I love Jesus Christ, Your Excellency. I am reminded of what He said in the days before He was led to Golgotha, lugging the cross in pain, blood all over his body. He said that when you light a candle, do not put it under a bushel, but atop the table so that it might illuminate the home. Something to that effect. Check the scriptures.
A book is like a candle burning bright. I have just written one, so I know. I have no reason to hide it. I have every reason to let the world know that a new book is in the catalogue. Its winning title is ‘Son of the Tiger Killer’. Its central focus is the government of Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, the first civilian Governor of Bayelsa State.
This is the book that Alamieyeseigha himself looked forward to holding, and nothing would have stopped him from being in the front row if he were alive to attend the unveiling ceremony of this landmark document on his administration. It would have been an honour if the Governor of Bayelsa State had shown up at this historic ceremony, no matter how humble the setting might have been.
Come to think of it, Your Excellency, your first political appointment was endorsed by Alamieyeseigha in times past. You had a personal relationship with ‘Alams’ and it would have been great to hear you recount your memories about the Governor-General himself. Needless to say I would have been overjoyed to receive you in person at the Ernest Ikoli Media complex, in my capacity as author of the book in question, and host of the event.
‘Son of the Tiger Killer’ is an exclusive portrait of a foremost political leader by one ardent admirer. The book throws an illuminating light on the inner recesses of the first civilian government in Bayelsa State. Chapter after chapter, the book underscores the crucial events, the political intrigues, socio-economic dilemmas, and the heroic moments that served to keep Bayelsa State on the front page news for many years running.
Your Excellency, I have done my best to tell the Alamieyeseigha story with the candour of a primary witness, and the passionate involvement of a stakeholder. My testimony will not be the last. More books will be written about Alamieyeseigha in the days to come, because he deserves all the focus he can get in the annals of our state’s political history.
Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo was waiting for his personal copy of this book. The Deputy Governor was waiting for this book. On 10 November 2025, he received the very first invitation through his press secretary, and took note of it. Doubra Atasi is my witness. I have no doubt that Ewhrudjakpo would have had a lot to say about Alamieyeseigha and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) government. He would have had occasion to give a few proverbs about the uses and abuses of decamping in recent Nigerian politics.
Let’s face it, Your Excellency, I am simply taken aback at the ease with which people defect from principles they had spelt out in their own ink. God knows I like Ewhrudjakpo. He kept to principle. Whenever I heard him speak, I could hear resonant promises of an ideal reality ahead. In his own way, he could lay claim to originality of purpose. He had a simple personality, and a distinctive aura. His intelligence did not hide behind corners. It came at you with every utterance, showing him off as a man well grounded in disparate disciplines, instructed by native law and custom, no less.
If Ewhrudjakpo had his way, he would respect the ruling of the Industrial Court of Nigeria to release the judgement debt owed a very hard-working civil servant in Bayelsa State, and to retire the fellow with an appropriate feast. Alas, the story took a different turn. We dare say the only politician in our state who can understand the deep questions, the grave dilemmas faced by Ewhrudjakpo is none other than Senator Henry Seriake Dickson.
The man from Toru-Orua was instrumental to Ewhrudjakpo’s emergence as a political factor to reckon with. Without Dickson, there might not have been an Ewhrudjakpo in the Bayelsa State political space. Dickson recognised something outstanding about the young lawyer. He saw a man possessed of a peculiar filament for selfless public service and righteous living.
We owe Dickson a word of gratitude on this score.
One of my biggest regrets as a journalist may well be that I lived in the same Yenagoa without interacting at a personal level with the late Deputy Governor. You will agree with me, Your Excellency, that I visited you in your office once upon a time in the company of retired Admiral Gboribiogha John Jonah. You made a promise that you are yet to keep. On the other hand, I never had a personal one-on-one interaction with Ewhrudjakpo, and that is why I feel so bad that the young man died just like that, while working in his office.
As I was saying, Your Excellency, we cannot escape the sentiments being expressed about your late deputy. Suggestions will always arise in private corners. People will always talk. The Wodu Wakiri of this world, the village wags, and the loud mouths of the roadside bar, will always talk. And even now, Wakiri and his band of talkative friends are saying that Ewhrudjakpo would have been alive today if only Senator Douye Diri had remained steadfast with the PDP.
Hold your peace, Your Excellency. Hold your horses. These things happen. God has a way of chastising even the leaders that he puts in office. If God does not hold a mirror to a leader, then he doesn’t love that leader. Check the scriptures. God loved David, son of Jesse, and made him king over Israel, but when David faltered, God sent a prophet to him, an unlikely servant who would tell the king where he erred.
I am not Prophet Nathan, Your Excellency, but I remember telling you specifically not to leave the party that brought you to the office for a second repeated time. Touch not my anointed, says the Lord, and do my prophet no harm. You ought not to have left the PDP. You did what you ought not to have done and left suspended what you ought to have done urgently. You kept in view what you ought to have approved with express despatch and indulged yourself with what you ought not to do. And there is no righteousness in you, says the Lord.
Hold your temper in check, Your Excellency. God has not finished with you yet. The mirror of time is showing much more than you can see. You are looking at things with the eye of an earthling when in fact there is a vast galaxy beyond your imaginative ken. I had reason to shout down someone recently, Your Excellency. I did so on your behalf. I gave him a not too polite hush when he said some uncomplimentary things concerning your relationship with your deputy after you defected from the PDP to the All Progressives Congress. I told him to calm down. The state is in mourning, I said. Anyone with an opinion about Ewhrudjakpo should wait for the autopsy report requested by his boss. We cannot make room for random conjecture.
You may have to bear in mind a few points that may arise in future conversations on the subject. To start with, there will be an evaluation of the role of the Deputy Governor in the Bayelsa State polity from the inception of civil democracy in the state to date. The other consideration may well be the role of personal physicians in governance, a case study of Creek Haven.
Lest I forget, I would have been in the frontline of the march for Ewhrudjakpo, but I didn’t get the black T-shirt branded with the image of the late Deputy Governor. I would have gladly raced alongside my governor, on the one hand, and on the other, my long-time friend from Benue State, and the Comptroller General of Customs, Bashir Wale Adeniyi who came on a condolence visit.
It so happens that we served in the same NYSC year. He was popular from the days of the orientation camp in Katsina-Ala because he was at the head of the colour party. His authority as a parade commander, his exploits as an endurance trekker must have come into play two Thursdays ago, and nothing would have pleased me more than to meet him again in person after 35 years.
Allow me to bring to your notice that, with the publication of ‘Son of the Tiger Killer’, what I call the Bayelsa trilogy is now complete. A trilogy, as you know, is a serial row of three books dwelling on one central theme, in this case the early days of Bayelsa State. You will bear witness that I wrote ‘The First Captain of Creek Haven’, capturing the infancy of Bayelsa under the military government. ‘Son of the Tiger Killer’ is the sequel to that. It is followed ‘by Eighteen Months Inside Creek Haven’, covering the transition of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan from Deputy Governor to Governor. In that sense, I am glad to report that the three essential books on the foundation government of Bayelsa State are finished.
As the lawyers would say, I rest my case.
