By Bobson Gbinije
“If you shut up truth and bury it under the ground,
It will but grow, and gather to itself such explosive power
That the day it burst through, it will blow up everything in its way.”
– EMILE ZOLA (1840 – 1924)
Any collectivity’s edenic illusions of their apocalyptic imagination will expressly reflect signpost of somersaults and reversals, lending credence to the claims of intravenous incapability for good initiative. This will definitely forestall prodigal finery and transformative potency. Is this the case of the Okpe people vis-à-vis gross under development, political slavery and the Machiavellian manipulations of 2015?
The Okpes, by way of the demographic statistics recorded in the 1962, 1963, 1973 and 1991 census show that the Okpes constitute the single largest ethnic group not only as Urhobos, but as a unique dialectical amalgam in the present delta state. The Okpe kingdom in terms of geographical spread covers a total area of about 550 square miles with its boundaries co-terminating with the Uvwie kingdom, Ughelli kingdom, Benin kingdom etc. it’s longitudinal and latitudinal extremes are delineated axially.
The Okpe kingdom is rich in mineral resources, cash crops and commercial wares. It’s most viable endowment is in oil and gas, fertile and arable land, rivers, timber and rubber. Some of its major towns are Sapele, Orerokpe, Okobia, Adeje, Elume, Ughoton, Amukpe, Aghalokpe, Evwriyen and Jeddo. The Okpes have four ruling house (Adane Okpe), namely Esezi, Ebvreke, Orhoro and Orhue. Okpes have two local government councils – Sapele and Okpe Local Government Areas.
Politically, the Okpes have always been instrumental in the victory of the ruling parties. In 1954 – 1959, Okpes voted and pitched their political tents with the National Congress of Nigeria Citizens, in 1979 – 83 they voted for the National Party of Nigeria, in the Babangida and Abacha phantom transition programme they voted for the Social Democratic Party and in the 1991 Abdusalam Abubakar-conducted elections they voted for the Peoples Democratic Party, in the Olusegun Obasanjo, Musa Yar’Adua and Goodluck Ebele Jonathan era they also pitched their political tent with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). At Delta State level, the Okpes have always voted for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). But, in all of these the Okpes have nothing to show. They have been voting for nothing. This is why the Okpes are still gyrating in the crypts and concentric cycle of gross under-development, poverty, crass marginalization, oppression and horrendous neglect etc.
In the present political dispensation Okpes are totally cocooned and barricaded from the realms of governance. The Governor, the Deputy Governor, the Speaker, Deputy Speaker, Special Legislative, Special Judicial, Board Membership and Commissionership positions are completely out of their reach. We had one commissioner for special slavery that has now been changed to Commissioner for Powerlessness and De-energization. What an administrative circuitous peripatetic escapades by political troubadours. This buffoonery and political circus must be extirpated not only from grassroots level, but from root hair base to tree top heights.
In the light of the aforesaid, the question arises, where do we go from here? With all our demographic numerical superiority, our oil producing area status, our human resources and our large spans of arable land the Okpe nation still stew in the labyrinth of monumental neglect. The late Esezi II the Orodje of Okpe kingdom used to say that “the pot which is prepared to lick the soup must be prepared to endure the heat of the fire”. It is high time we started perfecting strategies, fine-tuning logistics and orchestrating actions towards facing the future, mastering the present and managing the unpredictable as it relates to the growth and development of the Okpe Nation.
One must however mention that the dynamics of development in a heterogeneous society entails the survivalist Credo, because of the multi-dimensional interest competing for the limited available resources. This is peculiarly so in a country like Nigeria whose political economy has been chequered in the past 54 years of independence. And every new government initiates a new economic, social and political programme. This state of discontinuity, policy tergiversation and developmental Babel has precipitated centrifugal proclivities reflected in a latent desire of the individual, Nigerian communities, tribal groups and various interest to develop themselves through diplomatic influencing of government policies and community efforts. A state of survival of the fittest becomes renascent. But what are the Okpes doing about this?
When he was being awarded the Noble prize for peace in 1986, Elie Weisel, a Jewish holocaust survivor of Hungarian descent, drew from the store of history and wisdom to pass a very salient message to human kind. He said “The opposite of love is not hate, its indifference, the opposite of art is not ugliness, its indifference, the opposite of faith is not heresy, its indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, its indifference. There are times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor never the tormented.” The Okpe leadership, especially our politicians are completely lugubrious and indifferent to the development of Okpe land and its people.
The economic, socio-political doldrums into which the Okpes are oublietted was highlighted in the address by his Royal Majesty, ORHORO I, J.P. THE LATE ORDJE OF OKPE KINGDOM ON THE 12TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS COROATION AND LAUMCHING OF A N2M (TWO MILLION NAIRA) OKPE SELF HELP DEVELOPMENT FUND AT OREROKPE ON 29TH DECEMBER, 1984. He said, “it should however be noted that we have not yet come to the end of the road. We have a lot to do in terms of the provision of infrastructures and other social amenities in order to make life more meaningful for our people. As at now, many of our people still depend on well-water, where pipe borne water, or at least boreholes can be provided. Many feeder roads need to be provided in many areas in order to assist our farmers and to make it convenient for them to bring in their foodstuffs to the various markets, while existing roads need to be maintained. As for rural electricity, it’s still a luxury.” The Okpes need total political liberation in the year 2015.
Now, that the near 2015 election is around the corner, individuals and communities are locked in constructive dialogue on the way forward for their various communities and interest. Wither goeth the Okpes? The Okpe Union which is a Pan Okpe political, social-cultural avant gardistic organization for over 70 years, the Orodje of Okpe, Odogun Okpe and other Okpe organizations must get together now and prepare an Okpe political agenda for the year 2015(A kind of Okpe National Conference). The period of political junketing and salaciousness by our so-called elected representatives at all politically echelonised levels – Counselors, Local Government Chairmen, Senators, House of Representative etc. must stop. There must be a call to order by the Okpe people, otherwise this wanton steeple chasing down the precipitous abyss of the political epicenter will attain an Armageddon-like proportion.
We are tired of voting for nothing and we must assert ourselves in the scheme of things by positive action shunning the tentacles of indifference. By “POSITIVE ACTION” we mean the adoption of all legitimate and constitutional means by which we can cripple the cancerous and octopoidal asphyxiation and strangulating hold of poverty, disease, neglect, gross marginalization and their sponsors. The weapon of positive action are legitimate political agitation, newspaper, radio, television and campaigns, based on the principles of absolute non-violence. It will sponsor the cardinal pronouncemiento and renaissance of the Okpe people.
The previous Okpe National Conference (ONC) and its subsequent communique have turned out to be threnody of sort, as nothing in the communique has been implemented till date. It is now a platitudinous fact that the Okpe National Conference was a frivolous jamboree. The fact that of the Ten Wards in Sapele only three is occupied by Okpes does not seem to trouble their sponsors, that the House of Representative candidates defeated our Okpe candidates etc does not seem to border our Okpe leaders. The fact that no Okpe person is in strategic economic and political position in government does not trouble them. How can we explain how we came to throw away what is supposed to be palpably ours by birth and right? How come that nor-Okpes dominate the Counsellorships and ward politics in sapele? We must put an end to this labour of Sisyphus.
In Greek mythology, a crafty, greedy king of Corinth, condemned in Hades forever to roll uphill a huge stone that always rolled down again – this is eternal and perpetual slavish political labour which the Okpe people are currently experiencing. A state of pandemonium, a carnival of nocturnal political vermins, a bazaar of political zombies and vampires, a school of panjandrum and jesters who claim to know all, but indeed know nothing. Nobody is willing to listen, but all wants to talk at the same time. Babbling and murmuring is their only vehicle of communication making its topsy-turvydom worse than that in the Portuguese parliament. Okpes must shun the labour of Sisyphus. Let’s begin to talk and to listen. The 2015 elections are around the corner. Wither goeth the Okpes?
Chief Bobson Gbinije
Mandate Against Poverty (MAP)
WARRI. 08023250378
