Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, PhD, proved himself to be an able lieutenant to Governor Douye Diri.
As Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, Ewhrudjakpo simply came to be known as The Law. With an appropriate hyphen linking the first name of the Governor, their campaign ride into office spoke of a vote for Diri-Law.
Known for his stamina at work and his legendary dedication to duty, Ewhrudjakpo was a man of many laurels, and it is regrettable to speak of him in the past tense. A noble son of Ofoni, a sprawling riverine community in Sagbama local government area, the infant Lawrence was born into the family of Chief and Mrs Otiti Ewhrudjakpo Awhowho on September 5, 1967, virtually in the heat of the Nigeria-Biafra civil war. Born as he was in a time of turbulence, his early life was shaped by crisis.
From the time he first sat in class, however, the young boy recognized the value of knowledge and the power it commands in society. He resolved to be knowledgeable enough to make a difference in life. Blessed with a quick intellect, a winning spirit, and a cerebral personage, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo was familiar with awards and plaques. He had been decorated repeatedly with several feathers to his colourful academic cap.
Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo held three different Masters degrees in three different areas of study. He was also in possession of a doctorate degree in Law. He first sat in class at Ebikimiye Primary School, Kpakiama, Delta State. The last time he sat in a regular class was at the world-acclaimed Oxford University, beyond the shores of his homeland, in the heart of England.
Clearly, the seeds of his progress were sown in earlier years. After his primary education, Lawrence proceeded to the famous Government College, Bomadi, Delta State, and later relocated to Community Secondary School, Ofoni, where he completed his post-primary education. In every class, his teachers testified to his exceptional brilliance. In 1987, he passed his first external examinations in distinctive colours.
For a start in life, and in keeping with his reputation as a stickler for order, propriety and personal hygiene, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo enrolled for a diploma course in community health at the Rivers State College of Health Technology, Port Harcourt. He was proud to earn that certificate in 1991, and it propelled him to greater exploits.
Taken by a thirst for knowledge, curious to know more about the ways of the world, and to fortify himself for the future, he enrolled for his first degree at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, and obtained a B.Sc. in Secretarial Administration, and a Bachelor’s degree in Law. By the year 2000, at the turn of the century, he was well equipped to face the world, having bagged his first Master’s degree, MBA, from his alma mater as well.
From then on, the young lawyer from Ofoni embarked on a galore of achievements, plucking one laurel after the other in an academic adventure that is reckoned to be nothing but remarkable. To date, the public dossier of Dr Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo reads like an interminable scroll of honours. He had a Diploma in Mediation, Negotiation and Arbitration from the Centre for Conflict Resolution, Ghana, in much the same way that his name is inscribed on a Master’s degree scroll of honour in International Human Rights Law, Birmingham City University, United Kingdom.
He also had a degree certificate in Change Management from the Said Business School, Oxford University, UK, as well as another Master’s degree in the Science of Coaching and Consultancy for Change at the HEC School of Management, Paris, France. Driven by his unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Ewhrudjakpo, while coping with the daunting demands of his office as Deputy Governor, obtained a doctorate degree in International Law on Human Rights from the Rivers State University in December, 2023.
A refined servant-leader with distinctive marks on several public platforms, Senator Ewhrudjakpo is classed among the most intellectually sophisticated political leaders in Nigeria in contemporary times. Needless to say, he was a man of many parts and diverse competencies, with an outstanding erudition and a demonstrable love for public service. The gamut of his work experience straddles the civil service, labour unionism, and political gamesmanship.
The major turning point in Ewhrudjakpo’s career trajectory in public service came in 2012 with his appointment as Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure in Bayelsa State, an office he held with a great sense of commitment, discharging his duties creditably, and with remarkable aplomb for the better part of eight years. Based on his sterling record of performance, and his impressive scorecard in the Ministry of Works, Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo was nominated as standard bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the Bayelsa West senatorial election, which he won convincingly in 2019.
His political career received another major boost when the lot fell on him to be nominated as running mate to Senator Douye Diri for the PDP gubernatorial ticket in the 2019 Bayelsa governorship election. Although the PDP suffered an initial setback in the election, the Supreme Court, by a miraculous sleight of hand, confirmed Senator Douye Diri of the PDP and his running mate as the validly elected Governor and Deputy Governor-elect of Bayelsa State respectively.
And so, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo was sworn-in as Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State on St Valentine’s Day 14 February, 2020. For four eventful years, he served the state creditably well alongside his boss, Governor Douye Diri. Based on the outstanding promises of their performance in office, the good people of Bayelsa elected them back into office, following their resounding success at the polls on 11 November, 2023. They were both sworn in for a second tenure on 14 February, 2024.
Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo continued to endear himself to Bayelsans through his empathetic service to the people, his high sense of responsibility, and his leadership acumen. The workaholic Deputy Governor was also known for his oratorical prowess, proverbial wisdom, and his numerous contributions to human capacity development in the state.
For him, punctuality was a daily code of conduct. A die-hard proponent of proper time management, he attended to official duties with meticulous attention to detail, and prompt despatch. It was, in fact, public knowledge that no memo stayed on the table of the Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State beyond twenty-four hours, except he was unavoidably out of town.
For him, procrastination is not only an enemy to productivity in the workplace, but it is also injurious to individual destiny. He equally believed, on a personal note, that to delay treating any memo was tantamount to snuffing out life from its author. Under his effective supervision, the pitiable narrative of the local government system in the state changed for the better because of the far-reaching initiatives he began.
For instance, the compulsory monthly saving he introduced as part of the new government reforms helped in no small way to turn around the fortunes of local government councils in the state until they gained statutory autonomy recently. In fact, it is no longer news that, before the advent of the Prosperity Government, local government councils were gasping for breath, with a greater number of them borrowing every month to pay the salaries of workers.
All that is history today. All of them could conveniently meet their monthly salary obligations to enable them execute meaningful, people-oriented projects under the able guidance and supervision of Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo. Little wonder that, on account of his remarkable results in personnel management, the Deputy Governor was valourized in many quarters as a pillar of support and a bastion of political stability in the Prosperity Administration, to say nothing of the PDP political family in Bayelsa State.
Ewhrudjakpo’s resume in public service constitutes a strong source of motivation and a veritable stimulus for youths of the state to draw inspiration and aspire to greatness. Not surprisingly, he earned a plethora of awards and corporate recognitions from far and near.
Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo was a great man, no doubt, but he chose to lead a very humble and unassuming life. The Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State also had a unique dress sense. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, he could be sighted from afar as the only man with a uniform face mask to go with every top he wore.
On Thursday, 11 December 2025, news broke to the effect that Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo slumped in his office. He was reportedly rushed to the Federal Medical Center, Yenagoa, and was soon clinically confirmed dead. Bayelsa was summarily thrown into mourning, every home grieving the loss of a man with the reputation of being an extreme workaholic, a man blessed with a firebrand intelligence, and an adherence to principle in his everyday conduct
His staunch belief in respecting the oath of office that swore him into place as Deputy Governor for two consecutive terms on the platform of the PDP, fortified his adamant refusal to defect to the ruling party. For him, that amounted to betraying the original mandate given by the people of Bayelsa State, and abusing the sacred tenets of democracy. His story promises to unfold in greater detail in the days to come.
