Urhobo Historical Society
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A Reply To Professor Itse Sagay's Claims on Warri
"The Urhobo Are Not Expansionists"
By Victor Ak' Denla
Vanguard, Sunday, May 25, 2003
ORDINARILY, one would have thought Prof. Itsey Sagay would not be
involved in such controversy as the issue of Warri ownership. The
professor has done so much for the resource control battle to the envy of
those of us who are youths from this neglected part of the country.
However,
his article in the Sunday Vanguard of May 11
stopped short of the truth expected of him. One is really disappointed in
the manner he tackled the issue of political control of the Warri area. If
the professor had been objective in his handling of issues one would have
kept quiet knowing full well that the professor, a respected lawyer and
distinguished academic, is capable of handling such matters objectively.
While he has listed the rights of the Itsekiris without telling his
Itsekiris kith the home truth, one becomes suspicious of his motives.
The Ijaws could rightly be blamed in their sacking of various Itsekiri
villages but adducing the same to the Urhobos is unfair of the professor.
The Urhobos have never sacked Itsekiri villages, they have never gone
beyond the Warri Township to go and attack the Itsekiris in their villages
and as such have no territorial ambition. Calling the Urhobos settlers in
their natural homeland of Warri is nothing but mischievous. The Urhobos
have never contended with the Itsekiris as to the ownership of their
portion of Warri Township while the Itsekiris have done everything to
dispossess the Urhobos of their land.
I wonder what informed the professor that the Itsekiris who traded with
the British were in control of Warri or the Itsekiri areas of Warri. Did
the Nanas and Numas fight a war of conquest to annex the Urhobo areas of
Warri? The Urhobo have never contended that the Itsekiris are not the
owners of their portion of Okere, neither have they fought the Itsekiris
to control Ode Itsekiri. They (the Itsekiris) have fought the Urhobos for
political control of the Warri area. That control did not come until the
late Obafemi Awolowo decided that the Urhobos of the area must come under
the Olu of Itsekiri. History has nothing like the Warri kingdom, rather
there was the Itsekiri kingdom presided over by the Olu of Itsekiri.
The professor one would have expected should be fearless in speaking the
truth and call a spade a spade has done the contrary. The Warri area of
today is a name from the township, which was not exclusively Itsekiri
territory. If the Itsekiris want to control the entire area, no one is
stopping them. The fact is that they should not think that every other
people must slave for them like the Urhobos did in the era of the British
when they lied that the Urhobos were their slaves while trading in items
sold to them by the Urhobos. Historically, the township was never part of
the Itsekiri kingdom, those areas inhabited by the Urhobos were never part
of the Itsekiri kingdom. The Urhobos had settled in them long before the
Itsekiris came. The Itsekiris originally were settled in Ode Itsekiri from
where they began to expand to other areas and were granted spaces by the
Urhobos. Coming centuries later to lay claim to areas not belonging to
them is an affront to the settlers who had taken the Itsekiris as brothers
for long.
The Itsekiris due to their political connection had used political power
to lay claims to Warri Township through Chief Obafemi Awolowo. The
professor should acknowledge this fact. The Warri problem is one requiring
political solution because it is a political problem. The Europeans did
not trade with the Numas and the Nanas as the rulers of a Warri kingdom
(which never existed, neither were these acknowledged as the rulers of a
Warri Kingdom encompassing both the Urhobo and Ijaw portions) but as
middlemen. It is also a fact that they traded with the Urhobos not as
their rulers but as trusted businessmen. The title "Olu of Warri" is only
a contraption of Chief Obafemi Awolowo who in 1952 approved such. The
Itsekiri traditional ruler who hitherto knew nothing of the Warri main
town suddenly became a resident of the area, packing away from the
traditional Ode-Itsekiri home of the Itsekiris. This was the beginning of
several legal battles between the Urhobos and the Itsekiris. The professor
should know that more than the Urhobos, the Itsekiris have been more
ambitious in annexing the land of the Urhobos.
This could be seen in their claim to Ugbolokposo in Uvwie, the clash
between the Itsekiris and the Ekpan people over the ownership of the
refinery site in Ekpan and their spurious claims to Urhobo portions of
Warri. The Urhobos were no tenants of the Itsekiris, even common sense
should spell out the fact that if Ode-Itsekiri is the homeland of the
Itsekiris, then they are the group requiring of land for expansion and it
is this expansionist ambition that has led them to Urhobo land.
The Urhobos who had in the time past seen no harm in living with the
Itsekiris began to view with suspicion the role the Itsekiris played in
aiding the white man into the Niger Delta. While the Urhobos had often
regarded the Itsekiris as brothers, the Itsekiris to the contrary had seen
the Urhobo man as his slave. This age long deception in the attitude of
the Itsekiri man culminated in arm twisting Chief Obafemi Awolowo into
proclaiming the Olu the overlord of the Warri province.
One hopes that the professor is aware of the fact that Warri province was
not the same as Itsekiri kingdom. So who is politically ambitious. Or
should the name of the local governments harbouring the Itsekiris be
changed to Itsekiri North, Itsekiri South West and whatever to reflect the
political ambition of the Itsekiris? In the matter of ethnic cleansing,
the professor should not have joined the Urhobos in the matter because it
is not true that the Urhobos are after the Itsekiris. If the professor
visits Warri after a major crisis, I challenge him to often quantify the
losses in term of Itsekiri and Urhobo areas. The Urhobos have borne
greater losses to their properties than did the Itsekiris who initiated
the act of property destruction in their quarrel with the Urhobos after
their first brush with the Ijaws. A visit to Warri will convince the
professor that the Itsekiris have been more vicious in their attack of the
Urhobos than the other way. Urhobos have never opposed the right of the
Itsekiris to self determination but the Itsekiris had gone as far as
denying the Urhobos their right in Warri.
Perhaps, the professor needs a graphic definition of Warri to understand
that the Urhobos have never gone beyond the town of Warri to attack the
Itsekiris. Warri Township, the professor must admit, is made up of about
60 per cent Urhobo territories that the Itsekiris had sought to annex.
Indigenous People
The Urhobos had never contended Ode-Itsekiri with them nor have they
contended with them for Escravos or Koko and all other Itsekiri villages.
Itsekiris are not the indigenous people of Warri Township, they met the
Urhobos there and should therefore respect the right of the Urhobos to
live in their own homeland. As it is, the Urhobos are the minority group
in one of the three local government areas where they have been lumped
with the Itsekiris. Yet, the Itsekiris had opposed their right to agitate
for separate local government while not asking that any of the Itsekiri
territories be included in the local government.
The Urhobos have never sought to colonise the Itsekiris, rather, it is the
Itsekiris that had sought by all means to colonise the Urhobos by all
subtle and clandestine means. The fact that the Urhobos are in control of
some local governments does not mean that where they are in minority in
their indigenous homeland, they should not agitate for liberation from the
imperial ambition of the Itsekiris. It is obvious that it is the Itsekiris
who have ambition to take over the political control of Warri. Indeed, the
professor goofed, matters of history should have been thought to us by
people like Professor Obaro Ikime. The Agbarha, Agbassa, Ogunu, Okere
Urhobo, Ekurede Urhobo areas of Warri were never part of the Itsekiri
kingdom yet it is the Itsekiris that have sought to colonize these areas
and some other Urhobo lands.
Does the fact that the Europeans traded with the Numas and Nanas make the
Itsekiris the owners of Urhobo lands? If the professor agrees that it
indeed means that the Itsekiri own the area, we will then be right to say
that the Royal Niger Company own the entire Niger Delta and indeed the
entire Nigeria because they were the sole agents of the imperial
government of Britain.
Or is the professor saying these were holding the Urhobo territories in
trust for their Olu as well? Even then, in what items did the Europeans
trade with these Itsekiri middlemen? Did the Itsekiris produce these items
or they bought them from the Urhobos while they later went to the white
man to lie that the items were from their slave camps? Such is the trust
of the Urhobos on the Itsekiris who spared no remorse in betraying such
trust.
The professor should tell the others whose land the Itsekiris had sought
to annex to remove Warri from the name of their areas so that the
Itsekiris can have the exclusive right to the name. He should check
history again to see if there was anything like Olu of Warri or Olu of
Itsekiri, Warri Kingdom or Itsekiri kingdom, if there was ever a Warri
that was the capital of such Itsekiris of Warri Kingdom. The fact is that
to resolve the crisis in the Warri area, a bold step must be taken and it
does not matter who is hurt at the end of the day. Be he a royal father, a
titled chief or a political office holder, the right approach is to go
back into history and invoke a political solution. It was the politics of
Itsekiris and the Action Group that brought about the Warri crisis so it
is requiring a political solution.
The Itsekiri problem and ego is the same with Nigeria, where all have been
made to live together by force without respect for their consenting right.
This is why, the nation must also recognize the fact that we need a
sovereign national conference to right the wrongs of amalgamation and the
partitioning of Africa by the Europeans.
•Mr Ak’Denila is a former students’ leader, a writer,a
producer, and coordinator of Movement for Non-Violent Conflict
Resolution.