Abia's first civilian governor Ogbonnaya Onu dies
Ogbonnaya Onu, the Minister of Science and Technology in President Muhammadu Buhari's government, has died at a hospital in Abuja.
Aba State's first civilian governor, Ogbonnaya Onu, has died.
According to BBC Igbo News, Onu, who served as Minister of Science and Technology in President Muhammadu Buhari's government, died at a hospital in Abuja.
The former governor passed away early on Thursday at an undisclosed hospital in Abuja, his relatives told PREMIUM TIMES.
"He had been ill for some time. His family planned to fly him overseas for treatment before he passed away earlier today,” the source said.
He is from Ụbụrụ in Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, South East Nigeria.
Mr. Onu graduated from Lagos State University in 1976 with a first-class degree in chemical engineering and four years later received a doctorate in chemical engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.
He then served as a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, becoming the university's pioneering Dean of Chemical Engineering and later acting Dean of the Faculty of Engineering.
The 72-year-old began his political career when he unsuccessfully attempted to run for the Senate for the defunct Nigerian Peoples Party in the former Imo State. He then ran for office and was elected as the first civilian governor of the then newly created state of Abia at the 1991 National Congress of the Republic. He took office in January 1992.
The former governor was the presidential candidate of the All People's Party (APP) in 1999, but after the defunct APP merged with another political party, the Democratic Alliance, he handed over the job to Mr. Olu Farae.
In 2015, Onu was appointed Minister of Science and Technology by then Nigerian President Buhari. He was reappointed by Buhari in 2019, making him the department's longest-serving minister. The former minister had just resigned in 2022 to run as the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, which was ultimately won by Bola Tinubu, who emerged as Nigeria's president in the 2023 general elections.
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