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By Emman Ovuakporie
It was in November 2007 that I met Chief Edwin Kiagbodo Clark at the Denis Osadebey Government House in Benin City for the first time as a career journalist.
The news just filtered in that the voice of the South South was in government house to visit the then governor of the State, Senator Oserheimhen Osunbor.
We all the then media aides to Governor Osunbor were in a meeting but had to cut the meeting short to see this enigma of a man.
I had always read of him from my primary school days so I had the impression I was going to meet an old man clutching a walking stick.
But to my greatest surprise I met a man standing straighter than us that were still in our late thirties and early forties.
I was forced to ask Dr Tony Ikpasaja then SA Media and Publicity to Osunbor could this be EK Clark? He affirmed it.
As if the former Federal Information Commissioner of the then Yakubu Gowon military administration read my lips.
He asked me to just hazard a guess about his age and I said 60 sir and they all laughed.
Chief Clark looked at me and he said I am 80years old to me it was difficult to believe.
Thereafter the man gave us a brief lecture about the Niger Delta struggle before he was ushered in to see Gov Osunbor.
Spotting a grey safari jacket no visible reading glasses in his breast pocket that afternoon jolted me that a man this age was looking 30years younger than his age was definitely the handiwork of God.
Again, in 2015 I had the opportunity of accompanying Hon Ndudi Elumelu a guber aspirant then eyeing Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan’s job to his house in Abuja.
As a Vanguard correspondent I was among the few journalists that sat with him to break the traditional kola.
Chief Clark again dazzled me as he recalled virtually all Elumelu’s siblings, his mother and facts about his family.
His memory for once was never faltered before he delved into Delta politics and Niger Delta at large.
This politician of so many years experience told the gathering that his state, Delta has established a faultless rotational system without rancour.
This is the position we have taken and it shall remain so unlike some other states in the Niger Delta where power is domiciled in just one zone.
Today, like other Nigerians, Niger Deltans, the Ijaw nation corporate bodies,and other nationalities, we in ThenewsGuru.com, TNG, join to celebrate the encyclopedia of Nigeria’s political anatomy, a trail Blazer in his chosen legal profession, the voice of the South South, a patriot of many parts, an advocate of equity, justice and fairness as he marks 93years on planet Earth.
We wish him more fruitful years of political activism laced with good health.