…As Enugu East senatorial candidate
The Enugu State chapter of Labour Party (LP) has picked Mr. Kelvin Chukwu, youngest brother of the Enugu East senatorial candidate Oyibo Chukwu, who was assassinated on February 22, to replace the latter for the March 11 election.
The Enugu East senatorial election will now hold on March 11 alongside the governorship and House of Assembly elections, following the murder of Oyibo Chukwu, a former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) chairman in Enugu State, on February 22, three days to the presidential and National Assembly elections.
The younger Chukwu was elected the Labour Party standard bearer after winning 223 out of the 231 votes cast at Top 10 Hotel in Golf Estate, Enugu.
His opponents, Dr Chinyeaka Ohaa, a retired permanent secretary; Chief Stanislaus Chinedu Nneji, commandant of the National Peace Corps; and Emmanuel Uchenna Ogbodo, a Special Adviser to Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, scored no votes in the election conducted by the Labour Party National Vice Chairman for the Southeast, Chief Agumba Okeke, and the LP Enugu State chairman, Barrister Casmir Uchenna Agbo and other LP executives in the State.
Delegates came from all six local government areas that make up the Enugu East senatorial district.
Kelvin Chukwu, a 50-year-old lawyer, mass communication graduate and businessman, pledged, in his acceptance speech, to represent the senatorial district effectively and fulfill all promises by his elder brother during the electioneering campaign.
“I recognise your mandate as a sacred trust,” he reportedly told the cheering crowd in a short acceptance speech.
Professor Silk Ugwu-Ogbu of the Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, who hails from Enugu East, congratulated the winner, noting that the party could not have chosen a better candidate.
“Public sympathy is very strong with the Chukwu family because of the manner in which his elder brother was killed and then his body and vehicle burnt,” he said in the message.
“His personal assistant, Sunday Igwesi, who was with him, was also killed in the same manner.”
The professor expressed the optimism that the new Labour Party candidate is “going to win the election with a tremendous margin and almost effortlessly, as already indicated in the huge number of votes he won in the primary election.”
Kelvin Chukwu’s two elder brothers, Chief Lucky Chukwu, a former Commissioner in Enugu State, and Professor Arthur Chukwu of the Nigerian Law School, both lawyers, unanimously chose their younger brother to run in consideration of “his extraordinary humility, kindness, devotion to the Catholic Church and an uncanny ability to get along with people, including complete strangers,” according to Professor Ugwu-Ogbu.