Year 2015 would wind down to a close in five days. It sure has been a long-winding 364 days that burst at the seams with mixed blessings. Like every other year, it visited different folks with different strokes, including deaths. For some of the living, and the mere survivours, hope may be more alive with the brand new year that is about to dawn, and for some others, 2015 is it. The passing year no doubt, left bold fingerprints with human passages; some of which are milestone deaths that impacted the consciousness of the nation. Given the quality of lives some of those who departed lived, many narratives to come, would be to their memory and salute to what they stood for, particularly for those of them who made a difference and stood out by affecting lives and the environments they found themselves. Those in this cast may have gone, but their memories endure.
Oronto Douglas
He was a renowned environmentalist, and the brain box of the Niger Delta minority struggle for fairness and equity in the Nigerian State. Douglas was the intellectual force behind the region’s self-determination struggle and resource control that led to the landmark Kaiama Declaration of December 11, 1998, which till date, is the most historic event within the Ijaw race aside the Adaka Boro’s 1966 proclamation of the “Niger Delta Peoples Republic.” He emerged one of the icons of 2005 National Political Reform Conference organised by the Olusegun Obasanjo administration, with his sublime submissions for improved revenue allocation to Niger Delta to cushion the adverse effects of oil exploitation in the region. In the political circles, he started out as commissioner for Information in Bayelsa State, and wound up as the special adviser to former president Goodluck Jonathan on Research, Documentation and Strategy, documenting the president’s achievements and legacies, and coordinating publicity and campaign strategies for the Presidency.
Working in this position, Oronto as he was better known, earned acclaim as one of the most influential and cerebral aides of the former president. As a lawyer, he was a leading human rights attorney and served as one of counsels on the defence team of the late Ken Saro Wiwa, a global environmentalist figure, who was executed by General Sani Abacha’s military dictatorship in 1995. Douglas co-founded Africa’s foremost environmental tendencies-the Environmental Rights Action and Friends of the Earth, Nigeria, and served on the board of several non-profit organisations, within and outside the country. He was the first Niger Delta activist to be hosted by a serving United States of America president Bill Clinton, to whom he presented the Niger Delta struggle in the White House. As an author, he wrote the influential book, “Where Vultures Feast,” and a co-authored, “Shell and Human rights in the Niger Delta.” A fellow of the George Bell Institute, England, and International Forum on Globalisation, USA, he presented papers at over 200 international conferences, and was listed among the world’s 20 most influential writers and thinkers. He born on August 6, 1966, in Bayelsa State, and died on April 9, 2015, in Abuja.
Hannah Idowu Dideolu Awolowo
She was the wife of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, a national icon and political leader of the Yoruba race, whom she married all the way back December 26, 1937. She was regaled in Yorubaland as a revered mother- Yeye Oodua of Yorubaland. While she lived, HID as she was fondly called, left some huge footprints in the sands of time. In the area of politics, she played an active role in the politics of the defunct Western Nigeria, standing in for her husband in the United Progressive Grand Alliance, UPGA, that was formed between the National Council of Nigerian Citizens, NCNC and Awo’s Action Group, AG, while her husband faced trial and was in jail. With the demise of her husband in 1987, HID, a famed “Jewel of Inestimable Value,” to her late husband, assumed a socio-political rallying point in the Yoruba race. In the area of business, she was the first Nigerian distributor for the Nigerian Tobacco Company, NTC, way back in 1957, and the first Nigerian to import lace clothing materials and other textiles into the country. In recognition of all what she stood for and achieved, she was bestowed with honours and titles, which include: Commander of the Order of the Niger, CON, Mojibade of Ikenne, Iyalode of Remoland, Yeye Oodua of Yorubaland. In recognition of her contributions to the advancement of humanity and her role in the deployment of religion for national reawakening, she was honoured with the Fellow of Academy of Religion (FAR) by the Nigerian Association for the Study of Religion, NASR. From the academia, she was honoured with Doctor of Letters (Honoris Causa) of the University of Calabar and the Olabisi Onabanjo University. She was born in 1915, and passed on September 19, 2015, at the age of 99, just about two months short of her 100th birthday.
Chief Donald Dick Etiebet
He was a politician from Akwa Ibom State, and governor of the old Cross River State, elected in October 1983 and sacked from office in December, same year in the General Muhammadu Buhari military coup of December1983. Before then, he had been a Second Republic senator, (1979-1983). During the General Sani Abacha transition to civil rule, Etiebet led the National Centre Party of Nigeria, NCPN that teamed up with three others to adopt Abacha as their presidential candidate. With the return to democracy in 1999, Etiebet became a leader of the United Nigeria People’s Party (UNPP), which later merged with the All People’s Party (APP) to form the All Nigeria People’s Party, ANPP. Etiebet was consequently appointed deputy national chairman, South for the ANPP, and later, became the national chairman of the party. He was also noted for fighting for his people. In March 2004, he led an Akwa Ibom State delegation of leaders to meet President Olusegun Obasanjo to discuss the controversial Onshore/Offshore Abrogation Act, which redistributed oil revenues, among oil bearing states. He was born in 1934, in Ikot Ekpene and died on July 21, 2015.
Gamaliel Oforitsenere Onosode
He was a frontline industrialist, technocrat and administrator. His boardroom career began as a management trainee at the Commonwealth Development Corporation. Way back in 1962, he was appointed the general manager of the Nigeria Housing Development Society (now Federal Mortgage Bank). Between 1973 and 1979, Onosode served as chairman and chief executive of the defunct NAL Bank Plc. He equally served as chairman of Dunlop Nigeria Plc, (1984-2006), Cadbury Nigeria Plc, (1977-1993), Commerce Bank (1989-1994), Nigerian Stock Exchange Investment Protection Fund, (1995-2000); fellow, Economic Development Institute of the World Bank, and president, Nigerian Institute of Management, (1979-1982). In the religious circle, he founded Good News Baptist Church in 1984, and was chairman, Global Missions Board of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, as well as chairman, governing board of the Nigerian Baptist Theological Seminary, Ogbomosho. In the political field, he was a former presidential adviser to President Shagari, and with the return of democracy in 1999, was a former presidential aspirant of the All Nigeria People’s Party of Nigeria, ANPP. In all he did, he stood out for his accountability and discipline. In 1983, he was engaged by the federal government to head the Nigerian Commission on Public Parastatals, which was charged to find solutions to the dismal performances of public enterprises. The Onosode Report in this regard was the first in the country to address the industrialisation drive and capital spending of government, following the oil boom, which identified some major planning defects in governance that later became obvious and hydra-headed. He was born in May 22, 1933, in Sapele, Delta State, and died in September 29, 2015.
Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha
He was a former Nigerian military officer and politician. Alamieyeseigha joined the Nigerian Defence Academy, NDA, as a cadet officer in 1974, for the Nigerian Air Force. He served in the department of Logistics and Supply, and held various positions in the force in Enugu, Makurdi, Kaduna and Ikeja. Alamieyeseigha retired from the air force in 1992 as a Squadron Leader. After retirement from the military, he later became the sole administrator of Pabod Supplies Port Harcourt, Rivers State. He later joined National Fertiliser Company (NAFCON) and became head of Budget, Planning, Research and Development of NAFCON. Alamieyeseigha became the governor of Bayelsa State in May 29, 1999 and got impeached on December 9, 2005 on corruption charges. Before his impeachment, he was arrested and detained in London on charges of money laundering in September 2005. At the time of his arrest, Metropolitan Police found about £1m in cash in his London home, and later ramped up a total of £1.8m ($3.2m) in cash. He was also found to questionably own real estate in London suspected to worth £10 million. He jumped bail in the United Kingdom on December 2005, and returned home, but was hit with impeachment as he resumed office. On July 26, 2007, Alamieyeseigha pleaded guilty to corruption charges in Nigeria, and was sentenced to two years in prison. On July 27, just hours after being taken to prison, he was released because the time was counted from the point of his arrest about two years before the sentence. On 12 March 2013, he was granted presidential pardon by President Goodluck Jonathan. On the bright side, Alamieyeseigha was the next modern day leader of the Ijaw nation, after Harold Dappa Biriye. The Ijaw tribe unanimously crowned him their governor-general, to which there has been no successor. While as governor, he made Bayelsa, a common state to every Ijaw and ensured he ministered to the need of any Ijaw man in the six states of the federation, where they are domiciled. He was 63. Born on November 16, 1952, he died on October 10, 2015.
Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye
He was a foremost diplomat and Nigerian ambassador to the United States of America. While in United States, one of his last major official duty was the reception of President Muhammadu Buhari and his presidential delegation during the president’s three-day official visit to the United States in July. He helped persuade the U.S. government to delist Nigeria from its “country of interest” terrorism watch list, which the country earned following the December 25, 2009 failed attempt by a Nigerian youngster, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to blow up a North-west Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.
His first diplomatic posting was as high commissioner to Jamaica, with concurrent accreditation to Haiti and Belize, from 1987 to 1991. From 1991 to 1994, he served as deputy high commissioner at the Nigerian Embassy in London, from where he became deputy director, Strategic Planning for the Commonwealth-a comity of former British colonies. He gave 14 years to the Commonwealth, and later became an advisor for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), from 2008 to 2010.
Before venturing into the diplomatic sphere, he was a lecturer at the University of Lagos, where he earned a professorial honour, and served as head of the History Department from 1985 to 1987. He was the author of “History of the Peoples of Lagos State” (1987) and “Culture and Foreign Policy: The Nigerian Example” (1993). He died on August 28, 2015 in the United States.
Chukwuma Bamidele Azikiwe
He was the first son of the late first President of Nigeria, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe. Until his death, Chukwuma was the Owelle of Onitsha, a traditional position he inherited from his late father in 1996, following the elder statesman’s death in May 11, 1996. As Owelle, he was sixth in title ranking in Onitsha traditional institution. He died of respiratory complications in an Onitsha hospital, the commercial city of Anambra State. He made incursion into politics in 1991, when he made an unsuccessful bid to govern the old Anambra State. He was equally a Nigerian diplomat. He was aged 75, and died on May 11, 2015.
Eskor Toyo
He was a professor of economics, and the national trustee of the Academic Staff Union of University, ASUU, for about two decades. Toyo was also vice president of the Nigerian Economic Society, NES, and consultant on economic issues in several Nigerian agencies and to the Ghanaian government. He was also a leading member of the Socialist Patriots of Nigeria (SPN). He was born in Oron, Akwa Ibom State, in 1929. He lived 85 years, and died of stroke on December 9, 2015.
Inuwa Wada
He was Nigeria’s first Defence Minister, and the Magaji Garin of Kano Emirate. In the First Republic Wada was a very influential member of the first civilian government of the Northern Peoples Congress (NPC), led by Alhaji Tafewa Balewa. He was a parliamentarian in the First Republic and also minister of Works and Survey under the administration of Tafawa Balewa. He was first elected in 1951 as a member of the Northern House of Assembly, and was subsequently nominated to the Federal House of Representatives, and later minister from 1951-1966. In the 1964, election, he contended with the young NEPU candidate, Abubakar Rimi, whom he defeated. While in the NPC, he was the party’s secretary and national organising secretary respectively. In the 1950s, he served on the board of the Nigerian College of Arts, Science and Technology, the Nigerian Coal Corporation and the Nigerian Groundnut Marketing Board. Wada was equally successful in business. He owned interests in a number of business ventures that included the Nigerian Spanish Engineering Company, Kanol Paints, Arewa Industries, Standard Industrial Industries and Nigerian Enamelware Company, and owned a personal transport company that boasted over 50 lorries at a point. He was born in 1917 in Kano, and died on November25, 2015, at the age of 100. Wada was an uncle of the late head of state, General Murtala Mohammed.
Gyang Nyam Shom Pwajok
He was the Plateau State governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the March 28, 2015 governorship election, and narrowly lost the election to Simon Lalong of the All Progressives Con gress, APC. Before settling for the governorship contest, he was the immediate past senator, representing Plateau-north Senatorial District. He succeeded Senator Gyang Dantong, who died of shock while attending the mass burial of innocent citizens, massacred in Barkinladi, Plateau State, in 2012 by the Boko Haram extremists. Pwajok is succeeded in the Senate by Senator Jonah Jang, the immediate past governor of Plateau State. He took ill shortly after the general elections and was indisposed to join his colleagues in the valedictory session of the 7th Assembly. He died in an Indian hospital at the age of 48.
Omowale Ajani Kuye
He was an Oyo State high chief- the Otun Olubadan of Ibadanland. Before his death, he was a step to becoming Olubadan-the highest traditional stool in the once largest city in Africa. Kuye was a boardroom guru. He was the founder and chairman, Kuye Investors and Mining Services Limited; chairman, Ekonsult Company; principal partner, Kuye Law Firm; Osle Administrator, ICON Limited (Merchant Bankers) (1995-97); and until his death, Vice president, Nigeria-German Business Council. He equally had a robust outing in the federal civil service. He began his working career at Federal Ministry of Trade in 1967, and lasted till 1970, Federal Ministry of Industries (1971-76), where he became assistant director, Expenditure Budget; Federal Ministry of Finance (1978). He equally served as assistant director, Revenue Budget, Federal Ministry of Finance (1979); head, Budget Department Ministry of Finance (1979-85); permanent secretary, Budget Affairs (1986-88). Upon retirement from public service in 1988, he was re-appointed as director-general Special Duties in Office of the President; a non-pensionable appointment (1988), and also served as chairman, Productivity, Price and Income Board; secretary and member, Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation of Government Companies and Parastatals 1989-93. He was born in May 18, 1928, and died on November 20, 2015 at the age of 87.
Bilkisu Yusuf
She was a frontline journalist, and the first female editor from Northern Nigeria. She was a political scientist by training, from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and had M.A; political science from the University of Wisconsin, USA. For decades, she shone from the North like a million stars in journalism. She was the editor of Sunday Triumph in the early 1980s and became editor of the New Nigerian in 1987. By 1990, she was the editor of Citizen Magazine. She was also well known for her civil society endeavours, and religious activities. She was deputy national Amirah of the Federated Organisation of Muslim Women’s Associations of Nigeria (FOMWAN), and later emerged the national Amirah. With the Boko Haram insurgency, she became hugely involved in assisting internally displaced persons in the hard hit Nigerian North-east. She died in the Jamarat Bridge stampede, near Mecca, Saudi Arabia as she embarked on this year’s annual Muslim hajj in the holy land, making up the 717 Nigerians that perished in this year’s hajj disaster.
Tijjani el-Miskin
He was deputy secretary-general, Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, NSCIA, as well as the executive chairman of the Borno State Pilgrims Welfare Agency, a position Governor Kashim Shettima, appointed him in 2013. A versed Islamic scholar, he was a professor of Islamic studies at the University of Maiduguri and a former director-general of the Nigeria Arabic Village at Gamboru, Borno State, and once taught at the Nigeria Defence Academy in Kaduna. He was a member of the committee of traditional rulers, retired military officers, academics, businessmen and former public officers set up by the Northern States Governors Forum two years ago to work out reconciliation, rehabilitation and security in the Boko Haram devastated North-east region of the country.
With the death of his father, Sheikh Abubakar el-Miskin in November last year, he was chosen to take over the Sheikh-dom. He died this year in the Jamarat Bridge stampede, near Mecca, Saudi Arabia as he embarked on this year’s annual Muslim hajj in the holy land.
-Leadership
