ODAHIEKWU OGUNDE, Yenagoa
Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri has revealed that the virtue of love towards all practised by his mother, late Mrs Rose Diri, shaped his political philosophy of seeing nobody as his enemy.
Diri disclosed this at Ayamasa, his maternal hometown in Ekeremor Local Government Area of the state during the eighth-year wreath-laying ceremony in honour of his mother.
Madam Diri was born on May 15, 1939 and died on her birthday 74 years later on May 15, 2013.
The governor in a statement on Sunday by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr Daniel Alabrah, said his late mother was the perfect example of the woman and wife captured in Proverbs 31 of the Holy Bible.
He described his mother as a woman that accommodated everyone that came across her while alive and never had any enemy.
According to him, her lifestyle of living without enmity and grudge towards anyone impacted his life greatly.
He said: “My mother had no enemies. That is why as governor, I do not have any enemies because I learnt that from her. She was a woman that I can aptly say was described in Proverbs 31. Our mother was a mother to everybody.
“From here in Ayamasa, she got married and moved with her husband to Sampou. Even in Sampou, she was a mother to everybody. Those who came across her can testify that she took everybody that she saw as my friend, like her own children.
“For those of us she left behind, the only thing I would say is to continue to emulate the standard she left for us.”
Senator Diri, who bemoaned politics of bitterness and blackmail, expressed the hope that his emergence as governor would change the narrative and heal political wounds in the state.