A former governor of Anambra State, Chief Chukwuemeka Ezeife, is dead.
He was aged 85.
According to available information, Ezeife died in a government-owned hospital in Abuja on Thursday.
Ezeife was born at Igbo-Ukwu, Anambra State on 20 November 1939.
He did not attend secondary school, but taught himself through correspondence courses, qualifying for university admission.
He gained a BSc in Economics from the University College Ibadan, then attended Harvard University on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship where he obtain a masters and then PhD degree in 1972.
He became a School Headmaster, a lecturer at Makarare University College, Kampala, Uganda, a Teaching Fellow at Harvard University, and a Consultant with Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Ezeife joined the civil service as an Administrative Officer and rose to the position of Permanent Secretary.
Ezeife was elected governor of Anambra State on the Social Democratic Party (SDP) platform, holding office from 2 January 1992 to 17 November 1993, when General Sani Abacha took power after a military coup. As governor, he was said to be more interested in planning than in addressing immediate developmental needs, and achieved few tangible results.
He transferred Nnamdi Azikiwe University and Federal Polytechnic, Oko to the federal government, which helped ensure that they survived in the ensuing military regime.
During the Nigerian Fourth Republic Ezeife, who describes himself as a social democrat, was appointed presidential Adviser on Political Matters to President Olusegun Obasanjo.
