Warri Federal Constituency: Let the Itsekiris be…

By Ese Akpojete

In the Seventies and Eighties, all Co- students in the University of life, especially in Warri, lived harmoniously without blemish. The blending with each other was Superb. Nobody cared to know where you came from or who your parents were. Inorder words both the rich and the poor co- existed without forms of hindrances.

The City “WARRI” was known throughout the length and breadth of the Country. Companies in the Oil rich town were thrieving, and unemployment was alien to the folks of Warri. The town was Cosmopolitan. The major tribes were the Itsekiris, Ijaws, Isokos and the Urhobos, with other tribes like the Ibos and the yorubas et al.

Warri happens to be one of the few Cash Cows that feeds the Wheels of the nation, Nigeria.

Yet, the Citizens up-till date Lives in abject poverty. This Write-up is not to stir the people against each other but to let this generation of Wafarians Know that Once upon a time, We Lived happily together in harmony.

At this present age and time where everyone is doing everything possible, to put food on the table in the home front, why must we ever think of fighting one another, if ever, we have such thoughts. Life is too short! It was Abraham Lincoln who said “It is not the years in Your Life that Counts. It is the Life in your years. What a truism?

Our parents and grandparents who witnessed what Warri used to be, should endeavour to tell their wards, how brotherly we lived in the town, Warri. They should tell them, stories of the good old days when “Men were boys”, and the goings on, around the City. The unfortunate Fratricidal war of the past between the jaws and the Itsekiris should never again steer its ugly heads.

My closest friends happen to be the Ijaws of yore. That fight, attributed to the deaths of some Loveable Friends on both sides of the divide. “ENOUGH IS A ENOUGH! That war, took away lives that we would never see again in life until we depart mother earth. We have inevitably come a long way with each other, watching over our backs. The cost of living in our present day, Nigeria is so astronomical, that one should never indulge in such absurdity of fighting each other now or in the future.

No ethnic group is more relevant to the other in the scheme of things of this country. Our preoccupation for now, is to think of how to send our children to very good and excellent schools and to take them further to whatever level they wish to attain. This is because; illiteracy is a sin and a curse. I doubt, if ever, I have seen educated men and women with genuine morals and integrity fighting one another.

Nigeria is the cultural hub of the world. And the indegenes of Warri should be allowed to exercise their cultural initiatives.

I happened to have attended Government College Ughelli in the seventies, and the Urhobos whose abode the school was, never for once made us know that it was their land. Students came from far and near depending on your academic prowess. Neither was it, your tribe or tongue that brought you there.

The Itsekiris are a loving people to be with. Although, they are “Minority within a Minority,” that does not rubbish their existence in Delta State.

The people of Warri have intermarried each other to the extent that, it is difficult to tell, where one comes from. I dare say Life is in a Constant state of evolution. While it is evolving, We must never for once. throw away our Core Values — that of brotherliness and peaceful Co-existence.

It was Selwyn Duke who once said “the Further a Society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it. “True enough, Itsekiris are not the cause of the high cost of Living in Warri and environs and the Country. They are not the enemies. We should form a Collective Platform to speak truth to the enemies of Warri and Nigeria as a whole. Albert Einstein said “the world will not be destroyed by those who do evil but by those who watch them without doing anything”.

We should all speak to truth and so let the Itsekiris be…

Because of that unfortunate incident of warfare in Warri in the past, most of the companies had fled the land. No company would thrive where peace is elusive.

The present day youths are the ones bearing the brunt. Unemployment in Warri is escalating because there are no jobs anywhere. In this wise, Warri has stagnated for too long a time.

To add another crisis to this scenario would be too much a Calamity to bear on the good people of Warri.

Each and every one of us must and should allow “peace to be still” in Warri and environs. It is not too much, a price to pay or is it?

Ese Akpojete wrote from Lagos.

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