Posted by By Shola Oshunkeye on
The ways of news can be somewhat mysterious, some times. We had tried all possible means to squeeze an interview with Dr. Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, former governor of Bayelsa State, shortly after he regained his freedom from the slammer some weeks back. But press interviews seemed to be the least in the man's priority.
• My ordeal in Dubai
•They planned to kill me in prison
•I leave Obasanjo to God
The ways of news can be somewhat mysterious, some times. We had tried all possible means to squeeze an interview with Dr. Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, former governor of Bayelsa State, shortly after he regained his freedom from the slammer some weeks back. But press interviews seemed to be the least in the man's priority.
However, on Tuesday, providence delivered the ex-governor to me on a platter. I was on my way to Abuja for a scheduled appointment and I had bought an IRS 8.30 a.m. ticket.
My eyes caught him as I passed through one of the screening gates at the brand new domestic terminal of the Murtala Mohammed Airport Ikeja, Lagos. And there he sat like a lone stranger, clutching copies of that day's edition of Daily Sun and The Punch. He just sat down there, calmly, seemingly lost on the pages of the papers. There were no aides. No security details. No paraphernalia of the high office he once held. Just a medium sized brown travelling bag that blended perfectly with his light- brown suit and a bowler hat. And of course, there were a handful of excited travelers who stopped by to say, ‘Hello sir'. ‘Nice meeting you, sir.' "Can you give me the honour of shaking your hand, sir?"
After introducing myself, I sat beside him and started a discussion pending the announcement of our flight. We were to travel on the same flight. But my hope of an exclusive interview with the Governor-General of the Ijaw nation evaporated like dew in the morning sun as he warned smilingly but firmly: "No interview, please." Rather than spill his spleen on the pages of newspapers, he said, he would concentrate his energy on bringing sustainable peace to his people in the south-south.
To this effect, he said he had been in the creeks in his native Bayelsa State, as well as neighbouring Delta State, in the past two weeks, trying to prevail on his kinsmen to leave the trenches and embrace peace. "I just returned from Warri yesterday," he said. "When I talk, my people listen. They love me.
They respect me. That is why I'm touring the creeks, counselling on the need for the youth to embrace peace. The peace you see in the region now is not because of the Army, it's because of people like us, who our people can trust and listen to. You can't enforce peace. And once we have sustainable peace, development is a matter of course."
As a man who had passed through the valley of the shadow of death, I asked Alamieyeseigha to recount his Golgotha experience.
A small smile played on his lips as he replied: "I just give glory to God for all I have gone through. The way they planned it, I was not to come out alive. They planned to kill me there all because I was bold enough to speak out. Speaking out against injustice. Speaking out against the oppression of my people. They were afraid of my popularity among my people."
Alamieyeseigha likened his experience to that of Biblical Job, declaring: "They (his traducers) must have obtained permission from God to do what they did to me."
Got permission from God to punish? I pressed further.
"Yes," he replied promptly. "Didn't Satan seek permission from God to afflict Job? Were the latter days of Job not better than his beginning? I thank God for the experience. It has brought me closer to God. I have a personal relationship with God now and I will serve Him all the days of my life for delivering me from the hands of the evil one."
The ‘unauthorised interview' was interrupted by our flight announcement and would not resume until we had attained a comfortable cruising altitude of 27,000 feet above sea level. Once the flight stabilised, I joined him in the business class. Fortunately, this section of the cabin was virtually empty. There were only three of us. So, the ‘unauthorised interview' resumed. At the resumption, I asked the ex-governor about his hurried discharge from his sick bed in Dubai.
He said former vice president Atiku Abubakar had visited sometime in July to commiserate with him on his sick bed, spent about 40 minutes, but that the meeting was misconstrued by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to the effect that something sinister was cooking. Two weeks later, the EFCC told him that he had been declared persona non grata by the authorities in Dubai and was promptly whisked back home. Curiously, Alamieyeseigha went back to the same country three days after his alleged repatriation to continue his treatment.
"If I was truly repatriated, would that same country accept me back so speedily?" he asked me.
Since the distraught ex-governor had likened his case to that of the Biblical Job, I asked him how he planned to recoup all the property and colossal sums the EFCC confiscated from him and have actually auctioned. "All those things are not important to me," he said. "The most important possession in life is life itself. And I have my life. I have my life. After all, I did not come to this world with anything because the things I have really do not belong to me. They belong to God."
And what about the man whose administration got him out of power in 2005 and, later into jail-former President Olusegun Obasanjo? What does he feel about him?
He paused for some fleeting seconds before he answered: "I have forgiven him. Ecclesiastes 12, verse 17, says whatever you do, evil or good, everybody will give account before God. I have left everything to God, who is just and righteous."