“Looking at the institutions in our society, the very vehicles for

 Carrying out our Revolutionary principles, what do you find?

We find old, faded and rusty machines creaking along most

Inefficiently and delaying the people’s progress and the Progress of the Revolution”.

Ahiara Declaration (Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu)

IN consequentialist ethics it is posted with mathematical exactitude that deontological and axiological rudiments are critically crucial for leadership success, organisational efficiency and institutional progress. Hence, the leadership and institutions fail when they lack this foundational equipoise. Is this what is happening to the Okpe Union?

The Okpe Union is a Pan-Okpe socio-cultural-quasi political organisation founded on the May 16, 1930. But formally inaugurated, on the July 16, 1930. Its constitution states inter alia, that its aims and objectives are to (Not verbatim) foster the spirit of  love, mutual understanding and brotherhood amongst the Okpe people and sensitise them on the need to live together as one family, eviscerate the zeitgeist of progressive change and have cordial relationship with their neighbours.

To defend Okpe people against hostile neighbours, economic and political marginalisation, using brinksmanship and the dynamics of “lobby-power” to attract development to Okpe Kingdom, promote massive education for the Okpe people, to ensure integrity of the Okpe people and to promote multi-cultural and cross-cultural integration. To ensure that the Okpe nation is a formidable stakeholder, player and partner in the globalisation phenomenon and to bring all-embracing development to the grass-roots of the Okpe kingdom.

In these set objectives and pragmatic dreams, the Okpe Union, the umbrella of the Okpe nation, has worked over the years with spartan equanimity to promote the unity, progress and development of the Okpe people within and outside Okpe land. After the passing unto glory of Esezi 1, Orodje of Okpe Kingdom, the Orodjeship was kept in abeyance for a period of interregnum which almost precipitated anarchical entropy in Okpe kingdom. But a major intervention by the Okpe Union led to the rekindling, rebirth and resuscitation of the Orodjeship with the installation of Esezi II.

It has continued to promote Okpe customs and tradition through dress codes, festivals, book publications, songs and dances (Mr Evwighademu of Okwokpokpo, the late Egbikume Azanor of Ughoton and Mr Laya Akpaboro etc). The Okpe Union still continues to be the Okpe political think-tank and lodestone. It has continued to advise Okpe political leaders and aspirants on the way and manner of carrying out socio-political strategic repositioning of the Okpe nation for effective developmental strides.

Indeed, Okpe Union has done well in its set objectives under some of its past and present leadership  such as Presidents Ake of Mereje, Ero of Ughoton; Sam Emujeta of Okwidiemor; Taire of Okwitaire; Agbiwan of Jeddo; Agala of Ughoton; Chief Phillip Ewetuya of Adagrassa; Oha and Ugolo, Egbejumi, Chief Dick Gberevwie, Arch Ralph Karienren and Mr John Ekpoke (Ag. President General).

But, it must be noted that in the past few years the bubble burst as the peace and tranquility in the Okpe Union got rubbished by the inter and intra-schismatic turpsy-torvydom precipitating tenebrous melange, acrimonious media wrangling and apocalyptic revisionism. This has introduced serious malice, legal prestidigitation and diabolical manipulations amongst brothers.

As peace, efficiency catalyst and crisis management strategy, the Odogun Okpe (Okpe Supreme Council) in a consultative meeting held on July 14, 2012 with the Okpe Union and HRM  thought it fit and proper to relocate the headquarters of Okpe Union to Orerokpe (the ancestral home of the Okpe people, headquarters of Okpe Local Govt. Council and the abode of the Orodje of Okpe Kingdom). The relocation of Okpe Union to Orerokpe has its positive and negative sides.

But it will help to bring the activities of the Union closer to the grassroots; it will create a nexial dovetailing with local and international branches on issues affecting the Okpe kingdom; it will be more prone to explicitly articulate on the developmental challenges of the Okpe nation and the relocation will bring leadership closer to the Okpe people. But some have the suspicion that it will barricade and create bar racoons against the Okpe nation, because it will be too far from Lagos, the commercial capital and Abuja the political capital.

The concern of this writer is that a crisis-ridden Okpe Union being relocated will carry over it accoutrements and appurtenances of destabilization and it cannot stand. We must reconcile the warring factions, conduct a free, transparent and fair election in the Okpe Union, ratify its constitution, get a certified audit report, bank reconciliation, secretariat hallmarks, organogram surgeonization and personal grieviances sorted out.

We should allow the former Headquarter Office in Lagos to remain a branch of Okpe Union and we must open a liaison office in Abuja and Lagos to help Okpe kingdom have outreach to the international community. Otherwise, the relocation from Lagos will magnetise communication blackout, political dwarfishness and developmental erebus to Okpe kingdom.

The quality of the leadership that will come on board when it is relocated to Orerokpe will be fundamentally important. Will the Okpe Union not be hectored and hounded by self-seeking power mongers in their theatrics of political rascality? We call for the urgent ratification of the draft constitution on or before June 24, 2013 and a fresh election conducted on or before September 5, 2013 and the new executive sworn-in immediately.

It is indeed a truism that the Okpe nation has been forgotten by the march of civilization as we are in a state of backwardness, socio-economic underdevelopment and crass marginalization, even as an oil, gas, timber producing nation/kingdom with our numerical superiority in population. We have not been able to harness and husband our resources as a nation and as a people

Mr.  BOBSON GBINIJE, a social critic, wrote from Warri, Delta State.