By  Prof Jennifer Alao
THE fiction  that Okpe owned Sapele is now jettisoned. The writers demonstrate, without doubt ,that the present Sapele town is first settled in by Isekiri people, and that the Okpe came in later through Isekiri largesse. With incontrovertible evidence ,they date the arrival of the first Isekiri in Sapele to 700AD; Okpe, 1780.  Isekiri visited Sapele for the  following reasons:

1)   Getting fresh water for Warri nobilities, whose land is surrounded by salt  water.

2)   Getting durable wood to build Warri pyramids – [Talbot (1926); Roth(1903)  ; Lloyd (1957), Sagay etc]

3)   As a spot for serving the trinity of Sapele (Apele), Ogheye and Igbinoba as it was done in Ancient Egypt (Massey 1881,Budge 1895).

Later migrants such as Iyatsere Egharegbemi settled    Ugbekoko , 1750; Etseminokanbababi (Ologbotsere Eyinmisan’s son ) settled in Ogorode(Asaboro) , 1780; Ikomi and Ojigwo settled in Ogun-Aja and Aja-Ojigwo in the 1800s , Ololo settled in Obotie in the 1800s .

Elume was established by Isekiri princes in the 16th century (Omolewa: 1986). The earliest settlers in Orere-Okpe were the people of Orere in Warri near Omadino, who were later joined by Ebelle from Orere (Moore, 1936) .

The ancient Isekiri are represented by the famous Otomewo family (Moore 1936). Ogoni , son of Atogbuwa (14th Olu) founded Aghalokpe in 1770 , while his immediate children and followers established  Mereje , Ugbo-Imidaka etc.  This period antedates the arrival of the Okpe, 1785, as reported by the intelligence reports –Carr (1921), Fellows etc.

The authors punctured the myth of an Okpe kingdom, and agreed with Obayemi (1977) , Talbot (1926), Ikime (1972) etc  that the Okpe were a stateless society . Thus the factoid of the tyrant ‘king Ezesi’, and the migration to Sapele  , following the outcome of his brutality, was uprooted from ‘history’.   Factors  uprooting ‘Esezi’ from ‘history’ include –

1)   Incongruent dating. Dates run from 641AD, 1170AD, 1640AD, 1770AD, 1850AD – haba! Was ‘king Esezi’ a tortoise or a Methuselah? The writers with these impossible dates include  Ekeh, one of Africa’s foremost political thinkers,  Osume, a Ph.D holder, Dr Ororhoro(Ph.D), Akpederhin , an erudite lawyer, amongst other nobilities. The writers contend that if these people cannot come to a compromise on the dating of Esezi, then he was certainly inexistent.

2)   The persons of ‘Esezi’ and his father ,‘Igboze’, is not remembered by any of the close neighbours of the Okpe. One powerful and brutal king never married, warred, traded, or entered into any interaction with his immediate neighbours.

Due to these lack of evidence , Oyovbaire (2008) asked for a thorough research on Okpe and their neighbours, wondering how a non-tortoise could live for over a thousand years. The  writers  researched and came out with zero findings.

3)   The existence of brutal kings and long interregna among the Urhobo, Isoko and Okpe, dating from 1170, 1440, 1340, to1240  , all ending in 1952, make the claims untruthful. Brutal kings, long and impossible interregna found in no other parts of the world – only in the stateless communities of the Niger Delta – haba!

Proving the fakeness of ‘king Esezi’, the writers contend that the purported four brothers – Onoje , Ovwigodua, Ijighare and Etajeme –  said to have left  Orere-Okpe , in the time of  non-existent king to Sapele, were also, fake.  These four brothers never reached Sapele.

They all died in Aghalokpe, Elume and Mereje, if at all there are  grains of truth in Okpe orals. Their traditions make Idinabe,  a ‘doctor’ from Edo state their father; their abode in Orere-Okpe was Udumurhie (stranger quarters). None of the present Sapele Okpe – Ogodo, Abeke, Onomor, Ayomanor etc –  can trace lineage to these unidentifiable ‘chiefs’(WACA 1943).

The authors particularly saw  Ikime as a non-objective  historian for celebrating the land leased by Ogodo in (Onigu  1972), when he  knew, or he should know, if he is a sincere historian, that Ogodo was a man from Ozalla in Edo State,  brought to Sapele by Imele, an Isekiri woman. Ogodo himself was at one time an itinerant medicine man in two Isekiri villages – Ekuobodo and Ibirifo. So much is the   writers’ annoyance  with Obaro’s insincerity.

Also, the authors show that the case which the Okpe claims it won in 1943, was totally inconclusive  –  Held  “this judgment is wrong in form for it was awarded to a group of chiefs who are unidentified and  unidentifiable (WACA1943)” .

The case was referred to a lower court to be varied, in the capacity of the amorphous chiefs. The  writers contend that the chiefs cannot be identified, because as at 1943, Okpe had no kingdom – therefore, no chiefs. They contend that the Okpe king, Mebitaghan(with Isekiri name), was crowned in 1945, and was referred to as ‘Mr.’ by the colonial masters, (Osume 2008, Onigu 2005 etc).

The authors showed that the area of the case 510 acres, ended in Hausa road, therefore, the Okpe are mistaken to want to annex land in Ogun-Aja,  beyond; Arun-Owun, further beyond.  The places of Olomu , his representative ,Sagay , and Ogiegba in Sapele, were made  visible .

Lastly, the writers show why the Isekiri always appear to be more intelligent than their Delta-Edoid neighbours (Dapper 1686, Roth, 1903, Leonard 1926,etc) – it is genetic.  Genes have been discovered in Isekiri and their Yoruba brothers : Keratin Cluster Near 17q12 and FLD6; and Counter Mellanone Metastasis genes(Olubunmi: 2007,69).

These two genes give Isekiri and Yoruba an average of 40 points more IQ than every other Negro. Aghalokpe  of Isekiri patrilineage,  with these genes, are therefore, more polished than the rest Okpe.