Encomium
The Nigerian political class and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in particular have been thrown into mourning.
They have just lost one of their own in the person of Dr. Olusegun Kokumo Agagu, the former governor of Ondo State.
The Geology lecturer turned politician was said to have slumped and died at a meeting somewhere in Lagos Mainland with some indigenes of Ondo State among who is Chief Alex Akinyele on Friday, September 13, 2013.
The former governor, who just came back from a 20-day trip to United States of America, was said to have been rushed to a private hospital in Yaba, Lagos, from where he was transferred to St. Nicholas Hospital, Ikoyi, Lagos, where he was pronounced dead.
His corpse is said to still be at the St. Nicholas Hospital as at the weekend. According to his first son, Mr. Feyi Agagu, he said his father has been managing diabetes and hypertension in the last 15 years.
“So, there was no inkling that something was about to happen. I guess when it’s time to go, when your maker comes to get you when he brought you. He did not ask anybody, so he can take you when He deem fit,” he said.
On what he will miss about his father, he said, “I will miss friendship, I will miss the advice, he was pretty much anything any wife, son or daughter could ask for in a father. He said arrangements for the burial were yet to be made. ”
In 1999, he contested the govenorship of the state on the political platform of PDP but lost to Chief Adebayo Adefarati, of Alliance for Democracy, who is also late.
He was however compensated with a ministerial appointment by the federal government. He became the Minister of Aviation between 1999 and 2001, when he was moved to Ministry of Mines and Power. In 2003, he became the governor of Ondo State, after defeating Chief Adebayo Adefarati of AD. In 2007, again, he was sworn-in as the governor of Ondo State for the second term. But his tenure ended abruptly on February 23, 2009, when a Federal Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of the Ondo State Election Tribunal that Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of Labour Party was the actual winner of the 2007 governorship election in Ondo State.
His attempt on come back into political limelight in 2011, by contesting for the Ondo South senatorial district seat, was truncated when he was defeated by the Labour Party candidate.
Dr. Olusegun Kokumo Agagu, was born on February 16, 1948, in Iju-Odo, Okitipupa local government area of Ondo State.
He has his primary education at St. Luke Primary School, Okitipupa, and Ebenezer African Church School, Oke-Ado, Ibadan. His secondary school education was at Ibadan Grammar School, Ibadan. While his university education was at University of Ibadan and University of Texas, Houston, Texas, USA.
He was married to Olufunke Agagu who bore him three children – a boy and two girls.
– TOLANI ABATTI
