Eminent Nigerians under the aegis of the National Consensus Group, have mourned the passing away of Dr. Matthew Mbu and Prof. Sam aluko.
The NSG is under the joint leadership of Prof. Ben Nwabueze and Alhaji Maitama Sule.
The group, in a statement on Sunday, commiserated with the families of Mbu, a former federal minister and one-time Nigeria’s High Commissioner to the United Kingdom, and Aluko, reverred Economist and former Chairman of the National Economic Intelligence Committee during the regime of late General Sani Abacha.
The group said it will miss the sound contributions and strategic support of the two statesmen in ”our latest mobilization for the recomposing the Nigerian federation and democracy.”
Speaking through its National Secretary, Olawale Okunniyi, the NCG prayed God to grant their families the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss
Okunniyi, who is the head of communications and publicity for the just-concluded National Summit, said Mbu had earlier confirmed his participation at the summit only to be prevented from attending by ill health.
He described Sam Aluko as a veteran economist who had always given his strategic support to the movement’s initiative and would have attended the Lagos eminent leaders of thought dialogue if not for his state of health and his eventual demise
He added: “These two eminent Nigerians will be remembered for their various contributions towards the renewal of the Nigerian union, which today has degenerated into acrimonious bloodletting and frightening ethno religious strife given government’s refusal to facilitate a peoples’ national conference.”
He said that the NSG will, at its next apex forum in the North to be hosted by Sule and other Northern leaders sometimes next month, decide how best to honour the memories of the two departed leaders.