Professor Emmanuel Okechukwu Ezugwu, a devoted husband to Patty, his wife of four decades, a loving father to his children Ginikanwa, Emmanuel Jr and Nnaemeka, a caring and supporting brother to the entire UgwuEzugwu Ukwuma family of Amukpa Ogbozalla-Opi, and friend to all who crossed his path, is dead. He died in his sleep in the early hours of Thursday, 17th September, 2020 in his Abuja residence, aged 60.
Prof Emma Ezugwu, mentor to many now successful individuals, a distinguished and widely published academic, the pioneer Provost of the Air Force Institute of Technology, Kaduna, Nigeria was at death a serving Member of the Governing Council of the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, a position he had held since 2015, and visiting Professor to the National Universities Commission, Abuja,.
Trained at the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, he later obtained a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in Manufacturing Engineering from the University of Warwick in 1986, where he also rose to become a Senior Research Fellow. He eventually joined London South Bank University as full professor in 1993 and became the Director of the internationally renowned UK- and EU-funded Machining Research Centre, London.
He returned home to establish and head Nigeria’s world class centre of learning and research in aerospace technology, the Airforce Institute of Technology (AFIT-Nigeria), Kaduna. As its pioneer provost, he successfully worked for the elevation of AFIT to a degree awarding institution, a feat for which he was rewarded with the naming of the Institute’s main library after him.
His many achievements included the development of self-propelled rotary cutter, for which he received a Meritorious Award from the Federal Ministry of Science and Technology in 2000. A member of the Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers, Prof. Emma Ezugwu is listed as a Noteworthy Manufacturing Engineer by Marquis Who’s Who. He has published well over 200 academic and research materials in internationally renowned journals.
His humane and philanthropic disposition know no boundaries. A scholarship provider for the less privileged, a devout Christian of the Catholic faith and quiet funder of numerous church projects, robust community leader, counsellor and life coach; settler of medical bills for those who would have been trapped perpetually in the hospital after discharge; provider and hope of hapless widows. The list of his good works is endless, wrapped in his cosmopolitan but unassuming personality.
Emmanuel O. Ezugwu, forthright, ebullient, humane and unpretentious, will be sorely missed by his immediate and extended families, the entire Opi community, his friends, colleagues and former students in the academic world and institutions where he had impacted so much on, and indeed all who knew him. Our loss is heaven’s gain.