A politician, elder statesman and four-time Minister Chief Alabo Tonye Graham-Douglas is dead.
It was gathered that the Rivers politician breathed his last on Monday at a private hospital in Abuja at 82.
He was married to Muriel and blessed with 12 children and many grandchildren.
The Ijaw icon was born on May 8, 1939, in Abonnema in the Akuku-Toru Local Government Area of Rivers State.
Chief Graham-Douglas was the son of a native court judge in Abonnema and his Napo Graham-Douglas was the first indigenous Attorney-General of Nigeria.
In 1989, the military Administrator of Ibrahim Babangida appointed him Federal Minister for Social Development, Youths and Sports.
He was later moved to the Ministry of Aviation, where he oversaw the deregulation of the aviation industry.
Graham-Douglas was also a member of the Special Tenders Board, which developed the Abuja FCT.
In 1992, Graham-Douglas became chairman of the Southern Minorities Movement, one of the groups that merged into the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).
He was a candidate in the PDP primaries for the presidential nomination in 1998 but lost to Olusegun Obasanjo.
President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Graham-Douglas Minister of Employment, Labour and Productivity in June 1999.
In July 2000, Graham-Douglas was moved to the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.
In November 2000 he headed a delegation that visited China, where he signed the 2000-2002 Executive Plan of Cultural and Educational Exchange between China and Nigeria.
In December 2000, he hosted the Africa Travel Association’s Fourth Ecotourism Symposium in Abuja.
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