The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) and the Alliance for Credible Election (ACE) have expressed shock over the death of activist, Comrade Emma Ezeazu.
The TMG, in a statement in Abuja yesterday by its Chairman, Ibrahim Zikirullahi, said the sad loss becomes the more painful with the realisation that Comrade Ezeazu passed on shortly after the struggle he had tirelessly waged for a better Nigeria yielded some fruits with the triumph of the voices of the Nigerian people in the general elections.
The TMG deserted Ezeazu as man who believed so much in the manifest destiny of Nigeria and was ready to put everything on the line for realisation of the dream of a greater, prosperous, just and fair society.
According to the statement Ezeazu’s idealism shaped by the need to rid our society of all vestiges of injustice saw him waging a popular students struggle in the 1980s against the deceptive and dictatorial regime of Gen Ibrahim Babangida (rtd).
“As painful and traumatic as his exit is to Nigeria’s civil society, TMG takes solace in the fact that the late Comrade Ezeazu fought a very good fight in defense of Nigeria’s democracy.
TMG further commiserated with members of his family, the civil society and the entire nation at large over this huge loss”, the statement said.
In a tribute by its The Alliance for Credible Election (ACE) program officer, Wahab Ekehid late Ezeazu said Ezeazu, like Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, Prof. Wole Soyinka,the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi (SAN), late Hajia Gambo Sawaba, late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the late Alh. Aminu Kano and other great leaders of Nigeria, was a humanitarian and nationalist with great courage.
Ekehide said, Ezeazu as a student rose to the position of President of the National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS) (1986 – 1988), from student unionism he joined the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO) where he became the second National Secretary and during his tenure as the National Secretary, the CLO developed a very extensive legal assistance programme which was anchored around a network of pro bono lawyers across the state capitals of the federation.
The statement reads: “The late Comrade Emma Ezeazu was at the forefront alongside stakeholders of FCT and leaders of Original Inhabitants Development Association of Abuja (OIDA) to oppose the Land Swap policy of the Federal Capital Territory Administration.