COMMUNITY REPORT
Renewed Crisis Over Who Controls The Soul Of Ugborodo Tears Warri Apart
Oil rich but strife torn Ugborodo community is at it again. An envelope of a major crisis is looming in the troubled community in Warri South West Local Government Area of Delta State.
The crisis which may boil over to main Warri metropolis if not nip in the bud is being ‘sponsored’ by some key actors of Ijaw and Itsekiri enclaves.
This time around the dramatics personae are not mainly Itsekiris who always ‘kill’ themselves over who controls the oil largesse accruing to the area but their neighbours of Ijaw extraction have joined the fray.
BigPen Online can report that the underlining reason for the renewed crisis in Ugborodo which led to huge military deployment over the weekend is because of the “politics of Nigerian Maritime University” which have been under contest between Ijaw of Gbaramatu Kingdom and Itsekiris of Omadino, in Warri Kingdom.
Besides that, the renewed Ugborodo crisis is center around the $16billion Export Processing Zone (EPZ), which has Industrial Gas Park component in Ogidigben and a Deep Sea Port component in Gbaramatu Kingdom.
BigPen Online recalls that few weeks ago, President Muhammadu Buhari reactivated the Steering Committee on the project led by Sheikh Mohamed Bayorh , Executive General Manager, Alpha Grip Management Company and had deployed the delegation to visit Governor Ifeanyi Okowa and also meet stakeholders in the project to share ideas and present their road map on how to start and deliver the project according to specification.
However, Ugborodo community has been the hotbed of Itsekiri and Ijaw renewed hostility over the purported renaming of the Nigerian Maritime University, Okerenkoko.
Itsekiris want the name change from Okerenkoko to Okereghigho which according to them was a ‘corrupted’ version of the real name, Okereghigho.
It was gathered that Ugborodo community which has always cried foul and marginalization by some notable Itsekiris who had held leadership position in the oil rich community in the past, quickly pitched tent with their Ijaw neighbours in the infighting over the control of the maritime university.
While Chief Ayirimi Emami, who has been in the centre of Ugborodo oil politics is holding forth for Itsekiri nation, Matthew Tonlagha, an Ijaw industrialist is fully backing Ugborodo peoples quest to become an autonomous community, outside the over lordship of Olu of Warri Kingdom.
Tonlagha is said to be the brain behind the renewed vigor by Ugborodo people and had allegedly ‘bankroll’ the publications to secede from the over lordship of Olu of Warri Kingdom, who has been over time allegedly accused by Ugborodo people of siding those ‘oppressing’ the locals.
Our source revealed that Emami, now Ologbotsere of Warri Kingdom had over the weekend orchestrated the raids on neighbouring Aruton and other Ugborodo enclaves to ‘smoke out’ those believed to be the ‘deviants’ who want to crave Ugborodo community from Warri Kingdom.
This is however coming few weeks after the Olu of Warri reportedly met Governor Ifeanyi Okowa behind closed door ostensibly over the troubled issues of Ugborodo community and Emami’s controversial interview which reportedly embarrassed the government.
Meanwhile, the Delta state Commissioner of Police, CP. Muhammad A. Mustafa, has justified the heavy presence of security operatives in Aruton, Ode-Ugborodo and other neighbouring communities in Warri South LGA.
The CP disclosed that the mass deployment was based on intelligence report that youths in the areas were planning to protest the presence of security operatives and gunboats in their communities.
According to him, the deployment of security operatives in the areas is a joint operation by the Police, the military, and Department of State Security Services (DSS), was to rid the areas of hoodlums who use them as bases for various nefarious activities which include militancy, illegal oil bunkering and oil pipeline vandalism.
Police Public Relation Officer, Andrew Aniamaka, in a statement on Monday said that the CP however, gave a stern warning to “all hoodlums, notably bunkerers, kidnappers, rapists, burglars, and murderers and their likes” to steer clear of the Communities and the state as a whole or else be prepared to face the full wrath of the law.
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