By Sharpedgenews, Kansas City
Former Nigerian Minister, Chief Ojomelukwe Maduekwe is dead. Maduekwe, fondly teased by his former boss, ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo
as “the only Ojo east of the Niger”, died at about 7pm, on Wednesday, at an Abuja hospital. He was seventy one years old.
Ojo Maduekwe, a lawyer and social democratic ideologue and newspaper columnist was at various times a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Born in Asaga-Ohafia, Abia state in South-Eastern Nigeria, he was first appointed by President Olusegun Obasanjo as Minister of Tourism and Culture in 1999. In 2001, he was moved in a major cabinet re-shuffle to take charge of the Federal Ministry of Transport, his idealistic advocacy that Nigerians should embrace the riding of bicycles in order to cushion the biting effect of fuel price hike got him the nickname of “Ojo Onikeke”. He also told Nigerians that the rising health hazard of high blood pressure could be push back through the novel lifestyle. In paradoxical twist he was one day showed into a ditch by a careless driver while riding on a bike to work.
Chief Ojo Maduekwe was a member of the Presbyterian Church. And whenever he was feeling downcast because of the pressure of politics, he often found solace in his faith. For example when criticisms against him from his tribes people after being nominated to serve as the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and he was dropped, the faith and his family were there for him. He would later emerge as the Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party.
In 2007, he was made the Minister of Foreign Affairs by late President Umaru Yar’Adua. “Citizen diplomacy” became his friend.
He served as a Deputy Director of the Jonathan Presidential Campaign Organisation in 2011. His defence of the secrecy surrounding the sickness and eventual death of President Yar’Adua made him an unpopular minister when Dr. Goodluck Jonathan finally emerged the acting President of Nigeria.
He later served as Nigeria’s High Commissioner to Canada until Jonathan lost the 2015 elections. While waiting to see President Jonathan at Pierre Hotel, Manhattan New York, in 2013, Chief Maduekwe waited for more than six hours and was not allowed to see the President, it was becoming obvious that his glory and influence were fast waning. He would later tell Sharpedgenews.com that serving Nigeria was always at a cost.
Chief Maduekwe celebrated the traditional rite of passage into the rank of sages in Ohafia in December 2000 and by all traditional standards, he was always seen as an accomplished statesman by the people of his clan. He had used that year’s celebration to raise over N300million for his community, through the support of friends like Aliko Dangote and Emeka Ofor.
Family sources told sharpedgenews.com on Wednesday that Chief Maduekwe was returning to Nigeria from the United States on flight that was routed through Dubai, when he became very sick. He did not make it in spite of the attempt to give him medical care at the Abuja hospital.
He was elected into the House of Representatives in 1983, shortly before the democratic rule was truncated by the Buhari-Idiagbon junta. He was also a Special Assistant to the then Internal Affairs Minister, Ambassador Babagana Kingibe during the leadership of General Sani Abacha.
Chief Ojo Maduekwe, until his death, was the Secretary of the Board of Trustees (BOT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria.