Senator Enyinnaya Harcourt Abaribe (born March 3, 1955) is a Nigerian politician who was elected to the Abia-South Senatorial District of Abia State in the Senate of Nigeria in April 2007.He holds the title Nnadiohanma Ngwa.
Education
Abaribe earned his WASSCE from Government College Umuahia in 1974. He received a bachelor’s degree economics in 1979 and a master’s degree in the same subject in 1982, both from the University of Benin .He lectured at Edo State University from 1982 until 1985.
Business career
From 1985 until 1991, he was SCOA Nigeria’s area manager for Southern Nigeria. After that, from 1991 to 1992, he was employed as Nicon’s senior manager for investment. From 1993 until 1995 he was the CEO of Integrated Mortgage Co.
Political career
Deputy governorship and gubernatorial run
Abaribe became Abia State’s Deputy Governor after Orji Uzor Kalu’s 1999 election to the Governorship. The state’s House of Assembly impeached the deputy governor twice in 2000 and a third time in 2003; as he was facing his third impeachment, he resigned on March 7, 2003, sending his resignation via DHL so as to have written record of it.The House of Assembly formally voted him out of office several days later, in a move Abaribe called “medicine after death”.
Abaribe ran for the governorship on the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) platform in 2003, but lost to Kalu.
Senatorial career
Abaribe was elected to the national Senate in 2007 on a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) ticket;
Abaribe is Vice Chairman of the Senate Committee on Inter-Parliamentary Affairs (Senator Abdulaziz Usman of Jigawa -North East is Chairman).He is also a member of the Committees on the Independent National Electoral Commission, Senate Services, and Works. In October 2007, as Ralph Uwazuruike, leader of the banned secessionist organization Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), was on trial for treason, Abaribe and six other southeastern senators protested at the Federal High Court in Lagos to demand his release.
Abaribe was reelected for Abia South in the April 2011 election. He is currently the chairman Senate Committee on Media and Publicity.
