DR OKEY UDO, ABIA NORTH SENATORIAL CANDIDATE (ADP), MOURNS PROFESSOR GREGORY IYKE IBE, FOUNDER OF GREGORY UNIVERSITY, WHO DIES AT 62
There are some phone calls you never want to receive. This was one of them.
Professor Gregory Ikechukwu (Iyke) Ibe, OFR, Enyi Abia, is gone. The hills of Uturu are quiet tonight. The lecture halls he built stand in silence. And somewhere in Abia North, a mother whose child is in school only because of him is weeping for a man she may never have met. I weep with her.
I write this not as a politician, but as a son of Abia who has lost a father figure, a mentor in spirit and a living proof that one man can change the destiny of a people.
He was born on December 10, 1963, in Kaduna, to parents from Uturu. He came into this world with nothing in his hands but everything in his heart. No inheritance. No godfather. No shortcut. Just a boy from our soil who refused to accept that poverty was his portion. And from that small beginning, he rose until the whole of Nigeria knew his name.
We called him Skill-G. The name was more than a nickname. It was a mission. While others complained about the state of our education, he rolled up his sleeves. While others waited for government, he built. Gregory University, Uturu, licensed in 2012, stands today on land where our fathers once farmed, and from that land now come doctors who heal, engineers who build, lawyers who defend, pharmacists who cure and farmers who feed. Every one of them carries a piece of his heart.
Think of it. A man who could have bought mansions in London and Dubai chose instead to build classrooms in Uturu. A man who could have hidden his wealth chose to pour it into the children of strangers. Through Skill-G Nigeria Limited, he put laboratories into schools that had never seen a microscope. He championed STEM when few cared. He gave dignity to the mechanic, the welder and the technician when society mocked them. He saw greatness in hands that others ignored.
And he gave quietly. Through the Gregory Iyke Foundation, founded in 1991, he paid hospital bills he was never asked to pay. He built where no one was watching. He sent more than 250 indigent students to school, children who had been told by life that they did not matter. He told them they did. Some of those children are now doctors, teachers and leaders. They are his living monuments. Through Innov8 Hub in Abuja, he opened doors for young dreamers who had ideas and nothing else. He gave them a room, a chance and his faith.
Nigeria honoured him with the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic in 2014. His people crowned him Enyi Abia, the Elephant of Abia. In 2023, he offered himself as governor of Abia State under APGA, not for power, but because he believed the same hands that built a university could rebuild a state. The people may not have given him the office, but history has already given him the verdict. He was a builder in a land of talkers.
I did not stand on his political platform. But I stood in awe of his heart. We disagreed on parties. We never disagreed on purpose. And today, parties mean nothing. Only the loss remains.
To his six children and seven grandchildren, I say this with tears: your father did not leave you. He simply went ahead. Every graduate of Gregory University is your brother and sister. Every child he educated is your family. You will never walk alone in this country, because he filled it with people who owe him their tomorrow. Carry his name with pride. He earned it for you.
To the people of Uturu, Isuikwuato and all of Abia North, I say: do not let his dream die with him. Let us protect what he built. Let us finish what he started. Let us raise sons and daughters who build rather than take, who give rather than grab, who serve rather than rule. That is the Abia he gave his life for. That is the Abia worth fighting for. And that is the fight I am committing myself to, in his honour.
Skill-G, you taught us that greatness is not what you gather but what you give away. You gave until there was nothing left to give, and then you gave your life.
Rest, Enyi Abia. The elephant has fallen. But the forest he planted will shelter generations yet unborn, and every tree in it will whisper his name.
Adieu, great son of Uturu. Adieu, pride of Abia. Adieu, Skill-G.
Dr Okey Okoro Udo
Abia North Senatorial Candidate, Action Democratic Party (ADP)
