The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, was moved to tears while paying tribute to the late Senator Barinada Barry Mpigi in Port Harcourt on Thursday, April 9.
Wike, who was the immediate past governor of Rivers state, recalled how the late senator, who was from the same state, would visit him at his residence in Abuja and continuously pledged his loyalty by saying, “Master, I will not leave you.”
Mpigi, the senator representing the South-East senatorial district in Rivers, died at the age of 64 on Thursday, February 19. He was born on June 23, 1961. He was a serving senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria until his death.
Senator Mpigi was first elected as a member of the House of Representatives in 2011 and 2015. He became an elected senator in 2019, representing the Rivers South-East senatorial district under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was re-elected in 2023.
In the 9th National Assembly, he served as the chairman of the joint Senate committee saddled with the responsibility of investigating the oil theft in the Niger Delta region.
Mpigi would be the fourth senator who died since the inauguration of the 10th National Assembly after the 2023 general election. The first senator to die was Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, followed by Senator Okey Ezea and Senator Godiya Akwashiki.
Alabi, in a social media post, mourned the demise of the Rivers senator and recalled that “he was the Chairman, Senate Committee on Works.”
-Source: Legit
