Okey Ezeibe

Chief Okey Ezeibe, MFR, also widely styled Okey Ezibe, a Lagos Trade Fair businessman, Balogun Business Association founding figure, and Anambra community leader from Awgbu, died on 20 September 2026. He was 66. Associates said he was found dead in a hotel room in Imo State while travelling for an engagement; no official medical cause had been published when Nigerian outlets reported the news the next day.

He was born on 10 October 1959 in Awgbu, Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra State. Educated at Ogbete Primary School and the College of Immaculate Conception in Enugu (WASC 1978), he entered entrepreneurship early and built a career that straddled human-resources consulting, shipping interests, and motor trading. He chaired Chase Technique Industries and the Zibson Group, sat on boards including Sea Breeze Shipping and Awgbu Community Bank, and founded Legacy Motors (Legacy Urban Peony Services Limited), the vehicle business through which many traders knew him.

At the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex he was a former president and later chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Balogun Business Association (BBA), widely described as one of the association's founding figures and a leading voice for Igbo commercial interests around Auto Spare Parts and Machinery Dealers Association (ASPAMDA) organising. BBA president Oscar Paul Ikechukwu Odogwu ordered the BBA/ICC section closed on Monday 21 September 2026 in mourning, calling him the Great Iroko of BBA.

Beyond the market halls he held chieftaincy titles including Oranyelu of Awgbu, was a Knight of St Christopher in the Anglican Communion, and stayed active in Awgbu and Anambra affairs. Political associates linked him over the years to PDP organising and later to circles around Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi; Obi, in a 20 September condolence, called him an elder brother and friend whose counsel, courage, and kindness he would miss, and prayed that Ezibe's dream of a new Nigeria would live on. He was married to Lady (Barr.) Uju Ezibe; they have three children.

Market colleagues remembered a negotiator who could close a dispute and still ask about a trader's family. The suddenness of the Imo hotel death, coming weeks before his 67th birthday, left Awgbu and the Trade Fair complex searching for words. Formal funeral arrangements were expected from the family and the BBA after the first wave of condolences.