Bayelsa State Deputy Governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, passed on yesterday after collapsing in his office in Yenagoa.
Ewhrudjakpo was said to have slumped around 1:30 p.m. while descending a staircase shortly after a meeting. He was immediately taken to the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Yenagoa.
Hospital sources disclosed that he arrived unconscious and was moved to the Emergency Unit before being transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and efforts to revive him failed.
His media aide, Doubara Atasi, confirmed the incident but did not provide further details.
Sympathizers stormed the hospital in large numbers after the news broke, forcing security personnel to tighten control around the facility.
Ewhrudjakpo was born on September 5, 1965. He had served as deputy governor since 2020, represented Bayelsa West in the Senate, and previously held the position of Commissioner for Works.
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary Ini Ememobong confirmed the demise of the deputy governor, which it described as inexplicable.
Senator Ewhurudjakpo, 60, an associate of Senator Seriake Dickson, was one of the elected officials, who insisted on remaining in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and refused to defect with Governor Duoye Diri to the All Progressives Congress, APC, recently.
Ewhrudjakpo, once a close political ally of Governor Diri, reportedly fell out with his principal after refusing to follow him in resigning from the PDP on October 15.
Ewhrudjakpo, a key figure in the Seriake Dickson administration, where he served as Commissioner for Works between 2012 and 2019 before he was elected senator for Bayelsa West, had maintained a cordial relationship with Diri throughout their first term and early in their second.
Although Diri insisted that no one would be pressured to defect to the APC, there were plots to impeach Ewhurudjakpo in the House of Assembly. In response, the late deputy governor sued the Assembly over alleged plots to impeach him. The Federal High Court in Abuja, on October 27 restrained the Assembly from proceeding with the impeachment move.
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