Olu of Warri

WOMAN activist and Itsekiri leader, Chief Rita Lori Ogbebor, has enjoined Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan to honour the Olu of Warri by building and naming some schools after him.
Speaking against the backdrop of the land dispute between Delta State Government and the Okere Community in Warri, she deplored an alleged attempt by the Uduaghan administration to name the school on the controversial land after the Olu.
Ogbebor said Uduaghan should emulate his cousin and predecessor, James Ibori, who built a secondary school, a polytechnic, a university and a teaching hospital in his village (Oghara).
The government and the community are locked in a legal battle over a landed property, which the Itsekiri pleaded to be spared for their cultural centre but the authorities prefer the site for a model school project.
Ogbebor, in an open letter on Wednesday, alleged that the attempt to name the school built by the government on the disputed land was a calculated ploy to blackmail the Okere people, who have been resolutely united in the legal fight for justice. She warned that naming the school after the Olu would make it an open sore that would continue to hurt the Okere people.
Part of the letter reads: “May you live long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee. It is 5 O’clock in the morning, after soul searching throughout the night, I have decided for the good of the Itsekiri land to write this open letter to you because: The matter between the Okere people and the Delta State (Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan, an Itsekiri man) is now a public matter, we are in court and everybody is interested and waiting for an answer.
“All Itsekiris hold the Olu and the palace very sacred. I was installed as your Chief on April 22, 1989, roughly 24 years ago. All Itsekiris know that I hold the institution of the palace very dearly. I have served my people. I am therefore pained to know and see the institution being dragged in the mud by a dirty, messy, selfish case that is now before the court of law. Your name, which spells hope, justice and fairplay is being hung on a controversial school which the Okere people will always look upon with great pain from generation to generation. It is like a sore on the face which one sees in the mirror every day. It is a matter the Okere people will fight from generation to generation.”