On Friday morning of September 27, 2024, I woke up at my usual time of rising from the bed. As an online editor and a writer, it’s habitual for me to always quickly check through my mail box and Whatsapp portal for new messages. On that day, the first message on my Whatsapp page that caught my attention was a press release issued and sent to me my dear brother, Prince Kassim Afegbua, and it had the caption: “OBASEKI SHOULD NOT PLUNGE EDO STATE INTO COMMUNAL WAR. APPOINTMENT OF KINGS IS STRANGE TO OUR CULTURE.”
I read with great anguish the short statement wherein my Prince wrote: “…The news we are hearing from government quarters yesterday is that one Lukman Akemukue, Obaseki’s e-rat is being propped up to assume the exalted stool of the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella. The procedure for the election and not selection of Okuokpellagbe of Okpella is very clear. It is the people’s right to elect someone, using the traditional council and titled chiefs in line with the traditional councils edict of 1979. Trying to impose a traditional ruler simply to provoke a people will amount to deliberately creating problems for the Governor-elect of the state. Some of us may not know who becomes the Okuokpellagbe, but we know those who won’t be….”
As the mid morning sun shone above our heads on that Friday 27 September, news filtered in that governor Obaseki’s Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy affairs, Osaigbovo alongside some government officials who do not have a slice of cultural and traditional heritage were presenting a certificate of appointment to Lukman Akemokhue as the new Okuokpellagbe of Okpella clan. Very funny and laughable development I tell you. For me, the Lukman Akemokhue imposition is an accident of history, an abomination and one which the good people of Okpella clan must (challenge it) lest the gods visit us in ways better imagined.
I have told persons close to me that when a community finds itself in sort of crossroads such as we currently are with the Lukman Akemokhue imposition, the people must blame its permissiveness and be prepared to cope or determinedly … deal with the consequential punitive damages.
No doubt, there has been a vacuum since Alhaji AYE Dirisu, the last Okuokpellagbe of Okpella, died in 2019. Yes, a few of our young men have been scrambling to occupy the exalted throne in Awuyemi, which for me is our symbol of unity, progress and power as a people. To any Okpella free born and a patriot citizen, therefore, the imposition of a king on our clan is an insult on us and a very nauseating menu for the last weekend of September of 2024.
Governor Godwin Obaseki grossly undermined we the decent and respected people of Okpella, just hell bent on distabilizing the peace and buoyant industry of the clan and leading our youths to the undertakers.
In the constancy of the northern star, Obaseki must expect that Okpella people will … resist his abominable imposition of a king on them….
The truth of the matter is that the greater majority of Okpella people, about 99% of the population at home and in diaspora, aren’t happy about the Lukman Akemokhue imposition; they are not happy about governor Obaseki’s arrogance and utter disregard for Okpella people and their tradition, culture and customs.
With yet another wrong step in the direction of certification of a King in Okpella, governor Obaseki has again clearly announced himself as an insensitive leader, a betrayer, very untrustworthy man and most unfeeling; he’s a dictator who continues to play God in the lives of Edo people whom he has never been useful to in the almost 8 years in Osadebe house in Benin City.
I read a Whatsapp message by one of our brothers, Gabriel Emameh, that, “It’s individual interest that birthed this choice. We should be courageous enough to condemn what is wrong.” Gabriel Emameh’s remark is apt but
the procedure governor Obaseki followed for making Lukman Akemokhue the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella is flawed incurably on the ground that the governor and his lieutenants neither notified, invited Okpella people nor did he consult with the existing council of chiefs that still hold sessions at the palace of the late Okuokpellagbe of Okpella clan, Alhaji AYE DIRISU.
Maybe some of us don’t realize that the greatest tragedy that can befall a clan is for a king to be selected for its people from outside and by total strangers such as governor Godwin Obaseki and his errand boy, the commissioner for local government and Chieftaincy affairs, Osaigbovo are to us in Okpella. They are both from Edo state hence one should have expected them to have a modicum of respect for people’s culture and tradition.
The question nobody has answered correctly for me so far is: should governor Obaseki arrogate to himself the all-wise, all-knowing omniscient and omnipotent God who must define and decide the fate of Okpella people and their traditional institutions?
Those of our clan people who take side with governor Obaseki over the “WAYBILL” contraption he regards as selection of a king for Okpella and presentation of staff of office to Lukman Akemokhue are evil people who have been infected with the “betrayal disease” …..
I have also been privileged to listen to a video clip on social media of the very elucidative remarks by the Otaru of Okpella, High Traditional Chief Kashim Momoh, on the Obaseki imposition of Lukman Akemokhue as the Okuokpellagbe of Okpella.
High Traditional Chief Kashim Momoh is of Oteku extraction and remains the real and most senior traditional title holder(Otaru) in our Oteku sub clan currently.
The old man told some of our Okpella who went to seek his opinion on the matter that: “It’s a people who pick their own king. That you don’t pick a king from outside for a people. That the people, particularly the elders and kingmakers working with the traditional institutions, choose a king after due consultations with the Oracle and appeasement to the gods and deities of the land… That it’s only symbolic for the people to formally present such chosen person to
to the political authority because it’s government that currently pays the traditional rulers in the Nigerian context…”
Traditional Chief Kashim Momoh also touched on sundry matters as they affect Okpella and its people and their culture, customs and tradition in the short video clip that’s gone viral on social media, including Whatsapp.
Like anyone and everyone else chief Momoh is very deeply concerned about the continued lull and wilful sabotage of everything tailored to usher in Okpella a traditional regime of modern organized and legitimate rulership in Okpella clan. How very sad that our own community leaders propped up by greed and personal inner vitiation are the reason we’re suffering the current travails. I repeat it: our people who support and prop up governor Obaseki must be ready for the wrath of the gods and our ancestors. It’s so disheartening and shameful that such persons fell for the devilish intrigues and manoeuvring of our own self appointed community leaders and governor Obaseki and his loyalists in Osadebe house in Benin City.
Do they think illegality can be employed to choose a king for the people of Okpella? Such will be akin to a man setting his thatched roof top on fire whilst he’s reclining inside the house. And where such aberration and arbitrariness become the norm, rational man is considered demented and irrational…
But I just think that the tragedy that assails governor Godwin Obaseki and his government –that most ineffective, clueless utterly dysfunctional amalgam in all its ramifications–is best exemplified in the many quarrels he’s been able to pick with almost everybody in Edo state, including the revered Oba of Benin, Omo N’Oba N’Edo Uku Akpolokpolo, HRM Ewuare II and his political benefactor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and now the people of Okpella clan.
I very well agree with most of us that we Okpella people created the vacuum that has now attracted contra actions from Osadebe house in Benin City. Despite the obvious realities, however, governor Obaseki has no right or reason to want to breach Okpella tradition, culture and customs. Kingship tussles are not peculiar to Okpella as history is replete with such occurrences. I can tell us categorically that globally, kingship matters and quarrels have lingered for years, decades and even centuries before they are dealt with or resolved.
In our case in Okpella, I totally agree with those who submit that it’s the divisiveness and vested interests among the “annointed” leaders in Okpella the clan ….Yes, the people of Oteku have been too divided on the kingship matter.
I do strongly believe in redeeming possibilities and the ability of man to retrace his footsteps from the abyss of a miscalculated enterprise before he falls off the precipice. Governor Godwin Obaseki should do the needful to ensure he himself enjoys peaceful last days in office as count down to his handing over to the next elected governor continues.
I want to assume that the governor has not written a script to get Okpella people drown in the sea of damnation. He must not allow outsiders to regard we Okpella people as unruly when they rise up to fight the illegality of the king making for Okpella clan.
We love Okpella and our people hence we can never surrender our kingdom to governor Obaseki and his “WAYBILL” Okuokpellagbe of Okpella. On our honour and dignity we will continue to fight for the enthronement of a credible person as our King and in the defense of our future in Okpella. And we’re convinced that our ancestors and the gods of our land will help us secure that future.
According to WARREN BUFFET, if something is not worth doing at all, it’s not worth doing well.” Maybe governor Godwin Obaseki should find a better parting gift for Lukman Akemokhue since the very intelligent young man has over the years played ball according to what his Excellency liked politically and otherwise. Until that’s done, it’s Governor Godwin Obaseki versus Okpella clan and its people.
Cannan Buet, wrote in from Kuwait.
