By Tony Afejuku

Indigenes and citizens of Oboghoro, like those of more than several Itsekiris who inhabit their rural and riverine communities, deserve all the adornments of a reasonably good, healthy life to which at best they have meagre (or even less than meagre) access. This was one long thought that entered my mind and stayed there for a pleasantly long time after I persuaded myself to cruise there before the Christmas that has just passed. As a matter of fact, time after time, the details of the wealth of Oboghoro-land are encouraging and nourishing to the loyal joy of every true Itsekiri patriot – even though in the distant past what there is now in Oboghoro was not what was there.

Where is Oboghoro? It is an important Itsekiri Royal Community in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta State. It can only be reached through the sea and rivers in the Kingdom of Warri. Itsekiri history has it that the town was founded by Crown Prince Ijala at about 1740 AD at the heels of moral disapprobation – which envy and jealousy engendered. This very tiny bit of its coming into being – or of what led to the founding of the town after Prince Ijala departed Ale-Iwere for the reason already stated should satisfy the curiosity of those who are knowing or hearing about Oboghoro for the first time.

Geographically speaking, Oboghoro is located as an island in the egregious sea which inhabits the vast majority of Itsekiris, the denizens of the magnificently wealthy Kingdom of Warri. But as egregious as the sea has been from timeless time, the Itsekiri people, universally acknowledged as a people, an ethnic minority of quintessential intelligence, have very successfully learnt how to still the sea (and rivers) and tame their marshy land to their advantage.

With respect to Oboghoro of Ijala in particular I am not hesitating to quote with pleasurable pleasure for this column’s teeming readers the following truthful and factual historical and geographical remark of acute commercial and economic significance: “The historical truism that Oboghoro was the emporium and commercial gateway to the Benin River was evidenced by the presence, in the days of yore, of companies like Harris & Co, Douglas Stewart, Millers Brothers, James Pinnock &Messrs Horsfall. In the course of the development of the New Face of Oboghoro, Mass of Coins, which were the currencies used in legal tenders in the pre- and post-colonial eras were unearthed at the Oboghoro River bank, where the merchants were berthing their boats,…”

Of course, things have since changed for the people of Oboghoro and descendants of Ijala. But they are determined, very determined, that their very rich and wealthy land must regain all that they have seemingly lost to the vagaries of Nigerian political independence that brought to the fore over the years the wrong species who to all intents and purposes are not – and cannot be – stars of the people and of their respective communities.

Ceaselessly, I was regaled with positive stories of some Oboghoro people, and the general “Ijala descendants who intersperse several communities spanning across Warri north, Ethiope west, Okpe Local Government Area of Delta State, the Ikara of Edo State, as well as Ondo State” who by a variety of means are loyally and patriotically committed to tilting the moral economy of the land at the favour of all. The destiny of Oboghoro of the modern time is the destiny that should follow the shape of Dubai.

“That must be the new vision.” I recall vividly an indigene of Oboghoro telling me this sometime in August of our rotten 2024 – well before the thought of visiting the popular Itsekiri town visited me. But different feelings of antagonism welled from different places of my portion as a human being and a Prince of Warri: can Dubai visit Oboghoro from the United Arab Emirates? Will powerful elites from within and outside our land, and from within and outside our Niger Delta territory out of envy and jealousy allow this to happen? Will the parvenu personalities and personages about town not feel threatened and encourage and nourish and nurse “skepticism about the legitimacy of personalities” that would push them aside?

On Thursday, 19 December, 2024 when I boarded the speedboat in the company of my usher/conductor mandated by my chief host at Oboghoro to bring me there unfailingly, the above sensations glaringly articulated themselves in me. Our cruise started from Sapele in the bright cool morning.

When my usher conducting me to Oboghoro wanted to know what was going on in my mind, I simply answered that we were not cruising in Tinubu-like yacht! My conductor, a very intelligent and seasoned Barrister-at-Law, replied me with a healthy guffaw! Some of the other persons who were in our speedboat shared my sentiment jocularly, but seriously when they were in the know of what transpired between us.

I went further: why did the president not grant Warri Kingdom (and the Niger Delta including Ilaje-land) the privilege to utilise the stupendous amount of money gotten from us to develop our land? Or is the money not ours? And must we as a minority people continue to languish in pain and penury because we don’t have the power and privilege that the majority groups who have the power and privilege have?

Must we continue to suffer in this country that is wickedly skewed against us, and that is divided between the haves and the have-nots who are the natural and providential owners of their natural wealth? And what does Tinubu really need a yacht for? We deserve more – we the less given owners of our natural wealth.

As we cruised to Oboghoro I could see in the expansively expansive mass of water and the green vegetation all about us the true meaning of being a riverine or water people. The longitude and latitude of the mass of water rendered me speechlessly speech-less. For well over several decades I have been an absentee waterman, an absentee riverine denizen – not any longer beginning from Thursday, 19 December, I promised – and still promise.

We arrived at Oboghoro before Atuwatse 111, CFR, whose visit climaxed and terminated the end of the activities that the Oboghoro community partook in for three months continuously at Atuwatse 111’s palace in Warri. The Warri ceremony was Ghigho Aghofen (“which is a ceremonial watch-keeping of the Olu’s palace by communities within” the domain of Atuwatse 111, whose vision for Itsekiris and Warri Kingdom is the vision of visions).

I don’t wish to dwell extensively on the events at Oboghoro on the said 19 December (and other days up to 24 December) for strategic reasons which the columnist is chest-keeping.

After the series of cultural dances by different ethnic groups that graced the occasion in the spirit of harmony, I went on physical communion with Oboghoro the Dubai of Itsekiris in the making.

Our host-in-chief, Dr. Godwin Ebosa, a man I perceive, rightly or wrongly, as one person and personage of few words born to stardom but prefers to be effaceable, was in his element of elements. He clearly is on a very firm ground in Oboghoro where he and his team patriotically conceive for the town its current picture and what it is going to be in the future that is the future.

The personalities and personages from different walks of life that were guests at Oboghoro were personalities and personages indeed, but I must skip their names and identities – minus Chief Brown Mene who gave us the Olu’s words that marked the greatly forward-looking monarch of monarchs’ super Royal attributes. My boyhood chum, the ever radiant Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor and his elder sister Chief Yemi were equally present as a son and daughter respectively of Oboghoro. It was something that was more than something for us to meet and see again after centuries!

I left Oboghoro “the Dubai of Itsekiris” in high spirits and with fond memories. I shall return.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.

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