“Your life serves as a source of inspiration for those who dare to dream.” —Ebuka Onyekwelu
I weep over the sudden and painful death of Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah; a giant among men. One man who was everywhere and touched everything! I mourn your shocking death, Distinguished. Your death is just impossible to believe.
Around the middle of this month, we had a long conversation about the coming governorship election in Anambra State and talked like brothers. You said you called to talk to me as your younger brother to own the project and I told you that I deeply appreciated the call because it was a mark of leadership as my senior brother. From where I stand, you took dissenting views in good faith and you never faulted anything I said or wrote that appeared to oppose your interest because, you always insist that “Ebuka is not a sycophant and he is not a propagandist.” The other time, you told me that your greatest joy is in the people you help because everything else will amount to nothing “If I slept this night and didn’t wake up,” were your exact words.
Dropping out of school, you rose from nothing to becoming a very successful businessman of immense reckoning. When you had conquered business and defeated poverty for all your generations, you looked up to public service. When your education became a challenge in your desire to serve, you went to school, acquired a law degree, and went back to school for your MBA. Against the odds, you went to the Nigerian Senate with an unknown political party, a feat you repeated in 2023. For some reason, you thrived against the odds. Your life serves as a source of inspiration for those who dare to dream.
In the last decade, you deliberately stood out as a philanthropist, and supporter to many people who would be too much to count. You took your fortune by your bare hands. You gave everything and never looked back. Your large heart was out of this world, as you often readmit people with whom you had fallen out, into your political fold.
You were fearless, ambitious, a deep thinker, and a doer. Full of ideas and full of life, and now this is it!
I think of all the people who depend on your benevolence and I think of your outstanding dreams; the media house that was so dear to you and which you shared with me multiple times. You spoke of how you intend to retire in your Nnewi home and then oversee your media empire.
I think of people who randomly call on you for assistance and you freely oblige them. Your vision for Anambra State is to revitalize its comparative advantage in business, commerce, and industry. I think of your numerous interventions to bring peace or restore peace at different times and I wonder what it would take to raise another Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah.
I would have said more, but this is how the story ends. Suddenly.
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