At 74 Ume-Ezeoke boasts: ‘I am still very active, you can ask my fantastic wife’
From FRANCIS AWOWOLE-BROWNE, Abuja

Monday, March 22, 2010
At over 74 Chief Edwin Ume-Ezeoke belongs to the septuagenarian club whose members, on account of old age, might not be as active as they used to be when younger. But far from that. The National Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) said he is as active at home as he is in public, in fact much more at home than in the public. He said his wife is in the best position to assess his prowess.


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Ezeoke




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“I have not changed, though old; but I am young at heart. Oh, I am still very active, my wife knows. No! No!! No!!!. I am still very active and my wife is a fantastic woman, she looks younger every day,” Ume-Ezoke said in response to a question on how old age must have slowed him down.

“In fact people think she is my daughter anytime we go out together. I remember an occasion in London when someone who recognized me called and greeted me. As he greeted me he was greeting my wife as my daughter, you can see. I love her so much; we still do everything we did as young couple now that we are old. And he referred to my wife as my daughter, I laughed,” he added.

An enigma of sort’s, Ume-Ezeoke, the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the defunct Second Republic, surely knows what he wants at any point in time, even if the opinions of others do not favour his move. He is not known to be a reactionary in politics. Instead, he is seen largely as a pro-establishment politician, whose actions or inactions as a party chairman, many believe, have helped the ruling party to muzzle the opposition in the country.

Indeed since his assumption of office as the National Chairman of the ANPP, Ume-Ezeoke has left no one in doubt about his own style of politics, insisting that a politician has no permanent stand. For instance, he did not give a hoot when he stood as a running mate to Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) as presidential candidate of the ANPP even while maintaining his position as the National Chairman of the party. When the party went to court to challenge the election of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Ume-Ezeoke abandoned his candidate in the court by withdrawing from the petition at the President Election Appeal Tribunal.

As the disagreement between him and Buhari deepened, he did not hesitate to tell the retired Army general to leave the party if he was not satisfied with its decision. Public opinion notwithstanding, Ume-Ezeoke nominated his son for appointment in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government, a government his party was opposed to, in a contraption called Government of National Unity (GNU).

In all these, in spite of a chorus of public disapproval of his decisions, Ume-Ezeoke maintained that everything he had done is in the larger interest of the nation. He stated that he had always been very conscious of his actions. “I am an old man, what else do I want that I will not be able to say my mind the way I see it? As a National Chairman, I have done everything I did in the interest of my party members and overall interest of the nation,” he says.

On the exit of Buhari and its likely effect on the party, Ezeoke was quick to add that his exit was even a relief to the party. He said the former Head of State did not add any value to the party while he was a member. As a person, he said, Buhari is a very good man, adding that it was those around him that were misleading him. “As a former Head of State, I give him his respect, but I dare say that he had no electoral worth in ANPP. He is the only one who has left, I am still here, I was his vice-presidential candidate and all those who nominated him and worked for his candidature are still in the party. All the ANPP top notchers are still in the party. We are not missing him at all,” he said.

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