From Fred Itua, Abuja

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu and former governor of Abia state. Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, yesterday mourned the death of secretary of the Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Ojo Maduekwe.
Saraki described him as a “social-political engineer” whose exploits in the nation’s political landscape will remain evergreen in the annals of the country.
“Maduekwe was a brilliant, erudite and hardworking politician, a man of fine intellectual background who was not shy to take a position on serious national issues and would articulate the position to the admiration of both his supporters and opponents”, the Senate President stated.
On his part, Ekweremadu said: “Maduekwe was a repository of knowledge in pubic administration, having served the nation in many capacities; and he was, indeed, a political oracle, master strategist, and vast in political engineering; it is a sad loss for the PDP…”
Similarly, Senator Anyim Ude, Maduekwe’sclose friend for about five decades,  described his death as shocking. “Its a huge loss to Ndigbo, the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, the PDP and, indeed, the nation at large.” The former lawmaker, who was a school mate of the deceased at Hope Waddell Training Institution, Calabar, noted that Maduekwe’s exit would seriously affect the on-going peace process in the factionalised PDP; where his experience as a consummate conciliator was highly needed.

Atiku, Ndoma-Egba shocked

Former Vice President and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar and former Senate Leader Victor Ndoma-Egba have expressed shock and disbelief at the sudden death of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain and former Foreign Affairs and Transport minister, Chief Ojo Maduekwe.
Atiku in a press statement released by his media office, described Maduekwe’s death as a rude shock.
The Turaki Adamawa recalled his last meeting with the late Maduekwe.
“Ojo and I fortuitously met in November last year at the premiere of the documentary film, ‘Nowhere to Run: Nigeria’s Climate and Environmental Crisis’ at the Shehu Musa Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja. He had just concluded his duty tour as Nigeria’s ambassador to Canada. He looked well and was at his engaging best.”
Atiku notef that the former diplomat was a hardworking and tireless person who always brought deep intellect and sound analysis to the dissection of problems and their solution and that his strong and reliable intellect was one of those attributes that endeared him to many members of the PDP.
Ndoma-Egba, in a tribute he signed, said: “With Maduekwe’s death, the very lean ranks of intellectuals in the murky business of politics in Nigeria has depleted and very badly so as he was the giant in that thinly populated club.
“Seminal, cultured and gracious, Ojo represented the noble possibilities of politics, especially that politics and intellectualism were not necessarily incompatible, that rectitude was possible in politics, that politics was the highway to public service and that public service was edifying…I received the news of his death with great pain and a sense of personal loss.”