Professor Gabriel Ogwuche of the Federal College of Education, Kano is dead. He died yesterday after being sick for three, (3), hours. There is no authoritative medical statement on his demise yet but family sources said he went on a social outing the day before yesterday, went to work yesterday but left for hospital with complaints of bellyache or something of that nature. In the hospital, he got some drugs but by 4pm, he had started vomiting blood uncontrollably. He was rushed to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, (AKTH) where he died about 50 minutes later.
An Associate Professor of Language Arts with teaching engagements across Bayero University, Kano – his own alma mater; the Federal College of Education, Kano where he was based and a university in Katsina, Ogwuche is cited by those who knew him as the quintessential self-made person: from learning Radio Mechanics to studying for his first and second degrees as well as the PhD and moving steadily to the privileged professorial club.
Aged 55 years, the Benue born Prof. Ogwuche is leaving behind a nuclear family of a widow and five children, one of whom is already a graduate. Mourning centres have sprung up in Kano, Abuja and Benue and plans are emerging on how to give a decent burial to someone who would fit into the club of “samplers of the spirit of man”.
