ARE we in the weird season when only weird things happen? Do weird things deserve solution? Are we in the season when conflagration is quenched by conflagration? Is there any logicality in the illogicality that only fire can put out fire, not water from firefighters?

Then why have Chief Engineer Joe Orode Omene, the president-General of Urhobo Progress Union, Sunday Subi the president of UPU Youth Wing, Udu kingdom chapter, and Chief Boro Opudu the Chairman of Delta Waterways and Land Security Committee adopted weird strategies in the recent outbreak of communal war between Isaba Community in Warri South-West Council and Aladja  Community in Udu Local Government Area of Delta State?

It is destabilising, weird and provoking that a communal clash recently broke out between Isaba (an Ijaw Community) and Aladja (an Urhobo Community). Nothing could be more barbaric and chilling than a communal armed struggle between persons who share ties of consanguinity in many ways. Consequent upon the sudden communal war between the two communities, Chief Boro Opudu called a peace meeting between the communities on 22 November 2016 in Warri. The meeting which was attended by representatives from both communities ended with a peace accord; this was a sign that both communities saw the need to cease hostilities and continue to live together as usual prior to the sudden outbreak of war.

Chief Boro Opudu’s prompt intervention has relatively doused the tension between the two sister communities. As commendable as Chief Opudu’s intervention is, it would have been more commendable if he were psychic as it would have enabled him to walk on the preventive path of communal war, rather than the curative path which the exigencies of the situation demanded.

Soon after the outbreak of the communal clash between Isaba and Aladja, Chief Omene was categorical in his outburst that a communal war against Aladja was tantamount to declaration of war against Urhobo nation. This war-infused categorical statement which featured in the Urhobo Voice newspaper of 26 November 2016 edition at page 3 was soon followed by a 14-day ultimatum given to the Ijaws resident in Udu Local Government Area to leave the territory. The 14-day ultimatum given on the 17th of November 2016 at Otor-Udu in a press conference   was issued by Mr. Sunday Subi of UPU Youth Wing, Udu chapter. Chief Omene verbally beat the ethnic drum of war while Sunday gave it a practical extension by giving 14-day ultimatum to Ijaws. By what arcane logic does he come to the simplistic conclusion that an attack on Aladja is an attack on Urhobo nation? How would Chief Omene have explained the destruction of farmlands by herdsmen during grazing in the North if he were from the North? Would he have declared war against the Fulanis as a nation whose herdsmen routinely destroy farmlands while grazing?

It sounds weird by every standard that a common soluble communal clash between two communities is enlarged, magnified, transformed and coloured as a war between Ijaw and Urhobo through individually hyperbolised metaphors of instigation. And now ethnic drums of war are being systematically beaten by the ignorant who have been wrongly fed with misinformation. Is this weird outbreak of communal clash a product of our dwindling economy?

UPU has a solid reputation built over the years from prompt and creative response to issues relevant to the progress of Urhobo nationality. UPU is never known for beating of ethnic drums of war over a communal clash. Engineering as a profession repairs, re-orders and restores a badly damaged engine and perfects it’s holistic functionality. The pride of an engineer lies in the proper functioning of an engine, not when the engine is knocked down. Chief Omene should see Isaba and Aladja as engines knocked down which demand immediate functional coupling through his age-long professionalism gathered from the University.

By calling for war between Urhobo and Ijaw over a communal clash between Isaba and Aladja, Chief Omene has desecrated both the directional codes of Urhobo culture and the ethics of the engineering profession.

Urhobo as a nation has never waged war against Ijaw as a nation and they will never because their existence is anchored on economic inter-dependence beyond their inseparable links of consanguinity. Chief Omene and Mr. Subi must not drag Ijaw and Urhobo into senseless war of fratricide. Urhobo is a great nation guided by sacrosanct directional ethos and principles built into the leadership of UPU. Urhobo does not belong to Chief Omene and Mr. Subi alone. I am equally an Urhobo; my roots are buried in the SOKOH FAMILY in Udu Council just as they are buried in Hwetemu family of Akpo quarter in Okwagbe Inland. If you consider this my claim of URHOBOSHIP a mere intellectual exercise, find out from Mr. Sokoh Saiki, the current chairman of Sokoh family in Udu Local Government Area. Also find out the authenticity of this claim from Jacob Ogedegbe the old soldier, Avwovio, Tame Kekegbu, Jacob Ajuru Ogbedegbe, James Aberuo, Samuel Mukoro and Sleek Ogima  Osharetoto of Hwetemu family in Okwagbe Inland.

It would be sacrilegious for Urhobo and Ijaw to go to war no matter the hyperbolized instigation from Chief Omene and Mr. Subi whose emotional outbursts have begotten meaningless monsters of shivering and fear of attack. Do Chief Omene and Mr. Subi know they are verbally acting out the character of Ewiri in JP Clark’s OZIDIC – Ewiri who perpetually hoodwinks young Ozidi into atrocious war with Tebesonoma? Do they know that young Ozidi, on the fabricated stories of Ewiri, kills Tebesonoma, Tebesonoma’s innocent sister and son, and eventually ‘cuts Odogu down’, and ‘mows down his own grandmother’ Oreame (Ozidi, 114) who was his main mystical empowerment base? For merchants of ethnic war, be reminded that no channels would be opened for EWIRISATION of the communal clash between Isaba and Aladja into a major ethnic war between Urhobo and Ijaw because that would be a sail into OZIDISM.

Now that it has become clear that what is being touted as an ethnic war between Ijaw and Urhobo is indeed a mere communal war between Isaba and Aladja. Urhobo nation has not declared war against Ijaw nation; or better still, if there is a war against Ijaw nation, it is a war unilaterally declared by Chief Omene and Mr. Subi and so the Urhobo nation and Ijaw nation can never be tricked into war by two Urhobos. On Chief Omene’s emotional outburst, I am convinced he must have been misquoted by the The Urhobo Voice – because engineers are not notorious for war-mongering and war-thirst.

Chief Opudu’s prompt bringing together of chairmen of Warri South-West Council and Udu Council and others from the war-torn communities to embrace a peace accord is commendable. Rather than verbally heighten tension and instigate war through the declaration of 14-day ultimatum and distort the general stand of Urhobo nation on this matter, Chief Omene and Mr. Subi should join hands with Chief Opudu in his peace moves. If Chief Omene and Mr. Subi team up with Chief Opudu, no further clash between Isaba and Aladja would resurface.

For a permanent peace between Isaba and Aladja communities,particularly now that chief Opudu is working devotedly for a very peaceful resolution through the implementation of the mutually worked-out peace accord,particularly now that there are clear markers that Chief Omene and Mr. Subi have misfired in their war-thirsty outbursts which do not correspond to the generally acclaimed rhythm of the great Urhobo nation on the the Isaba-Aladja communal conflict, fan no more the ethnic embers of war through the deployment of hyperbolized metaphors of invitation to war. Chief Omene, Mr. Sunday Subi and all merchants of ethnic war between Urhobo and Ijaw, be didactically stirred by the words of Matthew Arnold in ‘Dover Beach’ when he said:

‘Ah, Love, let us be true

To one another! For the world, which seems

To lie before us like a land of dreams,

So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain,

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight

Where ignorant armies clash by night’

CHARACTERISTICALLY stirred by the words of the poet Arnold, the Urhobos and the Ijaws will not fight ignorantly at night or day disorientated by confusing ethnic alarms of struggle and flight no matter the targeted verbal blandishments infused into it, no matter the targeted magnification conceptually created to ensnare unwary youths. The satanic wishful thinkers  and merchants of ethnic war who may be emotionally tempted to celebrate the targeted outbreak of ethnic war between Urhobo and Ijaw have failed woefully because Matthew Arnold has opened their eyes to the futility of war.

Mr.Ekanpou Enewaridideke,a public affairs commentator, wrote fromAkparemogbene,Delta State.