By Abiola Olawale
A former Senator representing Enugu North Senatorial District, and an ace journalist, Senator Ayogu Eze from Enugu State is reportedly dead.
Although the details of the demise remain sketchy as of press time, the former Senate spokesman was said to have passed away in an Abuja Hospital after battling with a protracted illness.
According to a source, Eze, one of the founding members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and later moved to the APC has been down, a situation that reportedly made him unable to attend his child’s wedding ceremony held earlier in the year in Lagos State.
In 1999, he was appointed as the Commissioner For Information and Culture by the then governor of Enugu State, Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani l, the then governor of Enugu state. In 2001, he was redeployed to the newly created Ministry of Culture and Tourism but after his heroic effort in the governor’s successful reelection bid in 2003, the new ministry was remerged with the Information Ministry to create yet a new Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism.
Following the completion of his time in the administration of former governor Nnamani, Eze contested and won the seat to represent his senatorial district.
In the Senate, he was appointed chairman of the Senate Committee on Information and Media, making him the official spokesman of the Senate. For the eight years, he spent in the senate, he was a member of the Constitution Drafting and Amendment Committee that made some novel changes to Nigeria’s 1999 constitution. After his reelection to the Senate in 2011, he was appointed chairman of the Committee on Works. Eze also served as a member of committees on Police Affairs, National Planning, Marine Transport, and Federal Character & Intergovernmental Affairs.
Born on November 23, 1958, Eze attended the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu, where he obtained a Higher National Diploma in Mass Communication. He proceeded to the International Institute for Journalism, IIJ Berlin, Germany, where he graduated on top of the G55 student stream, comprising working journalists from about 14 African countries. He also studied for a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Lagos. He has also successfully attended the executive education programmes of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where he studied “Leadership for the 21st Century: chaos, conflict and courage”; Säid Business School of the Oxford University, where he studied “The Oxford Programme on Negotiation” as well as the Judge Business School of the University of Cambridge, where the focus of study was “Leadership in Parliamentary Oversight Programme”.
