The Chairman of the Governing Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr. Chiedu Ebie, has congratulated Professor Epiphany Azinge on his ascension as the Asagba of Asaba in Delta State.
Ebie, in a personal statement released on August 19, 2024, and made available to journalists in Delta, also encouraged the new Asagba to leverage his extensive experience for the development of Asaba during his reign. A copy of the statement was sent to PUNCH Online on Tuesday.
He expressed confidence that Azinge’s appointment to the throne would usher in positive developments for Asaba, a city that serves as both a kingdom and the capital of Delta State.
The statement read, “His Royal Majesty, Obi (Prof) Epiphany Azinge, SAN, OON, is an accomplished legal partitioner who got to the pinnacle of academia 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’’.
Ebie further explained that as a former Delta State Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education and later, Secretary to the State Government, Obi Azinge, was his lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Benin, Benin-City, Edo State.
He stressed that as a lecturer, “Obi Azinge was reputed for being scholarly in the lecture halls, erudite in presentation, and strategic in thinking. As Director General of the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, and later elected member that represented Nigeria and Africa at the Commonwealth Arbitral Tribunal in London, he left a bold public leadership footprint in the sand of history.”
While noting that his ascension to the traditional position would benefit the state and the nation as a whole, Ebie encouraged the Asagba to designate, “to bring his wealth of leadership experience accumulated over the years to action in the present position as the 14th Asagba of Asaba.”
