Former Military Governor of Imo State, 1975, and Lagos State, 1976, Rear Admiral Ndubisi Kanu, (Retd), is dead. He was aged 78.
The ex-administrator, a chieftain of the pro-democracy group, the National Democratic Coalition, NADECO, was said to have died in the early hours on Wednesday, January 13, 2021, at an undisclosed hospital after a brief illness.
The cause of the death could not be confirmed at press time.
A relative, Ireke Kanu, who worked in the Ndigbo office of Kanu, in Victoria Island, confirmed his death.
“I can tell you he passed on this morning. He was 78. We celebrated his last birthday in November 2020. I don’t have much details. I am still in the village,” said Kanu.
Kanu until.his death, in 1975, was the only Igbo appointed into the supreme military council, SMC, before General Olusegun Obasanjo dissolved it when he assumed office in 1976 as the head of State.
He fought on the Biafran side during the civil war but was reabsorbed into the Nigerian military at the end of the war in 1970.
Kanu, a retired warrior-at-sea, who occupied many command and political offices as part of his military postings, quickly civilianised himself when he retired from service.
He was a chieftain of NADECO, which fought for the revalidation of the late Moshood Abiola’s annulled June 12, 1993, presidential mandate.
He was the chairman of NADECO’s Action Committee, which organised and participated in protest marches and public sensitisation activities.
He was among those, who signed an ultimatum for the General Sani Abacha regime to revalidate Abiola’s mandate and hand over power to him, which brought about one of the most vicious crackdowns by a regime in peacetime Nigeria.
In a swift reaction to the death, Vanguard gathered that the incumbent Lagos State Governor, Mr Babajide Sanwo-Olu received the news with a shock, describing the deceased as “a great Nigerian.”