THESE indeed are strange times in Nigeria as events happen with such rates and speed as to be intractable. Among these, what does one make of the sudden death of Dipriye Alayemeseigha the Governor General (GG) of the Ijaw nation? In this era when nothing is unexpected to please the powers that be, what does one say about this controversial but irrepressible politician with ever present but inestimable influence in the lives of his people?

As the first elected Governor of Bayelsa, the only homogeneous Ijaw state, Alamieyeseigh not only made the state the centre of Ijaw political identity and cultural renaissance, he proclaimed himself the GG of the Ijaw nation. DSP or Alams as Alamieyeseigha was also warmly referred to, coordinated the affairs of the Ijaw nation from Yenagoa.

I first had a one on one interaction with him in 2001 when, during my first time as Ondo state Commissioner for Environment and Mineral Resources, I represented Governor Adebayo Adefarati in a conference of the Niger Delta in Yenagoa, on oil and the environment organized through the office of the then Secretary to the Bayelsa State government, Dr Steve Azaiki. My presentation that it was at Araromi in Ilaje LG of Ondo state that oil was first discovered in Nigeria in 1908 and not Oloibiri Bayelsa in 1956 and that Ondo state had about the longest shoreline stretching from part of the Lekki Peninsula in the west to the Benin River in the east, drew the special attention of the bewildered audience particularly the GG who had earlier ambitiously seen his Bayelsa extending in the future to include my brother Ijaws of Ondo state. Alameseigha, I believe, for that reason, specially invited me to join him at the sprawling Governor’s Office then not fully completed.

We discussed so many issues bothering on the infrastructural development and history of ethnic relationship in the Niger Delta. He was particularly enamored with the story of a relation of his, a young girl, Enake Egbedi who had been living with us since 1991 when I became Chairman of the old Ilaje/Ese Odo LG comprising the Ilaje and the Ijaws. Incidentally, Enake preferred to stay back with my family even when her parents who were of Amasoma Ijaw Bayelsa origin had to leave Igbokoda an Ilaje town in the wake of the unfortunate Ilaje/Ijaw hostilities of 1998 to 2000 and I had the responsibility of a father to her. Incidentally, Enake’s aunt was Dipriye Alameseigha’s stepmother, his father’s junior wife.

I only later followed in the media the travails of Alameisegha, which among others included his impeachment as governor, his trials, conviction and pardon.
Several years after his exit from power, DSP remained an enigma among his people particularly of the grassroots Ijaw throughout the Niger Delta.

When in December 2013, my family went to Amasoma for Enake’s wedding (already a graduate of the Niger Delta University and working in Bayelsa), the presence of DSP, even in absentia, was all over the place, eloquent. By the way, the wedding reception over which I presided took place within the large compound of DSP’s father.

Our journey from Yenagoa on a beautiful road constructed during Alams tenure through the deep swamps of Southern Ijaw, the cradle of the Ijaw civilization and point of migration of several of her kingdoms, was evidently a stoical determination to enhance the identity of the Ijaw giving lies to the poverty of minds that the terrain of the Niger Delta is undevelopable. The sitting of the Niger Delta University on the island of waters at Amasoma connected by roads and bridges is also to give intellectual vent to the Ijaw struggle recently encapsulated in the Kaima Declaration as an article of faith for Ijaw national progress and as a minimum Charter of Demands from the ever-insensitive Nigerian state.

His position as the GG of the Ijaw nation transcended his tenure as Bayelsa Governor, extended to the population and minds of all Ijaw anywhere. Here in Ondo state, the attendance at any Arogbo Day by the GG was with different pomp.

Our paths were to meet again at the 2014 National Conference where Alams and I were delegates. I became a friend of his and several of the other Nigerian leaders particularly of the South-South extraction of the Niger Delta who initially disagreed with me over what they felt was my audacious assertion of Ilaje being where oil was first discovered in Nigeria.

Both at the plenary and several nationalities co-operation platforms we shared, while Pa Edwin Clark was the agreed leader of the South-South delegation there was no doubt about Alamiesiegha being the coordinator of the Ijaw extraction.

On invitation to his residence one evening, DSP came off as a very deep personality with the ability to discuss any issue with sufficient authority. His esoteric interpretation of the origin of life and events at the Garden of Eden I found most interesting. Curiously, his views about life and riches and even his lifestyle weren’t of the avaricious image of which he had been portrayed. After the Confab and at every Ijaw Leaders’ meeting with my wife always in attendance as the Regent Kalasuwe of Ijaw Apoi, Alams would ensure the prominence befitting her first class traditional status.

In all, I bear testimony of this passionate leader of his people, dogged fighter of the cause and Governor General extraordinaire of the Ijaw nation. Let the biographers of his evils have their ways; his goods, permissible by my little interaction with him, will I not allow interred with his bones. Good night, DSP.

• Chief Ebiseeni, legal practitioner, is Ondo State Commissioner for Environment and Mineral Resources.