Early life and education
Nelson Ichrene was born in Ibadan, South West Nigeria, West Africa. His father was Joshua Fimienye Ichrene (1942-2017), a retired law enforcement officer, and his mother, Elfrida Awajiogak Ichrene, a petty trader.
The Ichrenes were conservative Christians, and Nelson attended St. Andrews Demonstration School II in Oyo Ile, Oyo, from the age of six for five years, where he received his elementary education. Nelson was discovered to be a prodigy at an early age. He began to talk comprehensibly from about the fourteenth month, and had a disproportionately wide vocabulary, showing signs of adulthood before his fifth birthday. He took first positions in all the terms throughout his primary school and was chosen to represent the school in all inter-state competitions from the fourth class. Compelled by his teachers, he sat the Common Entrance Examination at primary five, coming atop the school.
Nelson began servicing and repairing electronics at the age of 8, and when he was 11, his family moved to Warri, Delta state, where he received his post elementary education at Army Day Secondary School, Effurun. At age 14, he was able to play 8 different musical instruments including the piano, bass and lead guitars. While in senior school, he opted for the sciences where he began to show proficiency in Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry. He later earned the moniker “Prof” from his teachers when, during one of the classes, he recited the entire periodic table together with their atomic and mass numbers, by heart. He was then chosen to represent the school in all inter-state and national science competitions, winning a handful of awards. While in S.S. 2, he was made senior prefect, and in S.S. 3 passed out with the best WASSCE result out of a thousand and eight students, having multiple distinctions (including all science subjects).
Subsequently, Nelson moved to Port Harcourt, Rivers state (his state of origin) in a bid to further his education. He sat for the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination two times and his results were withdrawn both times for alleged malpractice (he had scored 301 and 283 at the first and second sittings respectively). He then sat JAMB the third time, while simultaneously pursuing a Pre-degree program in electrical/electronic engineering at the School of Basic Studies, University of Port Harcourt. That year he had a double admission, coming atop his class.
In his first year in college, Nelson bagged a scholarship from NLNG which would see to the payment of his tuition fees and welfare until graduation. By the beginning of the sophomore year, he had bagged four more scholarships from Oil and Telecommunications companies (Shell, MTN, Total, Mobil). However towards the end of the second academic session, he suffered from a Major Depressive Disorder and was unable to take the semester examinations. Letters were sent from the Teaching Hospital to the school authorities and scholarship bodies notifying them of his condition. He was hospitalized for several weeks and ultimately discharged. He then caught up with studies and cleared all pending courses, continuing up until the last semester of the final year, when his doctors advised again that he withdrew temporarily to attend to his health. After certification as fit, he returned to complete the semester with a graduating CGPA of 4.56. Upon graduation, he was offered a further scholarship at Brunel University, West London for Post graduate studies and an employment by NLNG.
The LHO
In the latter years he established an Energy firm, Likeminds Energy, which specializes in distributed power generation solutions. This he continued to direct, serving on the company’s executive board while studying widely on various subjects that pertain to humanity. Due to teeming demands in the areas of leadership and human capacity development, he liquidated the company to devote full attention to "people building". He began receiving invitations across Africa as a conference speaker, delivering speeches on themes of success, leadership, goals and the efficacy of self-education.
Nelson had been obsessed with understanding the reason for the degree of disunity and conflict among the human race. Overtime he started to ask "big questions" as to the origin and purpose of life. He delved into Philosophy, exhausting tons of books on diverse aspects of human interaction, and sometimes going into in-depth study for 14 consecutive hours, in a bid to unravel the "misery" besieging humanity and find a permanent solution to the “ailing” world. He bothered mainly on Psychology, Religion, Theology, Happiness, Conflict, and War. After years of study and research, he found culture, race and religion among the major culprits responsible for human separation. Then rather than allowing differences to create divisions among people, he tried to achieve a reconciliation between these differing “truths”. He then sought a means to promote common values such as compassion, empathy, dignity, and reason that humanity shares. This was to become the core foundation of The LHO.
The Likeminds Humanist Organization was consequently established; to advocate a progressive world through the persistent application of self education, logic and reason, promote non-discrimination on all grounds - ethnic or national origin, religion and nonbelief, disability, age, gender ... while inculcating the idea that every human being has the responsibility to take charge of their own life and give meaning to it.