A former governorship aspirant in Ekiti State, Senator Gbenga Aluko, is dead.
Aged 58, the Ode-Ekiti-born politician was said to have died on Saturday.
He reportedly collapsed in his office in Abuja.
An aide of his confirmed the fatal incident to THE CONCLAVE. He said every member of Aluko’s immediate and distant family was still in shock.
Aluko said to have been rushed to a hospital where he passed on.
The aide said that Aluko was not sick.
Feelers from some quarters implicated a heart attack.
Gbenga was the son of the late renowned professor of economics, Sam Aluko.
He was elected into the Nigerian Senate on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in 1999 to represent Ekiti South Senatorial zone.
He was the only PDP Senator in the SouthWest while the others were Alliance for Democracy, AD, senators.
He got the support of the people of Ekiti South Senatorial Zone on account of his community development programmes.
He had, for instance, embarked on provision of boreholes to communities to tackle the problem of lack of potable water.
There was a common question among the people who were going to fetch water if they were going to fetch Gbenga Aluko’s water or water from government’s taps which had obviously stopped running. His popularity had soared, translating into political capital.
Gbenga Aluko did not return for a second term in the Senate having completed his first from 1999 to 2003.
He had got a plum job with Chevron Nigeria Limited thereafter as the multinational oil company’s government relations manager in Abuja leveraging his wide contacts in government.
In 2018, Gbenga Aluko indicated interest in being governor of Ekiti State. He vied for the governorship ticket on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC
Popularly referred to as “SGA” he was a grassroots politucian who defined his life and times with the magnitude of his brilliance.
He had two children, Eniola and Sone, who are both international footballers.
▪︎ Report by The Conclave