BY OKEY NDIRIBE, ABUJA
The outpouring of grief has come in torrents for   the departed Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke, for the immediate past National Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and Second Republic Speaker of the House of Representatives.

His passage to the great beyond  has elicited posthumous encomiums from political friends and foes alike. He has been generally acknowledged as a fair-minded and just personality during his life time.  Speaking in an interview he granted last Thursday to Saturday Vanguard,  Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, former Governor of Anambra (Ume-Ezeoke’s home) State,  said Chief  Ume-Ezeoke was a man who abhorred injustice.  He cited an incident which happened in 1999 to buttress his position.

According to him: “After I was rigged out in the Anambra PDP, governorship primaries in 1999, my team went to Ume-Ezeoke’s Nnewi home and complained to him. He immediately gave us a note to Alhaji Adamu Ciroma, who honoured it and passed it on to Chief Solomon Lar who was then the National Chairman of the Party.

Lar then consulted and cancelled the cooked up primary result and ordered fresh elections which I easily won and went on to become the Governor of the State.”

Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke

“ When comest such another?” he asked.
His wish:  “May his gentle soul rest in peace as I wish his family the fortitude to bear the loss”.

Dr. Tim Menakaya, former  Minister of Health under the Presidency of Chief  Olusegun Obasanjo  also had kind words to say about the former Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Said he: “I met Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke for the first time  in 1978. He was a disciplined man; we were in the Nigeria Peoples Party together before he became the Speaker of the House of  Representatives. Even though we had political differences, our relationship remained cordial. He has played his own part and his time has come.”

Second Republic Governor of Borno State, Alhaji Mohammed Goni had his own recollections of Chief Ume-Ezeoke.
Said he: “It is quite a long time since I met him last.  I remember him during those difficult days when my party – the Great Nigeria Peoples Party (GNPP)- was  one of  those who were opposed to the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).

We had a cordial relationship. Generally, I think he was a broad-minded politician. He was a people’s politician but we were not too close. His passage is a great loss. Even though he was in the NPP, he mixed well with the conservatives in the NPN.

He was not quite aggressive while we were in the Progressive Parties Alliance (PPA). He was a moderate and was not too hard in his politics. He was unlike some of us who were very active in the opposition and the conservatives didn’t quite like us for that. But I think that when you look at the type of politics that is being played in this country today, you would notice that there is a great deal of mixture; and this was what he stood for.”

Perhaps it was for this reason that Nigerians from  political shades and backgrounds have continued to rue his demise.
In his own condolence message,  President Goodluck Jonathan  described  the death of Chief  Ume-Ezeoke, was a national loss.

President Jonathan  led other eminent Nigerians in mourning the passage of the politician. Among groups and individuals  who expressed their condolences over the death of Ume-Ezeoke were the leadership of the House of Representatives, Presidential candidate of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in the last April elections, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) and  former and incumbent state governors.

The President said that he received with immense sadness and a deep feeling of national loss, news of the death of the former Speaker of the House of Representatives.

In a statement by the presidential spokesman, Dr. Reuben Abati, President Jonathan extended his heartfelt condolences to members of his family and the ANPP. He joined them and other Nigerians in mourning the passing on of Chief Ume-Ezeoke.

Jonathan urged the family, friends and political associates of the late frontline politician to take solace in the knowledge that he lived a very fulfilled life and made very significant contributions to the political development of Nigeria.

On his part, Speaker, House of Representatives, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, described Ume-Ezeoke’s death as a monumental loss to the nation.

In a statement he issued, the Speaker said that the late former Speaker and elder statesman will be remembered for his political doggedness and legislative experience which endeared him to millions of Nigerians across ethnic, religious, political and ideological divides.

The Speaker commiserated with Governor Peter Obi, the people of Anambra State and the South East in general as well as the ANPP.

He said the former ANPP national chairman died at a time his experience was needed by the country to wade through the many challenges militating against the polity.

Mourning his former running mate while in ANPP, General Buhari described the death of Ume-Ezeoke, in a foreign land, as most unfortunate.

“To think that India, which was just in the same phase of developmental projections with Nigeria in the 60s, has now become our medical haven, is a big indictment of the way our health facilities like other infrastructures have been run aground”, he stated.

The death of the Second Republic Speaker of the House of Representatives was confirmed by Mr Chika Izuora, media aide to his son, Chinemere, who was Special Adviser to former President Umaru Yar’Adua on Civil Society Relations.
Chief Ume-Ezeoke was born September 8, 1935 in Amichi in Nnewi South Local Government Area of Anambra State. His sojourn in politics was swift at the start.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1979 at 44 making him the number four on the national order of protocol. He was engaged in private legal practice until his foray into the world of partisan politics when the military lifted the ban on party politics in 1978. He joined the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) on whose platform he won the Nnewi Federal constituency seat in 1979.

The accord between the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) and the NPP saw Ume-Ezeoke’s political profile rise as he became the second  most senior elected politician from the Southeast and a key figure in the government of the Second Republic. He bounced back in the Fourth Republic as National Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP).