Governor Adams Oshiomhole has described the late Director-General of the Centre for Democratic Studies, Professor Omo Omoruyi as an outstanding scholar whose contributions to the political development of the nation is unquantifiable.
Oshiomhole stated this yesterday at the Service of Songs held for the late Omoruyi in his Benin City residence.
According to the Governor “I had known Prof for a long time and at various levels. When I was in the NLC, professor was one of the egg heads in the IBB administration and he was a great thinker some time I was on the other side of him because part of my mandate was to trouble his master.
“At some point we sat across table to discuss about Nigeria, but when many years later I thought of coming back to Edo to seek for this office, Professor Omoruyi was one of the outstanding people I thought I needed to consult.
“He encouraged me and he said Edo is a difficult place and you are also a difficult guy. We will guide you. You know I am not in your party, when you make up your mind, we would support you. He agreed to be the Chairman of my campaign organization, even though we agreed that by age he would not have the physical strength, but we can draw from his wisdom and as you can see I am here and he helped to lay the foundation.
“He was not just involved in campaign, if you spend minutes with professor and in those five minutes professor will forget everything else and he will simply become a lecturer and professor would have something to say about Nigeria and what he wants to do about Edo State”, he said.
Oshiomhole said “one of the things that he did that really touched me was when some people wanted to devalue our politics to ethnic thing professor insisted that the issue was not where you were born, that Edo is one. He said so not in private but publicly.
He declared “Omoruyi made a name for himself, he made himself and even at old age he was humble enough to work with people like me and when I had challenges, he helped to persuade people not to give up on the project because there were difficulties overcoming those godfathers and professor was always there”.
The Service of Songs was also attended by the Deputy Governor, Pius Odubu, the State Executive Council members, top government officials, members of the House of Assembly.
