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By Blaise Ezeokeke
“During the APC’s primary election in the runup to the 2023 Nigeria’s General election, Dr Ogbonnaya Ọnụ struck me as a very sad, unhappy man, as he helplessly pleaded his case before the APC delegates to give him their vote to emerge as the Party’s flag bearer.
He knew, I believe, that it was a lost cause.
He had resigned as the Minister of Science & Technology, a position he held for two tenures, since 2015.
While standing on that podium, shouting himself hoarse, I saw a man who felt the world he found himself in was caving in.
That evening, almost all the other contenders had stood down for the then Chief Bola Tinubu, who eventually did not just win the Primaries but also emerged the current President of Nigeria.
But Dr Ọnụ stood his ground.
As I watched him, I figured he must be reminiscing about the years he was in the trenches with former President Muhammadu Buhari, long before Buhari became President, under the ANPP party while they lost elections, cycle after cycle.
In 2013, he was the party’s National Chairman when it merged with Bola Tinubu’s ACN, CPC and a faction of APGA under then Governor Rochas Okorocha, to form the current ruling APC, a masterstroke that saw President Buhari emerge the winner of the 2015 election and has kept the APC party in power till today.
Dr Ọnụ must have believed that he would be the rightful candidate, having been a longstanding ally to President Buhari and having come from the Igbo region of the Country who by every possible calculation was ripe for presidency at the time.
But he was thoroughly disappointed.
He wept at the bleakness before him. He was part of a government that did not live up to their promises to Nigeria and he must have stayed through hoping that he would have the chance as the president to do things aright.
But right before him, he saw his stellar records being obliterated by his very last assignment, right from his excellent student records from Primary School, Best student in Secondary School, First Class Honours at University of Lagos’s School of Engineering and an excellent PhD in Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
Emerging the First Executive Governor of Abia State in 1991, before his part of Abia was carved out to form the current Ebonyi State and winning the Presidential ticket of APP party in 1999, before handing the ticket over to Olu Falae when they merged to form AD, although Olusegun Obasanjo’s PDP won the election eventually.
He must have blamed himself for being a man who did not leave when the ovation was the loudest. And his last opportunity to remedy himself, was right there slipping away from his fingers.
Ọnụ had a stellar pedigree and history but that night he stood watching in sadness, as the delegates, to whom he cried his hearts out, ended up giving him zero vote.
He went home and went silent.
Nothing was heard of him again, except the news of his death today.
Ọnụ lived a great life, truly.
But like every man who is talented, I am sure he believed, he still had more to give.
May his family and all who mourn be comforted in his great legacies, memories and his achievements.
May he rest in peace. Amen.”