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Ekwueme’s family thanks Buhari, seeks completion of mausoleum

By Terhemba Daka, Abuja
20 July 2018   |   4:15 am
Wife of the late former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, Beatrice, and brother, Prof. Laz, yesterday led the family to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where they held a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.

President Muhammadu Buhari (middle) with family members and kinsmen of the late Vice President Alex Ekwueme during a ‘Thank You’ visit to Mr. President at the State House …yesterday. Photo: Philip Ojisua

Wife of the late former Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, Beatrice, and brother, Prof. Laz, yesterday led the family to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, where they held a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari.

The family was in Aso Rock to thank the president for the state burial given the elder statesman in last February.

Ekwueme, who was vice president between 1979 and 1983, died on November 19, 2017 and was buried on 2nd of February 2018.

Speaking to newsmen after the meeting, Laz and Beatrice, who were accompanied by some elders of Oko community, Anambra State, thanked Buhari for approving a befitting state burial for the deceased.

Laz said: “We have come as family to say thank you to Mr. President for the work he did through the committee he set up under the chairmanship of the secretary to the government of the federation and the presence of the vice president at the burial.

“We also thank him for the immortalization in re­naming the Federal University, Ndufu Alike, in Ebonyi State as Alex Ekwueme Federal University of Technology, and all the other things they did towards making the burial a special one.”

He said the delegation was well received by the President. “I did make a request on what they (FG) undertook to build mausoleum for him and he (Buhari) said that the SGF would be advised on that.

“Having immortalized him by naming the university after him, they should now complete the undertaking to build mausoleum for him at his place of residence. And it is best for us to undertake the construction ourselves, because if we wait for the Ministry of Works to do that, it may take forever.

“We can undertake the construction under the supervision of the ministry, provided the Federal Government pays for it. We undertake to finish it before the anniversary of his demise,” he explained.

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