Senator Uche Chukwumerije was a rallying point at some of the country’s most poignant political periods. In the civil war, when the country almost broke in two, Chukwumerije’s voice was an echo that helped to rouse demoralised Biafran soldiers and compatriots. Subsequently, in 1993 as political passions seemed to boil over after the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election, Chukwumerije arrived the scene as the chief propagandist of the military regime’s controversial decision.
Controversial decision
His defence of the annulment and hard tackles of the opponents of the annulment put him as a divisive political leader in the opinion of his traducers.
Following his service as minister of information, Chukwumerije seemed to fade from the political mainstream until 13 years later when he won election as senator on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP to represent Abia North Senatorial Constituency.
The National Assembly helped to open up the real Chukwumerije to the nation. Organised, meticulous and tactful. He had about the most organised office in the Senate building with no space for idle hands. Every staff in Senator Chukwumerije’s office was almost at all times engaged in one activity or the other quite unlike many other senators whose offices were almost wholly occupied with idle hands.
His defining moment, however, was in the period between late 2005 and 2006 when the plot to enact a third term for the president and governors reached the National Assembly. Chukwumerije and his ideological partner, Senator Ben Obi were the first to rouse the nation to the third term plot in a joint press statement on December 18, 2005.
Chukwumerije became the ideological rallying point for the anti-third term coalition as he defied party and geography to marshal opposition to the third term plot. Nigerians who had in the past regarded him as an obtrusive clog to the free flow of democracy now saw him in another light as an angel of freedom.
His unflinching opposition to the third term amendment and his organisation of the coalition won him plaudits from far and near and he easily won re-election to the Senate in 2007 on the platform of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA.
He, however, returned to the PDP before the 2011 elections and won a third term to the Senate during which he served as chairman of the Senate Committee on Education. He vied to go for a fourth term in the Senate but at the time of the PDP primary contest he had already been ravaged by complications of the lung cancer that eventually killed him yesterday.
Vanguard.
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