TRIBUTES: Governor Uduaghan mourns Aziza, former Kebbi Milad and President General Urhobo Progress Union

First military governor of Kebbi State and Urhobo elder statesman,  Major General Patrick Aziza (Retd), is dead. The serving President of Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), it  was gathered, died early Saturday morning after a protracted illness in an Abuja hospital. 

He was aged 66 years.

His death came at a time the one-time Minister of Communication was said to be reshaping and re-engineering the ethnic group to foster unity and progress. Sunday Tribune gathered from a family member that General Aziza, who had been ill since January, after he won his return election as UPU president, died at about 4:00 a.m.

According to reports, he had been unable to marshal the UPU effectively since he got a second term last December, owing to illness. Aziza was the first military governor of Kebbi State, after it was carved out of Sokoto State on 27 August, 1991, during the military regime of General Ibrahim Babangida and was also a minister under the late military dictator, General Sani Abacha.

Lamenting the loss, The Governor of Delta State, Dr. Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan, CON, described the late general as an irreplaceable statesman.

Governor Uduaghan noted that Aziza’s death was a big blow and irreparable loss to Nigeria, Delta State and the Urhobo nation.