A MUST READ:
AN EXTEMPORE SPEECH DELIVERED BY THE MOST DISTINGUISHED SENATOR MAGNUS NGEI ABE DURING THE FUNERAL SERVICE OF LATE DR VYNCENT ELVIN EEBEE, THE SLAIN APC CHIEFTAIN, AT THE ANGLICAN CHURCH FIELD, YEGHE, GOKANA LGA, ON THE 14TH OF APRIL, 2016.
Protocol.
Ladies and gentlemen, my speech at this solemn gathering will be in three parts.
TO DR. VYNCENT ELVIN EEBEE
First, I will address my friend and my brother, Dr. Vyncent Elvin Eebee, late, who is lying before us today in a wooden casket.
It's the truth of life that ultimately, every man's journey will end. It's also the truth of life that no one can tell how, by what means, and in what circumstances our different journey will end. But it is also a truth that no matter how our journey ends, it is not the fact that our journey has ended that is the news. It is what we make of our journey while we are in the course of the journey that will be our news.
Today, I am proud to stand here as a friend of late Dr. Vyncent Elvin Eebee to say that he was a man who was fearless in words and in action. If he was somebody who was fearful, he probably would be alive today, but his courage that made him to reject evil wherever evil stood; that made it possible for him to stand in front of what is wrong and say to the world "this is wrong" is what made his life to end the time when it ended. So his life ended when God decided it should end, because it was God that gave him the character of courage.
So I salute you my friend Dr. Eebee. You lived a good life. You struggled a great struggle. You stood in the face of evil. You told the truth. You acquired knowledge. You fought for knowledge. You impacted knowledge. You mentored young people. You have tried. Farewell, my friend!
What is left is well for us the living and we will try to carry on from where you stopped.
Tambari( Vyncent's wife) and the children, be proud of the heritage of your husband and the father of your children.
TO THE PEOPLE OF YEGHE COMMUNITY
My second address is to Yeghe community. This is the land of Paul Birabi. It was from here that education became fashionable in Ogoni land. It was Pual Birabi that I grew up to hear that he used to ride his bicycle around Ogoni, forcing children to go to school. Yeghe was a land that understood the value of education, that promoted education, that understood the value of progress in a community. Today, Yeghe is a land where a man who has a Phd will be gunned down on the field of Yeghe and people who have guns will live while those who have Phds will die. That cannot be progress! That cannot be progress!!
That is not the dream that the fathers of this community had. Who are those who have bastardized the vision of this community?
That was my classroom( pointing to a classroom block), that room there. I went to school in that classroom. I grew up in this community, my father lived here. I know this town well. This was a peaceful place. This was a prosperous place. This was a place where everybody would come and feel at home.
Today, they said I could not enter Yeghe, that if I came here today, I would die today. I said I would not die. I would come to Yeghe. I will bury my friend. And those who are doing this will live to regret it, because they are the ones fighting the spirit of the land.
Where is the Chief of Yeghe? Vyncent was a chief here. Was he not? Was he not a chief in Yeghe? So where is the Chief of Yeghe? Why is he not here? This is the kind of community we are breeding here today. Those who are promoting education, we will kill them. Those who are putting children in the bush with guns will become lords of the community. They are the ones that will decide who will live and who will die. But it will not work that way.
I call on the people of this community to take back their destiny. Reclaim your community from the hands of the criminals. Be bold. Be courageous. Nobody can kill everybody, that person does not exist. And nobody is bigger than the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. That person also does not exist. No juju is bigger than God Almighty. That juju also does not exist.
And so all these, by the grace of God, will come to a timely end, and we will live to see it.
TO GOVERNOR NYESOM WIKE
Let me say this to our people and to the Governor of Rivers State. Yesterday he was on radio saying that he has directed the military to go after everybody and bring criminality in the state to a close; and that he knows about every operation that is going on to end criminality. I want to thank him.
Let that not just be words for today. Let it be word backed with action that will be consistent, where we will show that the security of lives and property of Rivers people is more important than politics.
Instead of us to be in office and our women cannot freely go to farm, instead of us to be in office and people of a different political persuasion cannot walk around Bori freely; cannot sit out and drink freely because they belong to a different political party, let us not be in office. Office is not more important than life. The purpose of office is so that we can make life easy for our people. If our being in office makes life difficult, we should give up such office.
I want to appeal to the Governor that his being in office should not lead to a situation where people cannot freely express their opinions, live their lives and pursue their own dreams; because him being a Governor is a dream that he has pursued. These woman who want to go to their farms, the children who want to go to school, Dr Vyncent Eebee who wanted to build a house and support the church; they all have their own dreams, and they should be allowed to pursue their dreams in peace.
For Yeghe again, this is not the first time we are gathering like this because the life of someone has been cut short in the middle. We gathered like this for Clement Faa. We gathered for Pius Gbarazia. Tomorrow, we will gather for Barieenee Court. Pappy Koryene is missing, he has not been found. Chief Moses Gbaranor has not been found. Nwinoryaa Gor has not been found. The Town Crier of this community I hear is also dead in similar circumstances. These are just the names I have for one community.
Statistically, what is happening in Yeghe is a statistical impossibility. Out of a population of how many, that how many people will be killed by gun fire? Check it, there is no other community at this point that these number of people have been killed by guns out of a population. What is their crime? What is the crime of all these people that cannot live their lives in this community? There must be change here!
I want to say to all of us, what is happening in Ogoni today is nothing but sponsored genocide. We know who the sponsors are. We know who the perpetrators are. And we all know that they will not get away with it, not because of the power of man, but because there is God in heaven.
One day be one day! One day be one day!! One day be one day!!! Those who are doing this, by the grace of God, will live in fear and torment. It will happen. I am saying it on this field because this is where Vyncent Eebee was killed. And this same community will one day rise to honour Dr. Vyncent Elvin Eebee as a symbol of light in this village. It will happen.
So I want to thank those who have come here today to honour our friend and brother. I particularly want to thank Dr. Dakuku Adol Peterside. We didn't just come into Yeghe, we walked into Yeghe. And if we want to walk around, we will. This is part of Nigeria. This is part of Ogoni, and I am a son of Ogoni land. Nobody will intimidate us from what is right.
If Vyncent did not succumb to fear, we will not succumb to fear. I thank all of you that came here today. They said we would not have up to one hundred persons here. We have more than a thousand people.
God will honour us. God will honour our quest for peace, progress and prosperity in this land. God will take away evil from Ogoni land, because there is God in heaven.
I thank you all.
