The first time I met Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, I almost dismissed him as the wrong candidate to vote for. He sounded dull and unsure about what next to say. He took long pauses before getting out the next word, and he was certainly not the world’s best student in phonetics. In fact, Prof. Kay Williamson would have considered him coarse.
Today, I am grateful for not just meeting him once, but working with him from day-to-day for all of his stay as Governor of Bayelsa State, and finding a ready friend in him — to say nothing of a father figure — until my last chit-chat with him and his wife at their palatial Opolo residence in Yenagoa, a few days before he climbed to lighter climes.
But that first meeting remains fresh in my mind. I was Editor of The Tide on Sunday in Port Harcourt at that time, and a friend of mine had come to me with a proposal to conduct an interview with Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha, one of the strong candidates contesting for the office of Governor of Bayelsa, the state newly created from Rivers.
I asked my friend if this man was indeed a Deputy Superintendent of Police. My friend, Nathan Egba, enjoyed a hearty laugh at my expense, and told me in sober terms that the initials had nothing to do with the police. They stood for each name that the venerable father called his first son, Diepreye Solomon Peter, DSP for short.
I immediately liked the man, even if I had not met him then. In fact, said Nathan, he is a retired Squadron Leader of the Nigerian Air Force. I found that even more intriguing. He was coming into politics for the first time, but his name was already commanding a heavy-duty impact against the better known Ambassador Emmanuel Oseimiegha Otiotio, who was also vying for the coveted office as first civilian governor of the oil-rich state under the winning Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
I trusted Nathan’s judgement in those days, so much so that he was the first guest I allowed to appear on my column, Ripples. Nathan had surprised me with the sheer energy he brought to the assignment. From the time his face and by-line showed in the paper, Nathan began to bring in telling interviews with high-profile sons and daughters of the Niger Delta. He also began to venture into keen analytical reports about the tempo of politics in the new state created by General Sani Abacha, now of blessed memory.
On the fateful day in question, Nathan ushered me with very tidy compliments into the upper recesses of a storey building at D-Line, Port Harcourt. I saw a man dressed in a deep-green caftan reclining on a settee, as casual as a cowboy can be in his country home, his naked feet out of his brown crocodile-skin sandals, his open palms rubbing his contented tummy. I gave my greetings with the decent nod of an Englishman who had missed his way into the presence of an Italian don.
Nathan took over, and left me with very little to say, until he declared the interview over. Alamieyeseigha, without changing position, asked him if he was sure that I could write a good report for the paper I edited. I guess I appeared dull to him too. I told him not to bother. That would not constitute a problem. Nathan would write the report, and if it was good enough, I would publish it.
Alamieyeseigha gave me a quizzical look, practically consigned the matter into Nathan’s hands, and dismissed me. I left ahead of my friend and returned to my office. When Nathan came to me a few hours later, he said he was now speaking to me in his newfound capacity as Alamieyeseigha’s media coordinator. I was happy on his behalf. I told him the title was just right for him. Here, you have my honest congratulations and my handshake.
My friend swotted so hard in my office for that particular edition of the paper that even my regular staff could not begrudge him the two-page encounter space I granted his transcription of Alamieyeseigha’s interview. One more bonus appearance on the editor’s coveted column came in useful for Nathan, who soon began to gravitate more surely to Bayelsa State matters with every gesture he made and every comment he passed.
I felt left behind in all this. So, one day, I decided to embark on a mission to stalk every son of Bayelsa State who had a gubernatorial ambition. And who better to start with than Otiotio, my own brother-in-law. But Otiotio had already seen Alamieyeseigha’s face in the pages of The Tide on Sunday, and concluded that I was rooting for Alamieyeseigha. Otiotio snubbed me without batting an eyelid. What kind of in-law was I anyway? How come I failed to give him priority attention?
After that, I lost interest in speaking with any other politician, and promptly boarded the next bus back to Port Harcourt. Preye Wariowei, my Yenagoa correspondent, would file in his weekend reports. I will just mind my editor’s desk in the Garden City. Besides, the political fever was rising in Rivers State, without Bayelsa, in a brand new configuration that was bound to compel some editorial surprises.
If I could reach Dr. Peter Odili, who knows, he just might have something to tell me that could serve to brighten my front page. And so, indeed, it turned out to be. I reached out to Odili, secured a personal interview with him, and published the high points of it on the front page of my Sunday paper.
The report appeared to have swayed the delegate elections which took place the very next day, and I was queried for my front page choice by my senior editor who appeared to have been rooting for Sergeant Awuse. In any case, Odili became Governor of Rivers State. In Bayelsa, Alamieyeseigha beat Otiotio to emerge as the first civilian governor of the young state in a controversial poll that practically set the tone for politics in Glory Land.
I was as overjoyed as any son of the new state that, after four military administrators, Bayelsa State would have the first civilian Governor, a son of the soil, at the helm of authority. I did not hide my expectations. I wrote a joyous, lively letter to my first governor, and published it in my column. By the end of the week, when I rode into Yenagoa to sign for my salary, I was surprised to see photocopies of my open letter stuck on notice boards at the secretariat, and electric poles overlooking Government House.
On Monday 27 March 2000, one week after I published the letter, my name was announced alongside six others as new appointees by the Bayelsa State Governor. I remember Thompson Okorotie leading the list as Political Adviser, Comish Ekiye as helmsman of Radio Bayelsa, Freston Akpor as Chief Press Secretary, Mrs. Grace Koroye as Provost of the College of Science and Technology, Agudama, and Inemo Daniel, Director at the Ministry of Information. I was to serve as Speech Writer to the Governor.
I could only conclude that my passionate letter of one week ago had recommended me for the job.
