By Emma Nnadozie

ORGANISERS of late Ike Abugu foundation have lamented that the account is in red after all the unredeemed pledges and called on the governor of his home state, Enugu, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi to rescue the family from the agony of losing a loved one.

In a statement signed by one of the organisers, Prof Nick Idoko, during the sixth anniversary of the Dana crash in which Dr. Abugu died, they noted that his “eternal absence has left permanent grief, created a yawning vacuum, and diminished the filial care he pledged to his nuclear family.”

According to the organisers, Dr. Ike Godwin Abugu, was aboard that aircraft on a flight from Abuja to Lagos. “He was among those who perished in the sad and lamentable incident. It was a national calamity, which has continued to reverberate until this day. Dr. Ike Abugu was a brilliant star in the academic and industry horizon, who, in his short life, was on the rise and garnering laurels as he strode on.

“He had to wade through the usual labyrinth of frustrating odds strewn in the path of unassuming patriots like him. But he persevered. He applied his broad intellectual power in the pursuit of his dream to be at the apex of the driving force for the industrialisation of Nigeria. By sheer dint of hard work, he scaled the hurdles and made his mark in the industry as a champion of the small and medium enterprises, SME, sector.

“He became a critical operative within the Nigerian Association of Small and Medium Enterprises, NASME.”