ROYAL TRIBUTE TO HIS EXCELLENCY CHIEF RUFUS ADA GEORGE

A ROYAL TRIBUTE TO HIS EXCELLENCY CHIEF RUFUS ADA GEORGE, PERI PELEBO OF KIRIKE BE SE, ON HIS BIRTHDAY 

Your Excellency,

Former Governor of Rivers State,

Peri Pelebo of Kirike Be Se,

Elder Statesman of the Pan Niger Delta Elders Forum,

Chairman, Rivers State Elders Forum,

It is with profound respect and sobriety that I join your family, the Rivers people, and the broader Niger Delta intelligentsia in celebrating this significant milestone in your distinguished life.

History records leaders in categories: the transient, the transactional, and the transformational. You belong unequivocally to the third. Your political life has transcended the ephemerality of office to occupy a moral space within the soul of our State and Nation. You governed not merely with administrative precision but with moral clarity, fiscal discipline, and infrastructural foresight. The brevity of your tenure did not limit the depth of your legacy. It accentuated it.

As the Governor of the old Rivers State, a geopolitical expanse now delineated into Rivers and Bayelsa, you initiated the first building blocks of structured road planning and urban development with admirable intentionality. What you began, others inherited, but none have equaled your blend of vision and incorruptibility. In a nation often weary from leadership fatigue, you emerged as a rare embodiment of public accountability.

Your post-office statesmanship has further amplified your place in national history. As Chairman of the Rivers State Elders Forum, your counsel remains sought after, not for political expediency, but for the wisdom distilled from experience, age, and principle. Within the Pan Niger Delta Elders Forum, you have functioned not just as a regional voice but as a moral compass articulating the collective aspirations of our people with nuance, decorum, and statesmanly gravitas.

The Kirike Kingdom remains deeply honoured to count you among its foremost sons. Your title as Peri Pelebo of Kirike Be Se is not ceremonial alone; it is the crown upon a life of consequence, a symbolic acknowledgment of your cultural, intellectual, and ancestral distinction. You are a bridge between eras; between the valor of our ancestors and the promise of our emerging leaders.

On this momentous birthday, I offer royal blessings and reflections:

May your wisdom remain a lighthouse, guiding future leaders away from the shoals of opportunism toward the shores of nation-building.

May your health be continually renewed, as your days advance in nobility and grace.

May the God of History preserve you as a living archive, a repository of truth, prudence, and patriotic sacrifice.

And may you continue to be an instructor of statesmanship, mentoring the younger generation not by coercion but by the compelling force of your own example.

As I salute your life of principle and purpose, I echo the eternal words of Cicero: “The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.” But in your case, you live not just in memory, but in motion, your legacy pulsing through our institutions, our roads, our forums, and our conscience.

Happy Birthday, Elder Statesman. The nation salutes. Kirike celebrates. History affirms.

With profound royal esteem and homage,

His Royal Highness, King Air Commodore (Rtd) Tamuno-Omisiki Emmanuel Opuiyo Ogube, JP, DSS, MSS FSS fdc, MSc MBA FCNA 

Ogube I, Perekune Kingoli I, Opuda I, Opu-Ambura I, Opu-Chuukuu I,

Amanyanabo and Supreme Monarch of Kirike Kingdom