As former Senate Majority Leader, Jonathan Zwingina, passes on at 70, the story of his intricate battles with former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir el-Rufai, will come into the minds of many stakeholders.
Zwingina, who was also the former Director-General of the MKO Abiola campaign Organisation in the June 12, 1993 presidential election, was a victim to the demolition spree that Abuja experienced when el-Rufai was the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory under former President Olusegun Obasanjo.
Although his family has yet to formally confirm his death, Leadership Newspaper reports that the Adamawa State-born politician died on Wednesday, October 2, at the age of 70 in the nation’s capital, Abuja.
He was elected Senator for the Adamawa South constituency of Adamawa State, Nigeria at the start of the Nigerian Fourth Republic, running on the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) platform. He took office on 29 May 1999.
After taking his seat in the Senate in June 1999, he was appointed to committees on Works & Housing (chairman), Establishment, Internal Affairs, Information, Special Projects, Privatization and Economic Affairs Zwingina’s palatial residence in Abuja was demolished in February 2007, allegedly on the orders of Nasir el-Rufai, the Federal Capital Territory Minister.
In September 2003, el-Rufai alleged that Deputy Senate President Ibrahim Mantu and Zwingina, at the time Senate Majority Leader, asked him for a bribe of N54 million (US$418,000) to secure approval for his appointment as minister.
Zwingina said that he was “shocked and horrified” by the accusations and that el-Rufai “is a pathological liar.
Zwingina was the chairman of the board of trustees of Save Democracy Group Africa.
He died on 2 October 2024, at the age of 70.
