BENIN – VETERAN journalists in Edo state have appealed to the state government to declare Friday February 4, 2011 as public holiday in honour of the elder statesman, late Chief Anthony Enahoro who would be buried next weekend.
They made the appeal in a letter addressed to the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and signed by Elder J.O. Obadigie and Akido Shittu, Chairman and Secretary respectively of the body.
The elder journalists noted that the late Enahoro was a Grand Patron of the NUJ and contributed immensely to the emancipation of Nigerians right from the pre-independent era through the NADECO and PRONACO struggles which culminated in the exit of the military from the nation’s political turf.
“The Edo NUJ Elders Council notes that from independence, up to the new democratic dispensation of 1999, Chief Enahoro bestrode the progressive agitation as an icon.
“We therefore feel that the least that his home state government should do, is to declare a public holiday for him to allow school children and all citizens to turn out to pay their last respects to a man who was synonymous with the struggles of the minority peoples of Nigeria and a true hero of Nigerian unity,” the letter read in parts.
Pa. Anthony Enahoro who was credited to have moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence, died on 15, December 2010 and would be buried on 4th February, 2011 at his home town, Uromi in Esan North East Local Government Area of Edo State.
SOURCE: Vanguard, Online Edition