By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
The first Military Governor of Imo State, Rear Admiral Ndubisi Kanu (rtd), has died at the age of 78.
Kanu, a chieftain of the pro-democracy group, the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) was said to have died in the early hours of Wednesday, January 13, 2021 at an undisclosed hospital in Lagos after a brief illness.
The cause of Admiral Kanu’s death, who was also Military governor of Lagos State, could not be confirmed at press time.
Ireke Kanu Onuma, the Administrative Secretary of Ndigbo, confirmed his death to TheNiche.
“I can tell you he passed on this morning. He was 78. We celebrated his last birthday in November 2020. I don’t have much details. I am still in the village,” he said.
Kanu in 1975, was the only Igbo appointed into the Supreme Military Council (SMC) before General Olusegun Obasanjo dissolved it when he assumed office in 1976 as the head of state.
He fought on the Biafran side during the civil war but was reabsorbed into the Nigerian military at the end of the war in 1970.
After his retirement from the military, Kanu became a chieftain of NADECO, which fought for the revalidation of the late Moshood Abiola’s annulled June 12, 1993, presidential mandate.
He was the chairman of NADECO’s Action Committee, which organised and participated in protest marches and public sensitisation activities.
He was among those, who signed an ultimatum for the General Sani Abacha regime to revalidate Abiola’s mandate and hand over power to him, which brought about one of the most vicious crackdowns by a regime in peacetime Nigeria.
In a swift reaction to the death, the incumbent Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said that he received the news of Kanu’s death with a shock.
He described the deceased as “a great Nigerian.”