Former Bayelsa State governor, Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, is to be immortalized by the Ijaw nation by instituting an annual lecture series in his honour, the Ijaw Youth Council, IYC, has said.
President of the IYC, Udengs Eradiri, disclosed this on Thursday in Yenagoa as activities for the funeral rites of Alamieyeseigha commenced.
He said the annual public lecture would discuss issues around true federalism, fiscal federalism and resource control which were some of the ideals that the late former governor stood for.
“Every year, on the date he died, we will organise annual public lecture to look at issues concerning resource control and true federalism”, Eradiri said.
The IYC president described Alamieyeseigha as “a shoulder for every Ijaw to lean on”, who was magnanimous to Ijaw sons and daughters, awarding them scholarship and appointing them into public offices without discrimination.”
“When he was governor, he mobilised other governors for good causes in the polity. Till date, nobody has done the kind of mobilisation that he did.”
He observed that, sadly, Alamieyeseigha suffered political victimisation and persecution because of his belief on Ijaw struggle.
“…the establishment and Abuja did not like him. They were not happy that he became a voice for the Ijaw nation”, Eradiri noted.
Alamieyeseigha, who was elected governor of Bayelsa State in 2003 was detained in London in December 2005 on money laundering charges. He managed to flee back home but was impeached on December 9 of that year.
He was soon slammed with corruption charges by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, and was sentenced to two years in prison after pleading guilty.
In March 2013, he was granted state pardon by the man who was his deputy in Bayelsa State who had then become the President, Goodluck Jonathan, a move that was roundly criticized by many Nigerians.
The Governor General of the Ijaw nation, as Alamieyeseigha was known, was reported to have died of cardiac arrest on October 10, last year and is to be buried on Saturday.