Former Gov Ibori Says The Nation That Betrayed Ekwueme Is Now Shedding Crocodile Tears...

Former governor of Delta state, James Ibori has said, late Alex Ekwueme, former vice-president, is being mourned by a nation which failed to allow him rescue it from “political and economic morass will. According to Ibori, Nigerians are “shedding crocodile tears” over the passing of Ekwueme. 

In a statement by Tony Eluemunor, his spokesman, Ibori said Nigeria is the biggest loser in Ekwueme’s death, adding that the octogenarian lived a full life. Ibori, however, said he could not stop asking “what if?” Ekwueme had been the president of Nigeria. He said with Ekwueme’s demise, the nation would never know the examples he would have set as president.


It is ironic that the nation that betrayed this man’s effort to rescue it from political and economic morass will, now that he is dead, begin to shed crocodile tears. Even those who betrayed the very effort to make Ekwueme President, may begin to, hypocritically, of course, bewail the fact that Ekwueme or the Igboman or woman, never ruled Nigeria.


Ekwueme was an extraordinary polyvalent scholar who earned multiple degrees in Architecture, urban planning, sociology, history, philosophy and law from several universities. He was a gifted architect whose professional legacies dot various Nigerian cities. In politics, he was both gentlemanly and fatherly, introducing mildness even when the others had embraced roughness and irascibility. If only we had allowed Ekwueme to rule Nigeria, what example would he have set? Now, we will never know…and Nigeria is the ultimate loser.


Ekwueme twice sought to be president — in 1999 and 2003 — but could not get the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party he co-founded.