Oyibo Chukwu’s murder: Brother nominated as LP senatorial candidate

The youngest brother of assassinated Labour Party candidate in Enugu East senatorial election, Oyibo Chukwu, has been elected as successor to his late brother.

The Enugu East senatorial election will now hold on Saturday, March 11, alongside governorship and House of Assembly elections, as a result of the murder of Oyibo Chukwu, a former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Chairman in Enugu State, on Wednesday, February 22, three days to the presidential and National Assembly election.

Kelvin Chukwu was elected the Labour Party candidate by winning 223 out of the 231 votes cast at Top 10 Hotel in Golf Estate, Enugu.

His opponents, Dr. Chinyeaka Ohaa, a retired permanent secretary; Chief Stanislaus Nneji, commandant of the National Peace Corps and Emmanuel Ogbodo, Special Adviser to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, scored no votes in the election conducted by the party’s National Vice Chairman for Southeast, Chief Agumba Okeke, and the LP Enugu State Chairman, Casmir Agbo and other LP executives in the state.

Delegates came from all six councils that make up the Enugu East Senatorial District.

Kelvin, a 50-year-old lawyer, Mass Communication graduate and businessman, pledged, in his acceptance speech, to represent the senatorial zone effectively and fulfill all promises by his elder brother during the election campaign.

“I recognise your mandate as a sacred trust,” he told the cheering crowd in a short speech.

Prof. Silk Ugwu-Ogbu of the Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, who hails from Enugu East, congratulated the winner, noting that the party could not have chosen a better candidate.

“Public sympathy is strong with the Chukwu family, because of the manner in which his elder brother was killed, and then his body and vehicle burnt,” he said in the message.

The professor believes the new Labour Party candidate is “going to win the election with a tremendous margin and almost effortlessly, as already indicated in the huge number of votes he won in the primary election.”

According to Prof. Ugwu-Ogbu, Kelvin’s two elder brothers, Chief Lucky Chukwu, a former Commissioner in Enugu State, and Professor Arthur Chukwu of the Nigerian Law School, both lawyers, unanimously chose their younger brother to run in consideration of “his extraordinary humility, kindness, devotion to the Catholic Church and uncanny ability to get along with people, including complete strangers.”