30th October, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
Former Minister of Education and a constitutional lawyer, Prof. Ben Nwabueze has died at the age of 94.
He died on Sunday, according to his son, Eni Nwabueze, MD in a statement.
The statement read: “With great sadness, we announce the passing on to celestial glory of our patriarch, Professor B. O. Nwabueze SAN, NNOM, CON, pioneer Secretary-General of Ohanaeze Ndigbo and the Oduah Afo-na-isagba of Atani, Anambra State, on Sunday October 29, 2023 aged 94.
“He lived an exemplary life of consequence. Burial arrangements will be announced in due course.”
Nwabueze was a Nigerian lawyer and politician. He was considered one of the leading experts on constitutional law in Africa.
Nwabueze studied in London and became a lecturer in 1962, first at the University of Lagos and later at the University of Nigeria.
From November 1970, he was a professor at the law faculty of the University of Zambia. In 1976 he became a board member of the United Bank for Africa.
Nwabueze was also involved in drafting Nigeria’s 1979 constitution. The following year he received the Nigerian National Merit Award.
In the 1990s he supported Ibrahim Babangida and was Minister of Education in his interim government in 1993.
In 2010, he made headlines when he declared that the Nigerian state had failed because of corruption and described revolution as the only way out.
Nwabueze was also the author of several books.