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Babsajayi@yahoo.com Toronto, Ontario, Canada

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ALAMIEYESEIGHA: A SUSPECT AND NOW A FUGITIVE

r. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha has succeeded in complicating his problem. He has elected to run from justice in the United Kingdom rather than face trial for money laundering and related charges brought against him by the London Metropolitan police. Now our name and whatever is left of our honour is being dragged in the mud by this haughty low life with false air of self-importance and banal mien.

Our collective efforts to wash our image, to jump start a crushed national reputation and regain some semblance of dignity in the committee of nations is ruffled and battered by a man who confessed to a national paper that he kept hundreds of thousands of dollars, Euro and Pounds sterling on his person for reasons ranging from keeping school fees for his children and planning to use the cash to pay school fees for indigent students of Bayelsa State. Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha was reported by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) today, Monday, November 2005 to have skipped bail.

The BBC referred to him as a man who "earns less than $1,000 a month as governor", but was found with more than one million pounds cash in his London home. In the last six years Diepreye Alamieyeseigha has carried on like a man on rampage. He was lord and master of the Bayelsa State treasury. He was Governor of Bayelsa State, self-proclaimed Governor-General of the Ijaw Nation and Commissioner for Cash Affairs. He was the Commander of Ghana-Must-Go (GMG) and a bad example to our youths. He is unfit to hold any elective position in Nigeria.

Bayelsa State has become a piggy bank for this mindless character and his family as his wife, daughters, sons and son-in-law recklessly deep their hands in the cash vault of the state. In his most recent interview with a respected Nigerian newspaper, he blamed President Olusegun Obasanjo for his travails. How convenient. How cheap. For people like Diepreye Alamieyeseigha someone else is always to blame, someone else is always responsible for whatever is found on his possession, in his house and even in his body. Probably it was Baba Iyabo who planted the money in Diepreye's person and loaded his children's accounts with three banks in Yenagoa with hundreds of millions of naira.

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The convenient scapegoat is the man insisting that this madness must stop and the allocation sent to Bayelsa State must show in the lives of the people and be obvious in their health care and other social services. There is a new twist to the Diepreye Alamieyeseigha saga. It may not all be unconnected with the changes that are beginning to take place in the State with the removal and replacement of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the Bayelsa State House of Assembly and the appointment of his deputy as Acting Governor.

Here is a fugitive on the run and everyone and anyone who associates with him shares in his disgrace and is equally morally unfit and a bad egg. Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha is said to be hosting a huge celebration with friends, associates and some Ijaw kinsmen in attendance. Every person who drinks with him, utter congratulation or even smiles at this runaway suspect is guilty of indecency, the lack of any mores and a conspirator to the crime of skipping bail. What is there to celebrate here? What is worthy of celebration in Yenagoa today? This is a very sad day in the history of Bayelsa and Nigeria, that a governor of the state jumped bail in London after his arrest, detention, and on-going trial, ran away using fictitious documents and misrepresentation to escape justice. This is a time for mourning and for reflection. Is this how we'll continue while the whole world moves on into greater things and higher heights? Is this the legacy Alamieyeseigha will leave behind? What was he thinking while plotting and planning this escape and what did he think this would avail him and our nation?

This man must be ostracized and kept at arms length. He is setting a bad example for our children and our people; he is a dangerous character who is so crooked and would go to any length to forge travelling documents and papers and escape from the United Kingdom. He is a coward and an abuser of a democratic and civic society that respect rights and privileges of human beings. Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha had exploited the civic and civilized arrangement and nature of the West to escape trial, but there is a way out of this uncouth behaviour of Bayelsa State Governor. The first is to suspend him from his position. There is a political solution to the problem created by this fugitive and that is squarely in the Bayelsa State House of Assembly, which is to impeach Alamieyeseigha immediately for committing criminal acts including travel document forgery, impersonation, and disregard for law and order. His deputy should be sworn in to take over the affairs of the state. And if Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha disturbs the peace and stability of Bayelsa State, then the Federal Government should declare a state of emergency in the state and bring to trial any citizen found to be disturbing the peace and tranquility of the state. If the Bayelsa State House of Assembly fails to uphold the rule of law and defend the Nigerian constitution, then it becomes clear that all the legislators in the House are accomplices of a fraudulent and corrupt governor, Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha.

The confirmation of Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha's return by the Bayelsa State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Oronto Douglas, was short and terse: "Our governor, Chief D.S.P. Alamieyeseigha is back in Bayelsa". Mr. Douglas announced his return without proffering answer to the question relating to how his boss escaped from London, only saying that "I don't have that information at this time". The celebration of Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha must be short-lived and he should be returned to the Brixton Prison in London where he belongs.

Alamieyeseigha has taken his misbehaviour too far and he must be made to pay in full and face the full wrath of the law. This is a tough time for everyone who is a Nigerian and goes about with a Nigerian passport. The Nigerian government must do everything possible to redeem the nation's image by carefully facing up to the problems and challenges the misdemeanour of Mr. Diepreye Alamieyeseigha has caused us, culminating in his repatriation back to the United Kingdom and subsequent frog-matching to jail. This is indeed a criminally minded man who should not be near any seat of power.