Immortalise Ekwueme now, Enugu Assembly tells FG

* Senate postpones security summit over burial
* Ngige denies N1bn expenses on Ekwueme

The Enugu State House of Assembly has urged the Federal Government to immortalise the late Vice President Alex Ekwueme as a result of his contributions to the development of the country.

The House at a plenary on Tuesday, observed a minute silence in honour of the departed soul of the fallen statesman who would be buried in his country home, Oko, in Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State.

Pouring encomiums on the late Ekwueme, who was one of the founding fathers of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the lawmakers argued that it would be nice that a man of such stature and status should be immortalised for life by naming an institution after him in Igboland or anywhere else in Nigeria.

Speaker of the State Assembly, Hon. Edward Ubosi, while urging his colleagues to observe a minute silence for the late Vice President, said that they were not mourning him but rather celebrating him whom he described as an achiever.

The Speaker said, “We are not mourning Ekwueme, we are celebrating him. He was a silent achiever. He guided the country until his death.”

A member representing Nkanu East Constituency, Hon. Paul Nnajiofor, who suggested that Ekwueme be immortalised, said that the former Vice President rendered service to his father land, pointing out that he was among those that designed Abuja as the Federal Capital because of his profession as an architect.

In his own contribution, the member representing Udi South, Hon. Chuka Eneh, who said that he was not qualified to talk about the Colossus that Ekwueme was.

He described him as a man of integrity, nationalist and an upright man whose legacies all should build on for a progressive and prosperous nation.

In a related development, Speaker Ubosi mandated the House Committee Chairman on Education, Hon. Matthew Ugwueze, to investigate the allegations making the rounds that students of the State owned polytechnic, Institute of Management and Technology, IMT, is forcing students to pay hostel fee of N40,000.00 each, whether they are living in the hostel or not and report back to the House for appropriate action should the allegation be true.

Meanwhile, the national summit on security being organised by the Senate has been postponed in honour of the late Ekwueme who will be buried on Saturday.

The summit, scheduled to hold ‪on February 1 and 5 at the Banquet Hall of the State House was to be declared open by President Muhammadu Buhari.

A statement by the Chairman, Senate ad-hoc committee on review of security infrastructure, who is also the Majority Leader, Sen. Ahmed Lawan, stated that the postponement was to honour the late former Vice President, and to also enable Federal legislators, particularly those from the South-East, participate fully in the burial programme of the late elder statement.

Lawan said a new date for the summit would be announced in due course, and extend the committee’s apology to the invited dignitaries.

The summit was organised to provide an all inclusive platform for heads of security and defence agencies, Governors, traditional rulers, socio-cultural groups, civil society organizations and others, with a view to finding solutions to acute and long term security challenges in the country.

Though the now postponed summit was an initiative of the Senate as part of its contribution to the resolution of the rising security challenges, it is being convened in partnership with the Presidency to find a common solution to the issue.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Sen. Chris Ngige, has described as misleading and needless, the controversy over his interview with the media on the commitment of the Federal Government to the burial of the late Ekwueme.

The minister insisted that he did not attach any figure to “a deserving national tribute to one of Nigeria’s foremost statesman.”

In a statement by his special Assistant on media, Mr. Nwachukwu Obidiwe, Ngige said he only gave a summary of the number of projects the Federal Government has taken to ensure that a man who easily was Nigeria’s beacon of democracy was given a decent burial.

The statement reads in part, “Perhaps the Hon. Minister has pre-empted the rhetoric’s of cynics and detractors who could have easily run to town to claim the Federal Government has abandoned Ekwueme in death.

“For the avoidance of doubt, what he did as a member of the Burial Planning Committee was to give the details of the road rehabilitation projects from the Awka end of the State and from Abia and Imo State axis, all leading to
Ekwueme’s home town of Oko, as well as the medical services, the Mausoleum and others. But at no time did the minister attach a figure of N1billion!

“An unedited video and audio tape of the interview as recorded by both broadcast and print reporters is easily within reach.

“The Minister is an Igbo and knows full well that just as a count is not taken of the number of children a parent is blessed with in Igbo tradition, the same tradition holds the burial rites and attendant expenses even more sacred to warrant such display of figures.

“However, it is important to add that such pieces of information in an administration such as ours that is anchored on openness, and buoyed by the Freedom of Information could be at the fingertips of any investigative reporting.
Obidiwe further stated that the Burial Planning Committee was satisfied with the progress of the work and looked forward to a very successful event which has already kicked off in Lagos, Abuja and Enugu.

“Again, perhaps, this is what detractors did not wish to see,” the statement added.

By Moses Oyediran, Enugu, Olufemi Samuel and Jude Idu, Abuja