In an interview with Chief Chika Chukwudile, the Vice-President, Nnewi Community Meeting in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), ABBANOBI-EKU ONYEKACHI he said that Sen. Ifeanyi Ubah not only made profound impact on every aspect of people’s lives, but also significant, far-reaching, by positively affecting their well-being, relationships, and more, stressing that Nnewi, Anambra and Nigeria in general, have lost a rare breed.
Until his death, Distinguished Senator Ifeanyi Ubah was from your community, Nnewi, and he represented Anambra-South Senatorial zone at the National Assembly, how would you describe him as a person?
Ifeanyi, the Ebubechukwuzo, was an exceptional human being in all ramifications, a rare breed and generations have people like him once. In terms of philanthropy, he was a proper definition of philanthropy. Even at a very tender age, if he had a ball of akara, he would like to share it with everyone.
However, the same Ifeanyi, if he noticed you took a ball of akara from any child by show of strength, around where he was, he will pursue you to wherever and ensure that he recovered it from you and brought back to the rightful owner. So it was exceptionally inborn in him and everyone had his or her gift from him.
What would you like people to learn from him?
Our lives are in God’s hands. Every one of us has an assignment from God and we shouldn’t hesitate in doing it. Ifeanyi was a young man, having lived only 52 years, he was a baby, but you can see people who lived up to 90 or 100 years, barely touching with a long pole what he achieved, in all ramifications. Talking about philanthropy, there is no facet of life he didn’t cover, within this his short period of time on earth.
Before his death, I was with him sitting down somewhere here in Abuja, on Tuesday 22nd July 2024. But the news of his death came in around 26th and it was on the opening of erosion control site constructed by one of our indigene here in Nnewi, and Sen. Ubah was there with us.
You see people trooping in to see him and he attended to them with empathy, one after the other. What he can do, he will tell you, but if he can’t, he will tell you what to do next. As a leader from Nnewi, I know many people who have been coming to me, crying and telling me what Ifeanyi Ubah promised to do for them, as soon as he returns from the UK.
He does not discriminate, or consider the class one belongs or whatever. The way he was affecting lives, could only be of a person sent by God for that purpose. Like the question on his life and time, it tells us that we have no time of our own. He has gone and it is amazing. Some time, I wonder when we shall wake up from this kind of nightmare, but that is life.
You said a lot about his positive nature. But, are you saying that there aren’t things he didn’t do well that you will not like others to emulate?
I am yet to know or point out those things. So I will rather talk of the good things Ifeanyi did. I don’t know what he didn’t do well. At a time, he said that God empowered him to do this, and wanted everybody to partake of it. So all inclusiveness is what I tell my people including myself. Don’t be the only champion, gather others around you. Let it be our thing, because a tree can’t make a forest. Now that he is no longer there, God can’t be frustrated. There must always be a man who will be there for everybody.
He was in a position to create and generate meaningful employments, would you say he did so?
As a community leader, people come with their CVs to me and all you need to do is to send them to him, that is all and you get it and he will not even need to see your face or know who you are. Let me give you an instance, a man was said to be stranded in India, and it was in the social media that he saw it and all he did was to send a relief and ensure that he was brought home. Igbo man in Congo, Brazzaville China, anywhere you have problem, in the UK, anywhere in the world, and he heard about it, it was as well as having been resolved.
Well, he created lots of employments, because you are a staff of The AUTHORITY Newspaper and yet Ifeanyi wasn’t a journalist. When he started the newspaper, you saw the the AUTHORITY Newspaper newsstand in every nook and crannies across Abuja and the country. As the owner of The AUTHORITY Newspaper, The AUTHORITY Radio, Capital Oil, Ifeanyi Ubah Football Club, among others, these organizations provided employments to several people in this country and they are fending for their families through these companies. His footprint must continue to be indelible. The way the newspaper vendors display the news, you will think that The AUTHORITY Newspaper is the only newspaper in Nigeria.
It is one thing to make all sorts of noise about a particular subject matter, and another to make real thing happen, how prepared are Nnewi people for his burial/funeral?
Our people say an emergency can wrestle a powerful man, but it is also during an emergency that you will know who is a powerful man. Let me say it in Igbo language: Mberede nyiri dike, ma obu mberede ka eji ama dike. So Nnewi can never be taken unawares, because it isn’t possible. And then, for a personality like Ebubechukwuzo na Nnewi, where will that be that we can’t get it? There is nowhere, even if it is in heaven, we ask God to give us.
