•Ngige clears air on N1bn burial expenses
Aloysius Attah, Onitsha; Magnus Eze, Abuja; Raphael Ede, Enugu and Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
The Federal Polytechnic Oko, Anambra State, has declared a two-day holiday to honour its founder and late former vice president of Nigeria, Dr. Alex Ifeanyichukwu Ekwueme, who will be buried in his country home, Oko, Aguata Local Government Area of Anambra State, on Friday.
In a memo to the polytechnic community dated January 29, 2018, which was copied to the Governing Council Chairman of the polytechnic, Chief Lasbry Amadi, and the Rector, Prof. Godwin Onu, among others, the Registrar of the institution, Mrs. Njaka Stella, said tomorrow and Friday have been declared work free days.
“I am directed to inform you that February 1 and 2, 2018, have been declared work free days for the polytechnic community,” she wrote.
The registrar advised students and staff to stay away from the polytechnic premises as the institution would be used to host visitors who will attend the burial ceremonies.
The polytechnic, in conjunction with the Old Aguata Union and Oko Community, yesterday hosted a colloquium at the new Polytechnic Auditorium in honour of the late patriarch.
Meanwhile, Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, has said the Federal Government did not spend N1 billion for Ekwueme’s burial.
Ngige, in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media, Nwachukwu Obidiwe, in Abuja yesterday, described the report as misleading and needless controversy.
“Perhaps, the minister has prompted the rhetoric 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 details of the road rehabilitation projects from the Awka end of the state and from Abia and Imo states’ 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 N1 billion.
“An unedited video and audio tape of the interview as recorded by both broadcast and print reporters is easily within reach.
“The minister 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,” he stated.
In a related development, Enugu State House of Assembly, yesterday called on the federal government to immortalise the former vice president by naming a federal institution after him.
The House made this request at its plenary while it observed a minute silence in honour of the departed statesman.
Regardless, National Chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Oye, yesterday said Ekwueme deserves more than N1 billion burial budget from the Nigerian government.
“What is N1 billion to Ekwueme? Ekwueme worths more than N100 billion. If I were the federal government, I would not have pronounced the figure because Ekwueme deserves more than that. He deserves a befitting burial for what he did for this country. He was a detribalised Nigerian; wealthy and humble. Nigerians yet unborn would remember him because his contributions to national development were immense.”