By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The chairman of the governing board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr Chiedu Ebie, has congratulated the new Asagba of Asaba, Prof. Epiphany Azinge (SAN), praying that reign will bring peace and development to the town.
The NDDC chief expressed optimism that the legal luminary, who was his lecturer at the Faculty of Law of the University of Benin (UNIBEN), will bring good tidings to Asaba, which doubles as the capital of the Delta State.
In a personal statement, Mr Ebie said the traditional ruler reached the pinnacle of academic pursuit and legal practice.
“As a legal luminary, his achievements are both towering and legendary. He is among the very well-respected senior lawyers that many of us looked up to during our formative years in legal practice.
“His legal treatise and dissertations on contemporary legal issues served as a formidable learning instrument readily available for law students and emerging lawyers to draw from his wealth of knowledge and experience,” he said.
The former Delta State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education stressed that as a lecturer, Mr Azinge was reputed for being scholarly in the lecture halls, erudite in presentation and strategic in thinking.
The former Secretary to the State Government (SSG) of Delta State also said the monarch, as Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (NIALS), and later a representative of Nigeria and Africa at the Commonwealth Arbitral Tribunal in London, left a bold public leadership footprint in the sand of history.
While noting that his ascension to this revered traditional position will be of great benefit to the state and the nation as a whole, Mr Ebie encouraged the Asagba-designate to bring his wealth of leadership experience accumulated over the years to action in the present position as the 14th Asagba of Asaba.
He prayed that God would bless him with the wisdom and perfect health needed for the day-to-day administration of the Asaba Kingdom.