By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Nigeria’s first elected Vice President, Dr Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, who died in a London hospital on Sunday, was a man who epitomised the values and virtues that put a country on a path of greatness.
He was Vice President of Nigeria October 1, 1979 to December 31 1983, when the Second Republic was sacked by a military junta led by then Major-General Muhamadu Buhari.
The late Ekwueme was born on October 21, 1932 and until his death on Sunday he was the Ide of the Oko kingdom in Anambra State.
A distinguished architect, he started his primary education at the St John’s Anglican Central School, at Ekwulobia. He then proceeded to Kings’ College, Lagos.
As an awardee of the Fulbright Scholarship in the United States of America (being one of the first Nigerians to gain the award), Alex attended the University of Washington, where he earned bachelor’s degree in Architecture and city planning. He obtained his master’s degree in urban planning.
Dr Ekwueme also earned degrees in sociology, history, philosophy and law from the University of London. He later proceeded to obtain a Ph.D. in Architecture from the University of Strathclyde, before gaining the BL (honours) degree from the Nigerian Law School.
The late former vice president participated in the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) in Abuja, where he served on the Committee on the Structure and Framework of the Constitution.
It was Dr Ekwueme that came up with the idea of six geo-political zones structure which has become a stabilising tool in the Nigerian polity.
Dr Ekwueme founded and led the 34 eminent Nigerians (known as G-34) who risked their lives to stand up against the dictatorship of the late General Sani Abacha during the era of military rule in Nigeria. The group (G-34) was to transform into the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), the biggest party in Africa and Chief Ekwueme was unanimously given the presidential ticket of the party, which he turned down and opted for a properly organised primary election. However, the primary election was held, he lost to General Olusegun Obasanjo, who eventually won the 1999 presidential election. In 2003 he lost the primary again to Obasanjo in his second bid for the Presidency.
Ekwueme’s last political engagement was the endorsement of Osekola Obaze on Wednesday 11th October 2017 for the November 18 Anambra gubernatorial election in the state.
As Vice President under then President Shehu Shagari, Ekwueme was ready to run for the top job at the end of their second tenure had the military coup that brought Gen Muhammadu Buhari to power not happened.
Thereafter, he was locked up in detention places that included the Bonny Military camp, Victoria Island; Temple Road, Ikoyi; Kirikiri Maximum Security Prisons; Ikoyi Prisons as well as house arrest in Hawkesworth Avenue, Barlow Street, Ruxton Road, and Milverton Road from the coup day till his release on the 3rd of July, 1986.
He was alleged to be “neck deep in petroleum and Abuja contract deals” while in office. His then accuser, General Muhammadu Buhari was reported to have told whosoever cared to listen that “… I doubt if Ekwueme can absolve himself from what we have seen so far.”
But in December 1985, a judicial tribunal headed by Honourable Justice Sampson Uwaifo came up with a declaration that Ekwueme had indeed become poorer than when he was elected vice president, that he was in office his wealth diminished. Till date no Nigerian has matched this record.
Accordingly, the high court judge ruled that “no prima facie case has been established to warrant his trial for any offence known to law”; stating that were he to be put on trial on the facts available, it would “be setting a standard of morality too high even for saints in politics in a democracy to be observed.”
Easy-going Ekwueme later confessed to have forgiven those who subjected him to the treatment even though they have not shown any remorse privately or otherwise.
As a man who liked playing by the rules and a firm believer in rule of law, Dr Alex Ekwueme closed his foreign accounts because a public officer was not supposed to have one and also had to bring his son schooling abroad back to a Nigerian school as he could not pay his son’s fees abroad without running a foreign account.
He took a step further and closed a foreign joint account he ran with his wife and also wound up his businesses, particularly Ekwueme Associates – Architects and Town Planners, the first indigenous architectural firm registered in the country.
Ekwueme would be remembered for his politics without bitterness and a firm believer in one Nigeria based on equity and justice.
