Former Anambra State governor Chinwoke Mbadinuju has passed away.
This was stated in a statement made available to PREMIUM TIMES on Tuesday by Chetachi Mbadinuju, his first son.
We announce the passing of our father, grandfather, uncle, friend, and associate, Dr. Chinwoke Mbadinuju, a former governor of Anambra State and elder statesman, with heavy hearts but the deepest gratitude to God for a life well lived, he said in the statement.
The former governor “passed on peacefully” on Tuesday morning at the National Hospital Abuja, according to Mr. Chetachi, a lawyer.
The patriarch, he said, passed away at the age of 78.
He continued, “At this difficult time, we pray for God’s grace and mercy upon him and those left to mourn him.
He promised that his funeral arrangements would be announced by the family in due course.
Between May 29, 1999, and May 29, 2003, Mbadinuju, who is now deceased, led Anambra State as governor on a Peoples Democratic Party platform.(PDP).
He ran for re-election as governor on the PDP platform, but was controversially denied the party’s ticket due to an ongoing internal party crisis.
Later, Chris Ngige would secure the party’s nomination for governor ahead of the state’s governor election on April 19, 2003.
Mr. Mbadinuju left the PDP after being denied the party’s nomination and joined the now-defunct Alliance for Democracy, where he later became the party’s governorship candidate but lost in the general election.
The PDP’s Mr. Ngige, who is currently Nigeria’s Minister of Labour and Employment, was named the election’s victor, though three years later the Court of Appeal in Enugu dismissed him.
Between 1979 and 1980, Mr. Mbadinuju worked as a personal assistant to Jim Nwobodo, a former governor of the former Enugu State. From 1980 to 1983, he performed the same duties for Shehu Shagari, a former head of state of Nigeria.
