms. Although a fairly puny, if very intelligent, child, at the age of twelve Joshua began to grow prodigiously, reaching a height of 6'8" by the time he was sixteen. At the same time he discovered that he was becoming much stronger and tougher than even his new stature could account for. After testing himself in several ways he realised that he must be a superhuman, however he realised that if he revealed his powers he would probably be forced to work with the British colonial government, which he did not want at all. To prevent this he kept his abilities secret even from his closest friends. By the time he was eighteen he had excelled as a student of the sciences and in 1954 won a scholarship to study Physics at Cambridge University. An excellent student, Joshua was at the top of his class during his whole stay, graduating with a first in 1957. Upon gaining his degree Joshua decided to stay in Cambridge for further study, and in 1960 gained his doctorate on the basis of several significant discoveries. However, physics was not the only thing Joshua was involved in at Cambridge - shortly after his arrival there he became involved with the Universities active Marxist organisation, and was a member throughout his whole time there, seeing Marxism as the way forward for the impoverished peoples of the world. While studying at Cambridge Joshua was also made aware of the racism which seemed almost inherent in the system as he suffered from a fair degree of discrimination.
In 1961, as Joshua was beginning a career of post-doctoral research, Nigeria gained its independence from Britain. He immediately left the laboratory bench and returned to Nigeria to play his part in the building of the new nation. Upon his return he began to contribute to the new nation. However, as time passed it became obvious to him that Nigeria was going downhill, with rising tensions between its various tribal groups. In 1967 the tensions became open civil warfare when eastern Nigeria, Biafra, rebelled. Joshua felt that their cause was just and joined them, contributing greatly to their cause with both his technical and tactical skills. After a few months he met Silence, the other superhuman working for the Biafran rebels, for the first time. Although she was ill-educated Silence was not stupid and was very passionate about helping people, where Joshua saw it as a duty. Despite their very different outlooks and personalities they were attracted to each other almost from the start, an attraction which grew into love as time went by.
Thanks in large part to the efforts of Joshua and Silence by 1970 the civil war was won and Nigeria became Biafra with Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, who instigated the revolution, in charge. Only the efforts of Joshua and Silence prevented him instigating a bloodbath among his enemies once the civil war was won. With the ending of the civil war there was still fighting to be done to eject invading Central African Republic forces, but once this was done Joshua and Silence finally fulfilled a promise they had made to each other years before, and were married.
As time went by it became obvious to both Joshua and Silence that Colonel Ojukwu was unfit to rule. He was ignorant, biased and arbitrary, seeing enemies everywhere, even among his trusted advisers. Their efforts to moderate the Colonels rule, while they made them popular with the people and the military, made Colonel Ojukwu more and more hostile to them. Finally things reached a head. The Colonel was obviously planning something, so in 1972 Silence and Joshua acted first, at Silence's instigation. They killed the Colonel and in an almost bloodless coup took control of Biafra, renaming it Neoteris to indicate that the country included all of what was Nigeria, not just the Biafran part. When it became obvious to everyone that they were not swayed by loyalty to any one ethnic group, and did actually have the countries best interests in mind, their popularity became almost almost universal.
After taking control Joshua instigated the conversion of the nation into an ideal Marxist state. He and Silence also began to apply many of the techniques used in Minerva to give a sane and stable population. Although the Marxist state was achieved, and did do some good, after a few years Silence pointed out that it was not actually helping the people, and public unrest was growing, despite the initial success of their social programmes. Although loathe to abandon his Marxist principles, eventually Joshua was persuaded, and converted the country to a more free-market economy, although the social programmes were continued and expanded.
Soon after taking control of Biafra it became obvious, even through Joshua's Marxist ideology, that the country would need some kind of speciality only it could provide if it wanted to prosper in the modern world. Initially there were only the revenues from the oil-fields in the east of the country. These were soon supplemented by patent revenues from several of Joshua's inventions. Then Silence pointed out that many folk remedies did actually seem to work, and despite Joshua's initial resistance to this 'superstition' she managed to persuade him to investigate some of them. To his surprise they actually seemed to work, and after a while he had isolated several useful drugs, whose licences brought in much-needed foreign currency. Since then Dr Biafra has investigated a large variety of folk remedies, discovering many useful compounds in the process. He continues to investigate new folk remedies. Joshua has also developed a variety of useful new agricultural techniques which bring in some income, as well as a number of cheap, fairly low-tech solar power systems which sell well in less-developed nations, and are also widely used in Neoteris itself (although Neoteris also has several fusion power stations).
After nearly twenty years of co-ruling Neoteris, Joshua Ogalu is still a force to be reckoned with, a very tall, very handsome and impressive black man in his mid-50's. Although he cares for his people, he is fairly cold and intellectual, preferring to keep emotions at arms length. The only real exception to this is the love he shows for Silence, his wife. Although he has learned political skills he still prefers to spend his time in the lab, from which have come many inventions which have made Neoteris the thriving state it is. On the rare occasions when he has to enter combat Dr Biafra's own innate superhuman strength and toughness are enhanced by a variety of weapons systems which he has developed himself. He does not wear a standard superhero costume, but usually a military uniform without insignia, often with a lab coat over it.
Dr Biafra in Champions terms.