“It is because Nations tend to stupidity
And baseness that mankind moves so slowly,
It is because individuals have a capacity
For better things, that it moves at all”.
George Gissing (1857-1903)
Any individual or Nation that is tenebrously cocooned in the cesspit of communication blackout will metamorphose into a bathophilous organism forgotten by the march of civilization. Hence, the principles of debate, dialogue, verbal phosphorescence and confabulation are fundamentally crucial as indispensable elixir for nation building. Will the Okpe Nation use the National Conference as a pedestal to shout-out its long borne political socio-economic servitude and marginalization albatrosses in Delta State and Nigeria to the world?
The Okpe People arguably constitute the single largest dialectical amalgam amongst the Urhobo ethic group not as part of Urhobo collectivity, but as a dichomised people with a unique identity. In fact, the Okpe People are Urhobos with a slightly tilted dialect. They mainly occupy Sapele and Okpe Local Government Areas in Delta State.
In the light of the Berlin Conference of (1884-1885) that led to the arbitrary delimitation of Nigeria and Africa into puppet states and the 1914 Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates and their protean and multi-dimensional problems, the political engineering process of building a Nigeria where equity and justice reigns has led to many Conferences and Constitutional amendments dialogues.
We believe therefore, that the proposed National Conference should attract the submission of all interest groups in Nigeria and beyond. Hence, the Okpe Nation and its People should not be left out. We therefore make bold to submit these modalities and guidelines to the yet to be constituted “Okpe National Conference Advisory Body and Committee”.
- They should without slips of prolixity call for the creation of an ‘Urhobo State’ with Orerokpe/Osubi as headquarters. This will cardinally precipitate and attract all-embracing development to Urhobo land and to the Okpe Kingdom in particular.
- They should call for a 50% Derivation formula and the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) should be done with soldierly brevity.
- They must assert that the derivation allocation money should be paid to the exact villages, towns and areas where the oil is EXPLORED AND EXPLOITED from. This will forestall unnecessary diversions’ of Derivation monies by State Governments and it will positively checkmate corruption and infrastructure deficit etc in the oil producing areas, especially in the Okpe Oil Producing Areas.
- They should advocate that in the National Conference there should be no- go areas. This will allow for an open discussion of all issues bedeviling and befuddling the Okpe Nation and the Nigerian People.
- They should vociferously clamour for the creation of more Local Government Areas (L.G.A) in Okpe kingdom.
The current Sapele and Okpe Local Government Areas are a shortfall vis-a-vis our numerical superiority and land spans in Delta State. The Economic and Socio-political benefits are immeasurably colossal.
- They must call for all Oil Multinationals to relocate their Headquarters to their local areas of operation. This will positively impact all-embracing growth and development of the areas in which they operate. It will enhance youth employment and checkmate communal restiveness and underdevelopment.
- They must prevail in their memorandum to the Conference Committee to shun skullduggery and ventriloquisms by displaying a high sense of responsibility and concrete integrity through a factual sense and sincerity of purpose. The National dialogue is critically imperative, because Lord Frederick Lugard, the Colonial Governor General was called upon by Lord Harcourt in 1912 to fine tune the logistics for the Amalgamation of the Northern and Southern Protectorates”. Which he perfected in 1914.
He said on page 100 of his book “The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa,” that “To administer such enormous territories as East Africa or Nigeria as single unit, decentralization is more than ever necessary”. He further said that “in the sphere of administration there are obviously many subjects – education, taxation, slavery and labour, native courts, land tenure and so on – in which uniformity and continuity of policy are impossible in so large a country”
He concluded by saying that “in a country so vast, which included communities in all stages of developments and differing from each other profoundly in their customs and traditions, it was the declared policy of government that each unit should develop on its own lines. This report hallmarks the impetrative of the devolution of power to the federating units as panacea to the schismatic and anarchical entropy of political topsy- turvy”.
They must impress on the Advisory Conference Committee that “without equity and justice in Nigeria there can be no peace “. A situation where the Okpe People are crassly marginalized in political appointments, Headship of Boards, Commissionership and Ministerial appointments at Federal and State levels is unacceptable. We have no Federal and State Tertiary Institutions in terms of educational balance, no good roads, no light, no shelter, no viable and functional Medicare infrastructures, no jobs, and no industries etc
They must make a powerful submission that some of our neighbors are fanning the embers of war by gross falsification of history to illegally encroach on Okpe territory and land. That settlers in Okpe land especially those in Sapele, Obotie, Ohorhe, etc have taken over our land and they now constitute an unnecessary irritants to the Okpe people in their own land.
They should impress on the Advisory Body that the total dominance of every sphere of life in Nigeria by the three major ethnic groups to the oppression and neglect of the over 250 ethnic nationalities does not augur well for democracy. The question of security should be squarely addressed and an inter–religious dispute resolution body should be set-up. The equitable and fair distribution of Nigeria’s largesse will serve as catalyst to peace and security.
They must let the Advisory Body know that this is ‘Project Nigeria’ and there should be no room for splendiferous theatricatization of sentiments, parochial self-serving actions and edacious interests. They should agree that the Advisory body is well constituted by the injection of technocrats. But should insist that representation in the conference proper should be along “GEO- POLITICAL ZONES” and intertwined with special Professional Bodies. It is therefore, the duty of the people at that level to pick out and make their choicest hands from their greatest and brave minds adequately briefed by the people from the grassroots which they will go and represent.
The final Reports/Recommendations/Outcomes/Submissions of the Conference Committee proper should be subjected to a REFERENDUM and the Referendum findings handed over to congress to be infused into the constitution after due legal vetting and then made part of “A New People’s Constitution.”
They must strive to ensure that the Okpe people are well and adequately represented in the final ‘Body of People’ that will represent the various Geo- Political Zones/Urhobo ethnic Nationalities. Without adequate representation of the Okpe Nation and its’ People, the conference will be tantamount to a display of behemoth salmagundi, pusillanimous tergiversation, a nonsensical Barmecidal–dish and legerdemain political placebo to the Okpe Nation. Our adequate representation by formidable Okpe sons and daughters of sound mental virtuosity is stupendously crucial.
They must set-up the Okpe Advisory Committee on the National Conference immediately to enable them start consultations in earnest. It must be noted that it is not a forum for corrupt politicians and long standing ne’er do wells that are part of the Okpe problem, but that of ‘human ideas’ dynamo and patriotic Okpe people. The essayist Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in his book “The ladder of saint Augustine” posited that “the heights by great men reached and kept, were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night”.
The Okpe Nation must toil all night to be heard in the apt National Conference. It is once in a life time opportunity for the Okpe People and we must go at it with every muscle and weapon at our disposal. Adam Smith in his book “The Wealth of Nations” asserts that “No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of its members are poor and miserable” the Okpe Nation and its people have been dungeoned in the cesspit of poverty, marginalization, wicked neglect at state and national levels. This is our unique chance to be heard.
We hope the National Conference will not be inconclusive as well as ending unceremoniously. The conference will offer us an opportunity to renegotiate Nigeria according to the will of the people in terms of rights, accruals and priviledges as Nigerians that will cordially help in assuaging inter-religious, ethic-strifes, maximal distrust and parochial mistrust.
The conference must address the question of intolerance among religious/ethnic groups, especially Christians and Muslims. It must guarantee the rights of every Okpe man and may Nigerian to live or settle in any part of the country he or she chooses. Reference to any Okpe person as a settler or non-indigene must be actionable in law court. It is really a shame that Nigerian citizens are still considered to be strangers in their own land even after settling there for over a century.
The Okpe delegates to the conference must vociferously assert that true federalism, human rights enforcement, building strong institutions, enforcement of the rule of law and the issue of Okpe marginalization must be checkmated hook, lime and sinker. Before the Civil war (1967-1970) Nigeria functioned as a true federal country in which all the regions [Northern, Eastern, Western and Mid-West] operated a semi-autochonous system of government which allowed for the regions to have or establish their own police forces, controlled their judicial system and build their own prisons without federal assistance. The Unitary system forced on us by the military dismembered our Federal structures and their influences still subsist on all its ramifications till today.
Finally, let the Okpe Nation show and display sufficient diplomacy, wisdom and perspicuity in dealing with the National dialogue matter because of its importance to us. The Philosopher ‘CONFUCIUS’ said: “For one word, a man is often deemed to be wise, and for one word he is often deemed to be foolish. We should be careful of what we say”. But, if after so much efforts President Goodluck Jonathan and his team decides to make a political mockery of the Okpe people and nay Nigerians he will be told by Nigerians that “You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”.
CHIEF BOBSON GBINIJE
MANDATE AGAINST POVERTY (MAP)
WARRI. 08023250378
