Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, a former Abia State Governor is dead at the age of 72.
Report reaching us Kpomkwem News from one of our correspondent has it that he died at at an Abuja hospital on Thursday morning.
One of his kinsmen in Ebonyi State who confirmed his death said that he had been sick for some time now and plans were on ground by his family to fly him oversees after Salah break for a better treatment.
“He has been sick for some time this year and his family said they would fly him abroad to get better medical treatment for him but he could not make it till then,” the source said.
Ogbonnaya Onu is from from Ebonyi State, he was the first civilian governor of Abia State and Nigeria’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation from November 2015 until his resignation in 2022.
According to report by Kpomkwem News correspondent in Abuja, his friends and relatives have crowded his Abuja residence after the shocking news to pay their condolences to the family.
Brief history of Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu
After working as a teacher and later as a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, Ogbonnaya Onu started his political career as an aspirant for a senatorial seat in the old Imo State on the platform of the National Party of Nigeria (NPN).
He contested and won for the Governorship position of Abia State in 1991 under the umbrella of the National Republican Convention.
He was sworn in as the first executive governor of Abia state in January 1992 and was the first chairman of the Conference of Nigerian elected governors.
In 1999, he was the presidential candidate of the All People’s Party but relinquished the position to Olu Falae after his party merged with the Alliance for Democracy.
Falae lost to Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party in the presidential election.
Onu later became the national chairman of the All Nigerian People’s Party.
In 2013, the ANPP merged with the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Democratic People’s Party (DPP) and some members of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) to form the All Progressives Congress (APC), the current ruling party in Nigeria.
In November 2015, he was appointed Minister of Science and Technology by then-President Muhammadu Buhari. He resigned his appointment in 2022 in anticipation for presidential candidacy which never materialize.
