Late Ewhrudjakpo Ensured Our Firm’s Good Relationship With Bayelsa Govt, Says Renaissance

Oil and gas firm, Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited, has eulogised the late Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, narrating how he supported and facilitated the company’s operations in the state.

The company’s Vice President, Relations and Sustainable Development, Dr. Igo Weli, who spoke on Monday when he led a management team to commiserate with Governor Douye Diri and the Ewhrudjakpo family at the Government House, Yenagoa, said the company has had the best of relationship and support from the state government due to the governor’s excellent team that the late deputy headed.

Dr. Weli described Ewhrudjakpo as a

pillar of support and a friend who stood on behalf of government in support of the firm's operations.

He noted that although Ewhrudjakpo lived 60 years, his achievements were impactful.

His words: "I have always said that we get the best of support as a company from the government of Bayelsa State. Your Excellency has put together an excellent team and the departed deputy governor was a core member of that team.

"It is not about how long one lived but how well that matters. Ewhrudjakpo lived 60 years but one who lived double that number of years would never be able to achieve what he did."

Weli also pledged the company's support to the funeral programme to give the departed deputy governor a befitting farewell.

Renaissance Africa Energy Company Limited is an indigenous oil firm that acquired Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC).

Responding, Governor Douye Diri thanked the company’s management team for the visit.

He said Bayelsa did not only lose a deputy governor but that he also lost a friend and brother and one that was part of the state’s engine of governance.

He said: "Ewhrudjakpo’s impact and legacies would continue to speak for him. He was part and parcel of our engine of government and the reasons are not far-fetched.

“Looking back at the way we emerged as governor and deputy, we went through what I have always described as the wilderness experience. We stood by each other, we prayed and fasted together.

“This was one of the reasons I related with him differently, not really as a deputy governor. Today, he is no more but that is what life is."

The four-day obsequies of the late Bayelsa deputy governor begin on Tuesday, January 27, and his remains will be interred at his hometown, Ofoni, in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state on Friday, January 30.