User:TonyOkpala

= Tony Ezekiel Okpala =

Tony Ezekiel Okpala was born on the 11th of December, 1973 to the family of Mr Anthony and Mrs Sylvia Okpala at Ibbitte Afam Mmaku (now Agunese Mmaku) in Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State. He is the 3rd child in the family of five. He lost his father, Anthony Okpala who died after a brief illness in 1980. Since then, the young Ezekiel had to work hard to support his mother's effort.

He started his early education at Community Primary School, Affam Mmaku. As an intelligent boy in the class, he considered first position as his birth right, anything less was not acceptable. At the age of 6, the young Ezekiel had already started honing his talents in arts and designs. He served as class monitors from primary 1 to 5. He represented his school in different arts competitions. Ezekiel joined the Boy Scouts in 1984 as a Cub Scout and rose to the position of a troop leader of the 9th Awgu Troop. He also served in the church, St. Theresa's Catholic Church Mmaku, as a mass server, which is also known as altar boys. And in primary 6 he served as the general prefect of the school.

After his primary education in 1986, he gained admission into Boys High School, Mmaku. In secondary school he represented his school in different art exhibitions organized by the education secretariat of Awgu Local Government to encourage students develop their talents and vocational skills.

After his secondary education, there was a delay to proceed to higher education. In 1992 he was trained in arts and design at Benue Crescent Makurdi Benue State, before proceeding to Lagos where he worked in Advertising Agency as a graphic designer. He also worked in Members Printing Press, Glover Street, Lagos Island.

Then, in 1997 he gained admission to study marketing in Federal Polytechnic Nekede where he got Diploma in Marketing. In year 2000, he studied Advertising with Advertising Practitioners Council (APCON) with a Certificate in Advertising. In 2002 he proceeded to APTEC Computer Education where he obtained Diploma in Web Development. Other professional qualifications include Certificate in Inbound Marketing and Diploma in Social Media Marketing.

He is skilled in web development applications like: Dream Weaver, HTML, PHP, MySQL Javascript, CSS3, Xml, HTML5 etc. He is also proficient with graphic applications like: Corel Draw, Photoshop, Photo Paint, QuarkExpress, WordPerfect, InDesign, Adobe Illustrator etc. Proficient with video editing programs like Adobe Premier, Pinnacle Studio, Flash Animation. As a web designer and developer, he is skilled in Website content management applications like Joomla, Wordpress, Drupal, PrestaShop, WooCommerce and many more.

He worked in the publishing industry, where he handled various party documents and the first history book of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) authored by Dr. Uzodinma Nwala.

In graphic design he has created over 50 brands of magazines across the country. He is now championing the Digital Publishing and E-Book creation which is still not popular in Nigeria. His latest project is an online platform that helps business people to market their products and services on internet.

He is married to Edith with three children, Obinna, Nmesoma and Ikenna.