The October 1 bombings in Abuja raise several issues. In this report, OLAMILEKAN LARTEY delves into the man in the eyes of the storm, Henry Okah. Ordinarily if one is to assess Amassoma in Bayelsa State, by any standard, the rusty town might have no reckoning in the league of prominent towns in Nigeria.
However, its status as a university town; the birth place of a former governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Deprieye Alamieyesigha; and also the home town of the mother of controversial leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, Mr. Henry Okah, has thrown up Amassoma as a point of reference in Nigeria and beyond.
Tucked away by a derelict building on the track that leads to the jetty and water front is an unmarked spot a prominent indigene of the town pointed out as the family compound and grave of Henry Okah’s mother or grandmother. To the Nigerian government, Okah, 45, may be a villain, a rebel without a cause, but to the several young men who are trapped in the poverty of the university town, Okah is a hero, an activist, a freedom fighter. Until Alamieyeseigha established the flourishing university, and linked it with a bridge to the mainland, Amassoma was inaccessible; it was a deserted island to nowhere. It is doubtful if Okah ever visited Amassoma as a young man. But his brother, Charles, had recalled that the first time they went to the rustic fishing village was when their mother died. Henry, he said, must have been about 19 years old then.
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