By Eniola Olakunri
The nation misplaced a treasure on October 18, 2026, when the information broke that Professor Gregory Ikechukwu Ibebhad translated.
It was one shattering piece of reports this author by no means anticipated to obtain. Not right now.
It has been a few days since his passing, but it nonetheless feels surreal. One finds it tough to tug oneself out of that vortex of confusion, disbelief and sheer astonishment. A most annoying actuality that the thoughts continues to battle to understand.
Proffy, my moniker for him, was a extremely spirited, larger-than-life persona: in style, participating, heat and, fairly merely, a no-dull-moment form of man who associated effortlessly with just about everybody.
We have been launched by a mutual buddy in 2018, and we took to one another like fish to water. From that second, a lovely friendship blossomed, and we remained nearly inseparable till his translation.
In 2019, with out telling him, I wrote a piece about this extraordinary man. I’ll share substantial snippets from that piece right here as a result of, looking back, they supply a fascinating window into the lifetime of a man who was actually a legend in each sense of the phrase.
Please learn on.
THE POWER OF A VISION: THE GREGORY IBE STORY
Originally written on November 3, 2019
He took the wood spoon Life had thrust into his mouth and ran with it.
To him, it was a spoon. It was his to do with as he wished. It didn’t trouble him that his spoon was completely different, that his circumstances have been dire, or that Providence appeared to have been visiting the subsequent city when he was born.
He ran along with his imaginative and prescient; he ran with a willpower so spectacular that he turned what ought to have been a incapacity into a launch pad for fulfillment.
His spoon modified to gold!
Meet Professor Gregory Ikechukwu Charles Ibe, OFR.
EARLY YEARS
Born on December 10, 1963, in Kaduna to a policeman father, Cyril Elesim Ibe,nand petty-trader mom, Ugoeze Margaret Ibe, younger Iyke, as he was fondly known as by buddies and family members, appeared destined for a lifetime of consequence.
Although born in Kaduna, Iyke missed the chance to study Hausa, one in every of Nigeria’s main languages, as a result of the household moved again East when he was barely a yr and a half previous.
However, having spent a appreciable a part of his grownup life within the North, he would later purchase the power to carry a respectable dialog within the extensively spoken language.
From the outset, he understood that he needed to develop the grit needed to alter the circumstances surrounding his delivery.
His father spent a appreciable a part of his life as a policeman.
This was lengthy earlier than His Royal Highness mounted the stool of his forebears. As a policeman, the then Prince Cyril Ibe’s wage couldn’t present the comforts that a rising family of 9 kids and a spouse required.
Iyke, being the primary little one, understood early that he needed to develop up rapidly. He took on odd jobs right here and there to reinforce the household’s funds.
Today, Providence had taken Professor Ibe on its wings. His circumstances had modified dramatically, and he had recorded one spectacular success after one other in a number of fields of human endeavour.
He was a husband and father of six kids : an orthopaedic surgeon, a heart specialist, a finance professional, a lawyer, an accountant and his youngest son, who was nursing an ambition to change into a pilot.
A agency believer in Henry Ford’s well-known philosophy – Whether you assume you possibly can or assume you possibly can’t, you’re proper” – Ibe undoubtedly thought he may.
And that’s the reason he turned a residing testimony to how a imaginative and prescient can delivery and drive success.
SCHOOLING AND APPRENTICESHIP
By the time the household moved again to the East in 1965, younger Iyke knew that every one he had have been the targets he had set for himself and the clean canvas of life.
While education, he apprenticed at varied instances in surveying, carpentry, tailoring and native electrical works. He additionally joined his mom, Ugoeze, in making confectioneries, candles and petroleum jelly on the market.
In the midst of all this, Ibe continued to forge forward academically. He understood that training supplied the plank for bridging the divide between poverty on one hand and a safe future on the opposite.
He went on to accumulate a Bachelor of Science diploma in Marketing from Enugu State University of Science and Technology, adopted by a Master’s diploma in Health Care Management and a Ph.D. in Management from California Coast University, Santa Ana, California.
WORK LIFE: PRIVATE AND PUBLIC SECTORS
Ibe’s work expertise lower throughout each the non-public and public sectors.
He started his profession with International Generics and Industrial Construction (Nigeria) Limited in 1985 as an Accountant II and quickly rose by means of the ranks. Within six years, he had change into Deputy Manager, Coordinator, Northern States Projects and Deputy Area Manager, Eastern Nigeria.
His work ethic and the robust sense of values acquired from an early age turned defining traits of his skilled life.
Among the initiatives he dealt with have been the Federal Ministry of External Affairs Complex, renovation of the Old Federal Secretariat Complex (each in Abuja), Imo Airport, Imo Specialist Hospital, Anambra State University of Technology satellite tv for pc campuses in Enugu, Nnewi and Nkwelle, and Oba Airport, amongst others.
His want to broaden his expertise took him to Berkeley Pharmaceutical Limited, headquartered in London, the place he was answerable for advertising and distribution of pharmaceutical merchandise throughout the South-East and South-South.
In 1992, Dizengoff (West Africa) Nigeria Limited, an Israeli firm, got here calling. Although he was having fun with his work at Berkeley Pharmaceuticals, he couldn’t resist the problem and tasks that got here with the brand new alternative.
He was appointed Divisional Coordinator/Marketing Manager, answerable for market improvement in West Africa. In that capability, he dealt with air-cooling initiatives for Yobe State Television, Abuja Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Kano grain silos, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and telecommunications initiatives for NICON Hilton Hotels, now Transcorp Hilton, Abuja.
By 1996, Ibe was headhunted by ITE (Nigeria) Limited, a subsidiary of Globe International Holding S.A. of Switzerland, and appointed Deputy General Manager.
There, he was answerable for the advertising of instructional and scientific laboratory tools and the event and advertising of communications, training, scientific and safety tools.
He dealt with these assignments with gusto and an abiding sense of accountability. But he had begun to really feel the pull of entrepreneurship.
His expertise at ITE had opened his eyes to the large challenges confronting Nigeria’s instructional sector, and he felt compelled to do one thing about them.
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL JOURNEY
In 1999, Ibe and different overseas companions based Skill “G” Nigeria Limited, a firm established to bridge the yawning gaps between Nigeria’s instructional sector and the remainder of the world, significantly in technical and vocational training, science and expertise.
The firm took off with outstanding velocity and, inside a few years, turned a main participant within the West African instructional sector.
Across Nigeria, Skill “G” traversed the size and breadth of the nation, delivering vocational and technical centres, talent acquisition centres, micro-science and arithmetic laboratories for major and secondary faculties, and training useful resource centres.
Other firms adopted, together with Hamitle Holding Inc., Hamitle Engineering Nigeria Limited, Hamitle Consult Nigeria Limited and HHI Nigeria Limited, with pursuits spanning civil engineering, development, telecommunications and consultancy.
At varied factors, Ibe was known as upon by the Federal, State and Local Governments, in addition to worldwide our bodies, to deploy the depth of information and expertise he had collected for the advantage of the nation and humanity.
He turned a lecturer at Abia State University, Uturu, and Tansian University, Anambra State, whereas additionally serving as a guide to the Federal Government on civil service and training reforms.
His contributions to nationwide improvement included participation in a number of committees and initiatives overlaying maritime training, nationwide science parks, entrepreneurial training, science and expertise laboratory improvement, exports, waivers and concessions, amongst others.
His trade was such that he was entrusted with the oversight of 12 United Nations companies between 2000 and 2007 on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria.
With such a formidable portfolio of service and accomplishment, it was hardly stunning that the Federal Government honoured him with the Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR) in 2013.
THE VISIONARY BEHIND GREGORY UNIVERSITY
For years, the entrepreneur had nurtured the thought of bringing his private-sector, enterprise and public-sector experiences to bear on Nigeria’s instructional system.
He discovered his reply within the institution of a college. But not simply one other college.
He wished an establishment that might be distinctive.
He understood the challenges: stringent regulatory necessities, finance, land, infrastructure, energy, human assets and the numerous logistical hurdles concerned in establishing a college in Nigeria.
But Gregory Ibe was by no means one to run from challenges.
Where others noticed hurdles, he noticed ladders.
In 2012, he based Gregory University, Uturu (GUU) in Abia State.
The University’s imaginative and prescient centred on changing into a world-renowned establishment recognised for the standard of its tutorial and analysis programmes, in addition to its skilled, sensible and entrepreneurial capability improvement.
One of the University’s distinctive options was its emphasis on entrepreneurship. Second-year college students, no matter their disciplines, have been uncovered to entrepreneurship and its sensible purposes,equipping them with expertise with which they might start constructing companies even earlier than commencement.
And Professor Ibe, the Founder and Chancellor, took a private curiosity on this.
He would have it no different method.
His concern was simple: Nigeria was producing hundreds upon hundreds of graduates who left college with certificates however with out adequate sensible expertise to create alternatives for themselves.
His response was to infuse entrepreneurship into the curriculum.
The outcomes have been evident.
GUU graduates have been pursuing additional tutorial accomplishments, securing employment and, importantly, changing into entrepreneurs themselves.
Therein lay the facility of a imaginative and prescient.
His imaginative and prescient was by no means merely about constructing an establishment. It was about constructing individuals.
FAITH AND PHILANTHROPY
Professor Ibe was a religious Catholic whose Christian religion knowledgeable his worldview and lifestyle.
He believed strongly within the energy of religion, good upbringing, integrity and accountable citizenship. He believed that kids needs to be inspired to find and develop their God-given abilities.
He was equally obsessed with giving.
His philanthropy was not restricted to people and even his quick neighborhood. His constituency was Nigeria.
Over the years, by means of the Gregory Iyke Foundation, he supported scholarships, training, healthcare, youth improvement, infrastructure, sports activities and neighborhood initiatives.
Among the initiatives attributed to him have been scholarships for college students of medication and pharmacy, help for scholar pilots, donations of computer systems and laboratory tools, street development, healthcare for senior residents, youth empowerment, sports activities improvement, cultural initiatives and help for instructional establishments.
The checklist was in depth.
And sometimes, he didn’t make a spectacle of his giving.
For Gregory Ibe, philanthropy was not a efficiency. It was a accountability.
AND THEN CAME INNOV8
When I wrote the unique piece on November 3, 2019, Professor Ibe learn it and preferred it immensely.
But he requested me to carry off publishing it.
His cause?
There have been nonetheless different ventures within the pipeline that wanted to change into a part of the fuller story.
He was proper.
Less than a yr later, along with his attribute irrepressible vitality, Professor Ibe, alongside his long-time associate, based Innov8 Hub, a not-for-profit organisation established as a transferring power in innovation, creativity, entrepreneurship, capability constructing and enterprise creation, with a mandate targeted on socio-economic progress and human capital improvement in Nigeria and past.
And what adopted was one other outstanding chapter within the Gregory Ibe story.
In simply six years, Innov8 Hub recorded achievements that might have been spectacular even for an organisation with a for much longer historical past.
It supported, mentored and supplied technical steering to greater than 250 entrepreneurs and 800 researchers.
It efficiently developed greater than 120 merchandise and prototypes and incubated 25 promising startups, serving to them transfer in direction of commercially viable companies. Among them have been Vectar Energy, a clean-tech enterprise, and EpochZero, an AI-driven well being diagnostics enterprise.
The organisation additionally attracted vital worldwide recognition.
It turned a Gold Recipient of the Academic–Industry Partnership Award* beneath the Education and Research Leadership class and was inducted into the Global Hall of Fame.
It was shortlisted for the celebrated QS Reimagine Education Awards for its Eco Lab Environmental Education Outreach initiative.
And on the Africa Startup Ecosystem Builders Summit, Innov8 was chosen as one of many Top Five finalists for Innovation Hub Champion of the Year from 1,786 nominations throughout 52 African international locations.
This was the person I proudly known as Proffy.
A person who seemingly by no means ran out of concepts.
A person who noticed prospects the place others noticed issues.
A person who saved transferring.
THE LEGACY
The nation has misplaced a visionary par excellence; a kinetic entrepreneur; an excellent tutorial; a passionate philanthropist of unusual hue; a real Christian; a devoted household man; and a buddy who may comfortably transfer between the best echelons of society and the abnormal man on the road.
Of course, there are dimensions of this outstanding human being that point and area is not going to allow me to completely chronicle.
But I imagine the reader has, by means of these recollections, caught a glimpse of the extraordinary man Professor Gregory Ikechukwu Ibe – Enyi Abia – was.
When I wrote in 2019 that it could not be stunning if someday a title resembling “Enyi Nigeria” was created particularly for him, I used to be, maybe unknowingly, solely starting to understand the breadth of the person.
Professor Ibe didn’t merely stay a life.
He constructed.
He nurtured.
He mentored.
He impressed.
He gave.
He educated.
He created.
He remodeled.
And then, on October 18, 2026, he translated.
We typically say that sure individuals depart a vacuum once they depart this world.
But a vacuum can, finally, be stuffed.
Professor Ibe has left one thing far larger.
He has left a crater.
A gaping, monumental crater created by a lifetime of unusual vitality, imaginative and prescient, service, enterprise, generosity and friendship.
And that crater, I dare say, can by no means be refilled.
May Almighty God grant his soul everlasting relaxation and grant his beloved household, the Gregory University and Innov8 households, the numerous individuals working throughout the companies he created, his colleagues and associates, and the numerous others whose lives he touched, the fortitude to bear this monumental loss.
Adieu, Proffy.
You ran with the wood spoon Life handed you.
You turned it to gold.
And you left the world richer for having handed by means of it.
May your light soul relaxation in good peace.
*Eniola Olakunri
CEO, Write Affairs
Abuja
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