On May 16 this year the Okpe Union held its 95th anniversary in Lagos and Orerokpe, respectively. This opening first sentence, however, needs immediate qualification. The celebration in Orerokpe, the traditional and political capital of the Okpe nation of Delta State, was a parallel one, so to say, which did not correspond with the Lagos one in design or in position or in thought or generally in degrees of latitude ranging from what Okpe is and is not – or ranging from what Okpe is not and is as a distinct ethnic group or nationality.

The Orerokpe celebrants belong to the faction – I am not happy to employ this term here – that is absolutely loyal to the Orodje, the monarch and custodian of Okpe culture, tradition, spiritual and political affairs and matters about Okpe land and people. This is as far as my short-sightedness knows.

The Lagos celebrants whose vision cannot be likened to that of the Orerokpe celebrants in certain respects see themselves as the mainstream Okpe Union who equally are loyal to the Orodje of Okpe. Clearly, their loyalty to their monarch is similarly absolute, although they tell you that they owe better loyalty to Okpe land.

What they mean – as my limited prism significantly understands it – is that they want the monarch to be insulated from the politics of the Okpe Union – or from politics of whatever kind narrowly or not narrowly in the absolute interest of all. Of course, they will always welcome the monarch’s words of advice from time to time so long as they dwell on the collective interests of Okpe people, Okpe land and of the monarchy itself. The Lagos celebrants, rightly or wrongly, see themselves as the more scrupulous, painstaking and conscious practitioners of the craft of Okpe statehood, nationality and nationalism.

They see themselves as the servants of their land and people – which include the monarch and the monarchy. But will the manner of their patriotic serviceableness not mark them in the eyes of the generality of Okpe people as privileged rebels against the monarch whose words and authority they are bound to obey and must obey against all odds?

Their reply interestingly always recalls Albert Einstein’s immortal quibble, to wit: “Blind obedience to authority is the greatest enemy of the truth.” 

The Lagos celebrants of Okpe Union’s 95th year anniversary stated in the address of Professor Igho Omajuwa Natufe, their President-General World-wide, that one truth they cannot and will never compromise unquestionably pertains to Okpe identity as a distinct ethnic nationality. This position pits them against the position of the Orodje, the supreme authority in Okpe land.

As reported in The Urhobo Voice of Monday, June 2, 2025 “Okpe Union is committed to [the] actualisation of Okpe identity.” What the Professor Natufe-led Okpe Union made irresistibly clear in his address to its members and to Okpe indigenes and all and sundry was/is that Okpe is not any ethnic nationality other than Okpe that throughout the age-less ages has distinguished itself more clearly than its neighbours as a peculiar ethnic nationality in terms, at least, of its language and history. Okpe must be weaned from its Urhobo identity. In other words, Okpe must desert itself from its questionable Urhobo identity. Okpe is not Urhobo and Urhobo is not Okpe. Members of the Okpe Union in the Diaspora and Nigeria share their president’s position and thought.

As a matter of fact, the President who journeyed to Lagos from his base across the Atlantic did not say anything strange or foreign to the Okpe patriotic feelings and sensibilities of his members. How joyous and prideful they were when they heard their president’s words!

One point or fact his Okpe Union members and Okpe indigenes should never forget is this: that the Okpe nation is not a “sub group” of Urhobo or of any Nigerian ethnic nationality – for example, Isoko once-upon-a-time called Eastern Urhobo – which the British colonial masters erroneously judged and classified them to be.

A huge lesson arising from this position is that the great masters of the politics of Okpe nationalism and patriotism should be the great masters and servants at the same time of the Okpe language. This obtained inference from Professor Natufe’s address is not misplaced. Perhaps I should quote him here: “We count on the resilience and steadfastness of our members across the several branches in Nigeria and in the Diaspora as well as various Okpe groups which identify with the struggle for the recognition of Okpe as a distinct ethnic nationality and language.” Continuing, he stated thus: “We believe that we are on the path of history and overtime the people of Okpe nation will appreciate our struggle.”

A retired top military officer of Okpe ethnic nationality in the person of AVM Frank Ajobena also spoke in the same vein. Let me quote the words of Derie Charles, The Urhobo Voice reporter who summarised the retired military officer thus: “an ethnic nationality are people that share common ancestry and language…. Okpe people do not share common ancestry with Urhobo.”

What the gleaner could glean from the position and thought of the Lagos celebrants is that their struggle is a struggle for political independence and freedom primarily from those in the Okpe nation who for some personal political and non-political interests and agenda do not want Okpe people and Okpe land to desert their questionable identity. (What Urhobo political shakers and movers will say in response to the Okpe Union is already titillating my literary imagination).

The gleaner tried in vain to get the voices of the Orerokpe celebrants. In fact, this gleaner could not lay his eyes and hands on any official report relating to the Orerokpe gathering on the said May 16, 2025. His best effort fetched him a sparse picture of the Orerokpe event in which he could not perceive vibrations of Okpe nationalists and patriots who are Okpe nationalists and patriots. 

The gleaner wishes to round off this tiny essay by saying that the latitude and longitude of the emotional range of the Lagos celebrants spoke volumes. Yet this gleaner’s main interest is in the Okpe language, which they patriotically wish and itch to promote and develop culturally, technologically and scientifically in accordance with the demands of the modern time – but which is/was not expressed under the figure of the president’s (or AVM Ajobena’s) spectrum. (Or am I misreading or misperceiving the spectrum?) Perhaps as time progresses they will set sail their Okpe language boat. I am looking forward to this boat.

Now as a progressive royalist, may I crave for the Okpe monarch’s authorisation to tender this question? When will the nod be given to/for Okpe land through the Okpe Union to desert its questionable identity? Or doesn’t the monarch share the vision of the very rebellious rebels whose vision, they believe, they are designing and re-designing to shoot up Okpe land and the monarchy in the new age of progressive progress? The gleaner does not expect an open answer to this question from the supreme royal personage, however. Why? The Why is in the womb of Okpe land!  
Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.