- RECALLS HOW OKPE UNION PROTECTED UPU IN THE COLONIAL ERA
- FLAYS FELIX IBRU FOR TRANSFORMING UPU FROM ETHNIC SOCIAL CULTURAL UNION TO POLITICAL ORGANISATION
- FAULTS AZIZA, UNUKEGUO, ITEBU PARTICIPATION IN UPU
The Okpe Union has threatened to blacklist Okpe sons and daughters who misguide or mislead non-indigenes into making unguarded comments about the true identity of the Okpe people in Nigeria and abroad.
The union is also urging Okpe people to respect the position of His Royal Majesty, Orhue 1 on Okpe identity.
‘’The leadership of Prof. Igho Natufe remains committed to the words of the Orodje of Okpe, HRM Orhue 1, which is to sustain and advance the place as well as the interest of Okpe in the comity of Nigerian nationalities while fostering harmonious relations between the Okpe Nation and the various ethnic nationalities of Delta State and Nigeria, including the people of the Urhobo Nation, which are no doubt, about the closest neighbours to the Okpe people’’
At a press conference in Warri, the union recalled how Okpe Union permitted the Urhobo Progress Union to present the registration certificate of the Okpe Union for its operations claiming that they were sister or associate organizations..
‘’The Okpe Union was founded in 1930 in Lagos before the Urhobo Brotherly Society, which was formed in 1931 in Warri. The Urhobo Brotherly Society was joined by some other Urhobo groups to form the Urhobo Progressive Union in 1934*. The Okpe Union was registered* with the Nigerian Colonial Government on the 13th of December 1934 under the Land (Perpetual Succession) Ordinance No. 32, of 1924, while the UPU was registered in 1946. At a point in the 1930s up to the 1940s, the Colonial Government instituted a policy for organisations which were not registered to cease operations as the government insisted on knowing the identity of those behind organisations. For the UPU not to fall under the harmer of the law, the Okpe Union permitted them to present the registration certificate of the Okpe Union for its operations claiming that they were sister or associate organizations. This was how, *Barrister Julius Eyituoyo Odiete, the Secretary General of the Okpe Union of that period, had to be made an official (Secretary) of the Lagos Chapter of the UPU. It was all the more convenient then as his mother was an Urhobo from the current Ughelli North Local Government Area. Apart from that, throughout the Colonial Era up until the creation of Delta State, no Okpe persons, except those who were partly Urhobo, either paternally or maternally, participated in UPU activities as there was the vibrant Okpe Union which had been the ethnic union for the Okpe people’’.
The Okpe Union National Publicity Secretary, Barrister Victor Oruno, told news men in Warri that Delta state First Civilian Governor, Chief Felix Ibru converted Urhobo Progress Union (UPU) into a political organisation rather than an ethnic organization.
‘’Governor Ibru mobilised the UPU to have an event in Orerokpe for the first time and convinced some Okpe politicians to join. Since then, the UPU up till date has always officially declared support for an Urhobo governorship candidate in all Delta State Governorship elections (and it has succeeded only once with the election of Gov. Felix Ibru whom several Ethnic Groups supported in a Two-Party Era. It is this transformation of the UPU from an Ethnic social cultural organisation to a political organisation that has attracted the participation of some Okpe politicians who have done so individually and not on behalf of the Okpe people’’.
According to the union, the relatively recent participation in the activities or leadership of the UPU by some Okpe nationals which include the likes of the Late Chief Patrick Aziza, Chief Margaret Unukeguo, and now Chief Isaac Itebu amounts to individual participation.
‘’To underscore the point that it is purely political, these persons and other politicians who have “afternoon” or “evening” participation in the UPU, do not belong to any known branches of the Urhobo Progress Union which was one of the criteria to contest for any executive positions when the UPU was purely an Ethnic socio-cultural Organisation’’.
The union described the attack on Prof. Igho Natufe, President General of the Okpe Union (Worldwide) as unfortunate.
‘’Prof. Igho Natufe, the President General of the Okpe Union (Worldwide), being a member of theSapele LGA Branch of the Okpe Union, was freely elected by the delegates from the various branches of the Okpe Union in the last two Election General Assemblies of the Union. It is advantageous for an organisation (especially an Ethnic Union which has nationals all over different countries of the world), to have a leader with the wherewithal and capacity to travel round the world. The members of the Okpe Union have not complained to anyone on how many months of the year that their President General spends outside Nigeria to meet with Okpe nationals from all over the world and for other assignments. Secondly, all the invectives against Prof. Igho Natufe regarding his participation in the *Urhobo Historical Society* are misplaced. Indeed he was a Co-founder of the body along with the late Prof. Peter Ekeh. As noted earlier, the Colonial Classification of Urhobo, Okpe and Isoko as Sobo and being lumped together in one Administrative Division called Urhobo Division, established a geopolitical link between Urhobo and Okpe. That Prof. Igho Natufe co-founded the Urhobo Historical Society was a function of the view of Urhobo as a geopolitical almagam, commonwealth or alliance.
The union advised Okpe sons and daughters on the formation of groups with Urhobo people.
‘’From the benefit of hindsight now, maybe all Okpe people, going forward, when forming any group or task that involves both Urhobos and Okpes, should insist on a combined term like URHOBO-OKPE or OKPE-URHOBO. If Prof. Igho Natufe had insisted, when co-founding the Urhobo Historical Society, that the name should be URHOBO-OKPE Historical Society, maybe these insults would not be thrown at him now’’.