Late Petrol Minister, Chu Okongwu, Rejected Offers To Loot Public Funds – Obi

Former presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, has said the late former minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Dunu Chu Okongwu, resisted the seduction to loot public funds as federal minister.

He said Chu Okongwu, who also served as minister of Finance and minister of National Planning, lived a life of modesty and demonstrated the level of self-control lacking in Nigeria’s political leadership today.

The late ex-minister, who served under the former military president Gen Ibrahim Babangida, died in 2022 aged 87.

Obi, in a post on X, said “After my engagements in London, yesterday, I arrived in Abuja today to pay my tributes to the memory of a man I regard as one of Nigeria’s best minds, the Late Dunu Chu Okongwu who served our dear nation as the Minister of National Planning, Minister of Finance and Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, all under the then Head of States, Gen Ibrahim Babangida.

“He lived an exemplary life of modesty and demonstrated the level of self-control obviously lacking in our political leadership today.

“Not minding the enviable positions he held, in the country, he only had 2 houses; one in Enugu and one in his home village.”

He said Okongwu was one of the few Nigerians in public service who rejected the seductions of self-aggrandisement and looting of the public treasury.

“As the then Minister of Finance, he was one of those who advised Gen Babangida on the licensing of new banks. But he neither issued a license to himself nor did he use his position to influence those given the banking licenses into giving him part ownership.

“Even as the Petroleum Minister, he did not allocate an oil block or oil import license to himself, as would be the case today.

“If he had used his position of service to enrich himself rather than work for the nation, he would have been celebrated, and his funeral would have been glamorised by dignitaries because we are in a nation that still celebrates criminals and criminals.

“He committed his knowledge, skills and passion to the service of the nation, and I have come to bid him farewell. I do hope that we, the leaders, will learn from his good legacies,” he said.