Sen. Chris Ngige, a former governor of Anambra State, has expressed sadness over the death of a former governor of Abia State and immediate past Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, who passed away on Thursday.
Ngige, who expressed sadness over Onu’s death, described his exit as an “unquantifiable loss,” not only to the South-East geopolitical zone but to the entire country.
The former Minister of Labour and Employment also stated that Onu was one of the arrowheads that helped dismantle the People’s Democratic Party’s 16-year hegemony.
He said this while speaking to journalists in his hometown of Alor on Saturday.
He stated that an account of the country’s political developments, particularly from the truncated third republic to the present, would be incomplete without including Onu’s constructive achievements.
Ngige recalled with emotion their first meeting in 1993, when Onu was Governor of Abia State on the platform of the National Republican Convention and he was the President of Aka Ikenga, an Igbo socioeconomic think tank, to promote Southeast Asian regional unification.
He said, “When Nigerians needed a change from the 16-year rule of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Onu made himself the sacrificial lamb to offer Nigerians an alternative in the All Progressive Congress.
“We got closer in 2012 during the formation of APC. At that time, I belonged to the Action Congress of Nigeria with the current President, Bola Tinubu, Bisi Akande, Segun Osoba, and others. I volunteered and was assigned the role of monitoring Dr. Onu to continue with the merger discussion, during which he selflessly gave up his ANPP National Chairmanship to see that the merger succeeded.
“The merger of ANPP, Muhammadu Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change, our party, ACN, and a faction of the All Progressives Grand Alliance led by the then Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, produced the ruling APC in 2013.”
He added, “By 2015, we ousted the PDP and became the ruling party at the center. I was appointed Minister of Labour and Employment, and Onu was Minister of Science, Technology, and Innovation. Both of us served eight years in the Federal Executive Council under President Muhammadu Buhari.
“As a former colleague in the FEC, I remember his intelligent contributions to memos during our weekly meetings. The country lost a teacher, an erudite scholar, an intellectual, a politician, and a public servant par excellence.”
Ngige described how the deceased, as the All People’s Party’s presidential candidate in 1999, unreservedly stepped down in favor of the Alliance for Democracy’s candidate when the two parties allied.
Ngige noted that Onu was a gigantic Iroko tree in Igbo land, and his death would leave a significant void in the Igbo and national political landscapes.
