The death today in a Port Harcourt, Rivers State-based hospital of the first civilian governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Diepreye Solomon Peter Alamieyeseigha, has been blamed on the shock and fear of being extradited to the United Kingdom to respond to allegations of money laundering.
Disclosing this in a statement this evening is a socio-cultural group that goes by the name of Ijaw Brotherhood in Diaspora. The statement, sent from Germany, was signed by one Pere Jones. Beside alleging that Alamieyeseigha’s health worsened soon after news got to him that he would be extradited to UK, from where he fled in 2005, it added that he slipped into coma and ultimately died of heart attack.
Accusing some of their Izon brothers and sisters of conniving with outsiders to kill their own, they vowed that all those involved in this will not go free.
Aged 63, Alamieyeseigha, said to be eyeing the Senate in the next political dispensation, was a big supporter of the incumbent Bayelsa governor, Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson. As a matter of fact, Dickson’s 2nd term declaration was among his last major outings, YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine learnt.
Arrested in the UK for alleged money laundering in 2005, Alamieyeseigha was taken to court, granted bail, only for him to flee to Nigeria. Re-arrested and convicted in Nigeria, he was granted pardon by his former deputy who later became Nigeria’s President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan. Thinking that the end of the matter had been seen, he was obviously rattled by the re-opening and even plans to have him extradited. Which allegedly led to his death.
Another version of his death, however, blamed it on hypertension, which obviously must have escalated after he got wind of his impending extradition.