A prominent royal father in Bayelsa State, HRH Christian Atani Otobotekere, the Okun XIX, Amananaowei of Tombia, is dead.
Aged 98, the late Otobotekere died on February 13, 2023.
The late Bayelsa monarch is the father of the Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Water Resources, Mrs Didi Esther Walson-Jack .
The Permanent Secretary is the wife of the former Secretary General of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Hon Nimi Walson-Jack.
The late monarch is survived by children, sons and daughters-in-laws, great and grand children.
The late Otobotekere will be laid to rest after the necessary funeral rites at Tombia, Bayelsa State on Saturday.
The late royal father was born on April 21, 1925 in the small but growing town of Tombia, located 500 North of the Equator by latitude 600 East of the Prime Meridian, at the bank of the river Nun.
His father, Okpofagha, was the son of Chief Otobotekere, the ruling chieftain of the Birifabiri Quarter of Tombia who died in 1939. Okpofaa’s mother, Gbeinkoromo, was the daughter of Ekpebu of Sabagreia town in the Kolokuma/Opokuma Local Government Area of Bayelsa State.
He was named Christian in commemoration of the conversion of his forebears to Christianity only a few years before his birth. Consequently, he was taught the norms and ethos of the Ijaw Ethnic Nationality and brought up with Christian values.
Formal education for HRH Christian Otobotekere began at the Junior Infant School, Tombia, from about 1933 to 1935. Thereafter, he was enrolled into the famous Reverend Proctor Memorial Primary School, Kaiama, in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria in 1936. There, he passed his Standard Six Certificate Examination in 1940 and, after a two-year lull, was admitted to the prestigious Okrika Grammar School (OGS), Rivers State, in the then Eastern Region of Nigeria.
He passed out of the institution in 1945 with a Grade 1 in the Cambridge School Certificate Examination.
Subsequently, he worked for the British Colonial Government from 1946 to 1954 as a Court Interpreter, Stenographer, and Administrator in the coastal towns of Brass in Nigeria and Buea in the Cameroons. It was from Buea that in late 1954, Christian proceeded to Fourah Bay University College, Sierra Leone, where he studied and graduated, in 1957, with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics awarded by Durham University, England.
On his return, he taught briefly at Baptist Boys High School, Port Harcourt, before joining the Shell British Petroleum Company, where he worked for nineteen years from 1958 to the dawn of 1978.
In Shell , he rose to become Treasurer and later, Assistant Controller of Finance, Eastern Division of Shell BP, at a time of expatriate dominance at the higher rungs of the company’s personnel cadre.
By birth, Christian Okpofaa Otobotekere was a natural descendant of two chieftains on his paternal and maternal sides – Chief Otobotekere and Chief Akoko of Birifabiri and Ingbelebiri, respectively. The blood of royalty in his veins blossomed and became manifest when in 1972 he was nominated, on his merit and right, as one of the candidates for the chieftaincy stool of Tombia in the Ekpetiama Clan of the then Rivers State. This nomination came not only because of his educational pedigree but was accentuated by his character and the love he had exuded in matters concerning community development from childhood.
In 1973, he was elected the Amananaowei (King) of the town and was subsequently crowned in 1975. On ascending the throne, his dual pedigree was clearly effective in his ability to rule Tombia as one united entity, as he increasingly gained the wide acceptance of all his people regardless of their quarter or compound of origin.
After his retirement from Shell BP, he founded the firm of Christian Tawi and Sons and went into business with an Italian firm. He also had a brief stint in Politics, where he pitched his tent with the Great Nigeria Peoples Party of Alhaji Waziri Ibrahim, who propagated Politics Without Bitterness.
Interestingly, his wife, Beauty Timikoru Otobotekere, of blessed memory, was the Secretary of the Women’s wing of another Political Party, National Party of Nigeria. In addition to his community functions, he was appointed Chairman of the Rivers State Schools Management Committee (as it then was). Several years later, in 1984, he was appointed a Lay Magistrate for the Yenagoa Division of the Rivers State Environmental Sanitation and Revenue Tribunal.
